Talking Points

1. I’ll never shop there again!
2. TikTok banned then unbanned in the US.
3. AI isn’t very good at history.

Focus Phrase: brownie points

Shadow This: Actor Bill Duke demonstrates two very useful techniques for answering a question.

Executive Edition: Spice up your small talk conversations with hypothetical questions.

Figure It Out: What to say when you don’t want to share your opinion.

Talking Points

Three quick news stories to help you start small talk conversations in English. Start your conversation with phrases like:

• I read a story about …

• Did you hear about … ?

• Saw something interesting the other day. …

I’ll never shop there again!

In a recent reddit discussion, customers vente about businesses they’d never support again.

Some reasons were political, some were attributed to quality, and others were about price.

We all have our own stories like this. For me, personally, I will never support DHC because their CEO is racist.

I can’t support any company who openly hurts others or advocates against any group of people.

Talking points: What company or companies will you never support again? Let me know in a reply to this email! I’ll read every reply I get.

TikTok banned then unbanned in the US

TikTok was banned for a brief moment in the US. Its parent company ByteDance was unable to win their case, as such, the ban went into effect on 19 Jan.

Incoming President Trump reversed the ban, and now TikTok is back up and running the States.

The US government claimed social media giant TikTok was collecting user data.

They believed user data was collected under order of the government of the People’s Republic of China.

Talking points: What is your tolerance for data collection?

AI isn’t very good at history

A recent study found AI doesn’t know much about history.

GPT-4 Turbo was only able to score 46% accuracy, which isn’t much higher than random guessing.

However, Large Language Models, commonly known as LLMs, are getting better daily. But they won’t be teaching history lessons any time soon.

Talking points: So many people talk about AI taking over jobs. It’s definitely possible and will happen, but not now. It still has to grow up a bit. Are you scared about losing your job to AI?