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• U.S. Budget Deficit

• Meta

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Economy & Finance

U.S. Budget Deficit 

The U.S. budget deficit for fiscal 2024 rose to $1.833 trillion, driven by increased interest on federal debt surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, along with higher spending on Social Security, healthcare, and defense. The deficit grew by 8% from the previous year, making it the third-largest in U.S. history outside of the COVID-19 pandemic era. Government revenues hit a record $4.919 trillion, but rising interest costs and significant spending increases pushed the budget gap to 6.4% of GDP. A $64 billion September surplus was largely attributed to timing adjustments.

Technology

Meta

Meta has unveiled a new set of AI models, including the "Self-Taught Evaluator," which aims to reduce human involvement in AI development. This tool, introduced in August, uses a problem-solving approach that breaks complex tasks into smaller steps, similar to OpenAI's models. It was trained entirely with AI-generated data, potentially paving the way for autonomous AI agents that can improve themselves without human input. This development could replace current methods like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, which rely on specialized human annotators. Meta also released other tools, including updates to image-identification and response generation models.

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