Gm. I’ve had some bad burgers in my day, but I’ve never been so disgusted that I’ve sued the burger company. That is just crazy, and it’s the situation Mr. Beast now finds himself in. Apparently, Mr. Beast’s burger company hooked him up with burgers that are “revolting”, and he’s suing them over it. Did he not, you know, try the burger beforehand?

— Stephen Flanders

🏠 TECH

Tesla’s Secret Plumbers

A few months ago, Tesla was caught covering up thousands of customer complaints over its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature.

Now, they’ve been caught covering up thousands of customer complaints on a different feature.

It’s driving range.

The Diversion Team

According to Reuters, Tesla created a secret “diversion team” to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible, which led to hundreds of cases closed each week.

Considering that Tesla would save about $1,000 for each canceled appointment, this was a pretty lucrative conspiracy.

And considering this is an Elon company, you know there has to be some tomfoolery involved.

In this case, coworkers would sometime celebrate a canceled appointment by standing on their desks and giving an ovation.

A Problem, Or An Exaggeration?

Funnily enough, in most of these canceled appointments, there was actually nothing wrong with the car.

People just thought there was because Tesla exaggerates its range distances in its marketing.

Which makes sense from a business perspective. People are obviously more likely to deal with the hassle of charging an EV if they think it can get 400 miles on a charge.

But when studies find Tesla’s range is somewhere between 26% and 50% lower than what is advertised, that is clearly a problem.

The Big Picture: Range exaggeration isn’t a feature of just Tesla. On average, EVs fall 12.5% short of their advertised ranges. It’ll be interesting to see what regulators do about this, if they do anything at all.

🏠 AI

Meta’s Persona Push

Meta is all-in on AI. Everybody knows that. But that doesn’t mean Meta is an “AI company”.

They're not an OpenAI or Anthropic with the sole goal of pushing the AI boundary forward. They’re a technology company with multiple products and billions of users.

Which is why Zuck’s vision of AI is one where the technology is used to enhance all of Meta’s products.

Personas are one step toward this vision.

Personas are chatbots with distinct personalities that will give Meta’s users a new way to engage with its social media products. Instead of searching Instagram through a boring search bar, you’ll ask Abe Lincoln for his help.

The hope is that this will beef up engagement on Facebook and Instagram and provide new data for targeted advertising, the meat and potatoes of Meta’s business. This is similar to what Snap is doing with their My AI chatbot.

Will the personas work? They very well might. My AI has been used billions of times.

And it can’t even talk like Abe Lincoln or a surfer dude travel guide.

The Big Picture: The push to integrate AI into existing products continues, but what’s really exciting is seeing how AI will be used to create new products.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

• Amazon Prime is straight speedy.

• The SEC thinks everything not named Bitcoin is a security.

• Uber is giving us what we all want…another chatbot.

• Microsoft will help you fix your Xbox controller.

Stat: 40%: The odds that LK-99 is an actual superconductor is up to 40%. Holy sh*t.

Rabbit hole: The Right To Lie (Rants.org)

😂 WACKY AI WEDNESDAY

Bye bye birdy.

🤥 3 LIES & A HEADLINE

News is so weird these days. Three of these headlines are fake stories from The Onion while one is actually true. Can you spot the truth amongst the fakes?

A. Ancient Worm Revived From Permafrost After 46000 Years

B. Study Finds Massive Uptick In Births 9 Months After International Carrot Day

C. FDA Crackdown Forces Colgate To Remove Nicotine From Toothpaste

D. SAG-AFTRA Offers Unlimited Use Of Justin Long’s AI Likeness In Exchange For Fair Contract

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

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💉 DOPAMINE HIT

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3 LIES ANSWER

A.