The WNBA All-Star game is happening tomorrow in Chicago, and there’s a lot of money changing hands. In May, the league closed a media-rights deal worth up to US$3.1 billion over 11 years, and unsurprisingly, valuations of its various franchises have exploded – the Golden State Valkyries alone are now worth US$1 billion. The Toronto Tempo is in last place at $325 million – that’s also in USD, though, so the team’s not exactly cutting coupons.

There’s an unfortunate lack of Canadian players to root for in the All-Star game this year, but we do have some alternate options. Marina Mabrey, guard for the Toronto Tempo, isn’t actually Canadian but was named an All-Star reserve, while Chatham, Ont. native Bridget Carleton of the Portland Fire won’t be in the game itself but will compete in tonight’s 3-point contest. Hey, we’re Canadian – we’ll find our pride wherever we can.

– Kat Angus, Deputy Editor

The takeaway: This was a rough week to check your portfolio. The TSX slipped a little, but the real bloodbath was in the US markets: the S&P 500 and the Dow both fell, with the Nasdaq taking the biggest hit of all, down 2.26% from its Monday open. What the heck happened? Probably a few things at once. First, oil crossed the US$100-a-barrel threshold as the US-Iran war just keeps going. Second, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock price plummeted more than 6% after it posted impressive earnings but doubled its capital expenditure forecast for the year to US$205 billion. And third, Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings didn’t help – the company sold more cars in Q2, but for less money, and the stock dropped 15%. If you’re just entering the market now, congrats; if you’re trying to get out, we are so sorry.

‘Oh, yeah’? More like ‘oh, nooooo.’ By this point, you’ve probably already heard the ‘big news’ out of OpenAI, but to recap: in order to test their experimental models’ hacking capabilities, OpenAI placed a few advanced AIs into a sandbox environment and switched off their safety controls. This environment was supposed to be disconnected from the internet, but the AIs quickly gained access to the web via a vulnerability in some third-party software. From there, they hacked the servers of Hugging Face, a separate AI company, in an attempt to find the answers to the test. Hugging Face struggled against the breach; OpenAI realized its models were up to no good, and the two connected and hugged the whole thing out.

We've tried our best to lay all that out dispassionately, because hoo-boy, a lot of the news coverage has been pretty sensationalized. CNN said it was “like an engineered virus escaping a biocontainment lab,” while CNBC quoted an investment banker who called it “really frightening.” And no wonder: it’s the perfect sci-fi storyline. (Next, we'll find out the jailbreaking AI is called the Torment Nexus.) In a press release about the incident, OpenAI referenced its models’ “rapidly advancing capabilities.” Powerful! Scary!

Keep in mind, however, currently the sources here are OpenAI and Hugging Face themselves, both of whom could benefit from AI hype. For one thing, was the exploit that OpenAI’s models purportedly used really all that impressive? As Wired pointed out, the particular flaw is fairly common; according to one security consultant quoted, “‘Highly isolated’ and ‘escaped through the one hole we left open’ cannot both be true.” Even if the incident occurred exactly as OpenAI and Hugging Face say it did, that means OpenAI lost control of a model it was responsible for and it got into another company's servers. That's… not a great look. 

What this means….

The bottom line: Another day, another scary story about AI. Expect more of these to come, since signs of weakness are starting to show in the sector, and the most fervent devotees of the AI bubble will do everything in their power to keep it aloft. The past year has shown us that AI is powerful and can do many things. But it’s still controlled by people, and humans are a tricky bunch.

by Shilpashree Jagganathan

This is an excerpt of an article originally run in full on The Margin.

For three years, Sandra paid hundreds of dollars a month out of pocket for semaglutide and similar medications. When the price of her weight-loss prescription climbed to $571 a month, she resorted to putting some of it on a credit card, cutting back on other spending, and stretching the time between doses from seven days to 10 (not something her doctor had advised).

But this past April, Health Canada authorized the first generic version of semaglutide – the drug behind Ozempic and Wegovy – and another in May. And last week, Sandra picked up her first pen of generic semaglutide from an Ontario pharmacy.

The final price, including pharmacy fees and markup? $88.88.

“I was relieved,” says Sandra, whom The Margin is identifying by a pseudonym to protect her medical privacy. “I was on the borderline of being in debt [due] to being on the medication.”

The arrival of Canada’s first generic semaglutide products brings with it the potential of major savings for other patients, but Health Canada's approval didn't produce a seamless switch. Pharmacy supply remains inconsistent, provincial drug plans haven't all added the generics, and private insurance rules can still block people from receiving coverage, leaving them to pay for it themselves.

Read more

Kat Angus, Deputy Editor: If you're even a fraction as terminally online as I am, you might have seen this video from comedian Kyle Gordon called "Mr. Jambo," a brilliant parody of Paul Simon's Graceland that's also just a banger on its own. (Gordon's also responsible for the 2023 earworm "Planet of the Bass," which is still in my regular Spotify rotation.) In an interview with Vulture, Gordon said he paid out of pocket to fly a small crew from the US to South Africa and Eswatini for the shoot. He wouldn't give an exact number ("just so I don't have to remind myself and I can go to sleep at night") but we can safely assume it wasn't cheap.

As the Garbage Day newsletter pointed out this week, creators are now investing huge money into their content. Mr. Beast has claimed to spend as much as US$4 million on one video, while Druski said in May he spent US$100,000 on a video about mega-churches. YouTube is now beating TV and the streamers in daily viewing, and ambitious creators are betting viral hits will ultimately pay for themselves through ad rolls, brand deals, tours, merch, and whatever else they can spin their newfound audience into.

If you're put off by open and frank discussions about money as it pertains to art (even when the art is internet videos), don't be: art and commerce have been intertwined for centuries. Michelangelo had patrons bankrolling his work during the Renaissance; creators like Gordon and Druski are simply using the modern equivalent. But with the internet, anyone can post anything, and then post what it cost to make it – and that itself can be a marketing tool to find more fans, make more money, and make more art (read: internet videos).

I might not speak Mr. Jambo's language, but I bet he'd call that the circle of life.

Kat tries explains “Mr. Jambo” to colleagues:

If you liked this newsletter, hated this newsletter, or are totally indifferent to it, hit the reply button and tell us why! We’re so lonely.

This week’s contributors: Tyler Haw (audience engagement), Jenna Zaitchik (senior creative designer), Shazia Khan (social media strategy manager), Anthony Milton (content lead), Kat Angus (deputy editor), and Eric Wainwright (editor in chief).

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