What we’re reading (3/5)
“Tariff Twitches Causing Wild Stock Market Swings” (Axios). “The market's nerves were on full display Wednesday, as stocks whipsawed with every change in the narrative on the Trump administration's tariffs on Mexico and Canada.”
“Hiring Slowed In February As Economic Uncertainty Created ‘Hesitancy’ To Add Jobs Last Month, ADP Data Shows” (Yahoo! Finance). “New data revealed that private sector hiring slowed significantly in February and fell short of Wall Street's expectations, adding to concerns that the US economy is losing steam.”
“The Two-Headed Monster Stalking The Economy Has A Name: Stagflation” (Wall Street Journal). “Fed officials thought they might have engineered a soft landing over the past 18 months. A few are publicly warning of a stagflationary scenario.”
“Chatbots Are Cheating On Their Benchmark Tests” (The Atlantic). “[O]ver the past two years, researchers have published studies and experiments showing that ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Llama, Mistral, Google’s Gemma (the ‘open-access’ cousin of its Gemini product), Microsoft’s Phi, and Alibaba’s Qwen have been trained on the text of popular benchmark tests, tainting the legitimacy of their scores. Think of it like a human student who steals and memorizes a math test, fooling his teacher into thinking he’s learned how to do long division.”
“Discord in Early Talks With Bankers For Potential I.P.O.” (New York Times). “Discord, the social chat app popular with the video game community, has met with investment bankers in recent weeks to discuss preparations for an initial public offering as soon as this year, two people familiar with the talks said.”
