Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
Mustafa Suleyman, who is in charge of Microsoft's efforts to commercialize AI, says he is focused on “humanist superintelligence” to solve hard social problems  —  Microsoft's Mustafa Suleyman is focused on solving social problems rather than racing for superintelligence

Joe Flint and John Jurgensen, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link):

But digital advertising revenue hasn’t made up for the fall in ad dollars going to traditional broadcast programming. Spending on linear advertising for the late-night segment on ABC, CBS and NBC fell from $439 million in 2018 to $221 million in 2024, according to Guideline, an ad-tracking platform.

That’s a precipitous decline, if accurate. But still, given that Colbert’s The Late Show has consistently been the highest-rated overall and tied with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live for the 18–49 year-old demographic, it feels very safe to presume that it generated at least a full third — say, $75–80 million — of that $221 million total. It’s reported that Colbert’s salary is $20 million per year, and Colbert himself said the other night the show employs 200 staff.

If, as anonymous CBS sources are claiming to multiple outlets, the show lost $40 million last year, that means it costs something on the order of $120 million per year to produce, or $100 million after Colbert’s salary. With a staff of 200 people, that’s an average salary of $500,000. I know it costs money to heat and cool the Ed Sullivan theater, and I’m sure there are other costs. But there is no way the average salary of a staff member on the show is half a million per year.

And, even if somehow The Late Show did lose money last year, it seems implausible that CBS wouldn’t first ask for budget cuts — staff reductions, a salary cut for Colbert, whatever else might possibly be running up a $120 million/year budget — before just shutting the whole thing down. NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers sadly cut the live studio band last year, for example. $75 million per year in ad revenue is way down from its Letterman era heyday, but that’s surely more than enough to produce a talk show. Also, all of this back-of-the-napkin budget analysis neglects to assign any promotional value to the show. CBS gets to promote everything else on the network to over 2 million people per night with house ads during commercial breaks and guests on the show from other CBS programs.

Your journey to the core of the world in Donkey Kong Bananza will leave you wishing to go back and fast travel to previous layers. Whether you want to collect every Banandium Gem in each layer or just want to be sure your closet has all the coolest clothes, returning to layers you have already […]

Bloomberg:
How UK Biobank, a government-backed cloud database of 1B+ medical images from 100,000+ participants, is fueling breakthroughs in AI-driven diagnostics  —  A massive database of medical images is offering an unprecedented window into how diseases take hold years before symptoms appear.

Donkey Kong Bananza is a certified Nintendo Switch 2 hit, fully displaying Nintendo’s modern design philosophy and furthering essential discourse around Donkey Kong’s caked-up booty. It’s leapt into the Game of the Year race, something Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World likely won’t be able to. Simply put: Bananza sounds like a dope platformer, […]