Why China's DeepSeek AI is such a big deal

I'm Waylon Wong. And joining us today is Planet Money's very own Jeff Guo. Hello, Jeff.

waves and a royal settlement with some eye popping details.

It's Indicators of the Week. Darian, you're up first today.

Future, a new American company that will

That's a lot of money even for a tech company, you know.

I'm listening.

The other week my husband was like, we should ask ChatGPT about this. And I was like, but what about our utility bill? And I was obviously being flipped. But I've read that, you know, like each AI query takes enough energy to power a light bulb for a few minutes, like a lot of electricity.

So people kicked the tires on this.

So hang on, what's your status bar? How long do we have to sit here? Jeff?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Oh, it's so chatty.

It said in summary. And now it's giving us a numbered list with more answers.

That's very thoughtful. Okay.

That's right. My indicator is about Prince Harry, AKA the Duke of Sussex. He settled a lawsuit against News Group Newspapers. This is the Rupert Murdoch owned media company that Prince Harry had accused of hacking his phone and doing other unlawful things. So as part of this court settlement, the company issued a quote, full and unequivocal apology for intruding into Prince Harry's private life for 15 years. That is my indicator. 15 years.

Yes. This scandal is almost 20 years old, depending on where you want to start the timeline. And the settlement with Prince Harry comes at the last minute. The two sides will now avoid a trial. And there actually have been over 3, 1300 settlements in this scandal. Murdoch's companies have paid out over a billion dollars in settlements over the years.

Well, he did get an undisclosed amount of money. The New York Times reported that it was at least $12 million. He also got a public apology, plus an apology to his late mother, Princess Diana, for the intrusion into her private life when Prince Harry was young. But the thing is that he had also talked about how airing all of this out trial was necessary for full accountability, and now there's no trial. And what I found really interesting is that economics might have played a role here.

Yeah, it's always time for some game theory. So under British law, if they had gone to trial and Prince Harry had won, but the damages he got awarded were less than the settlement offer, he would have had to pay the other side's legal costs.

Yeah, I mean, last year, the actor Hugh Grant settled his lawsuit against the same Murdoch owned media company. And he said at the time, the prospect of having to pay the other side's legal costs was just too risky. Like he couldn't, he couldn't do it. So I think he said something like, I am shying from that fence, which I think is like an equestrian thing, but I'm not sure.

works in the U.S. uh, no. So I think the incentives are quite different when it comes to settling this kind of thing.

Darian. And the Oscar goes to Darian Woods. Who would you like to thank?

Well, I'll do it. This episode was produced and fact checked by Julia Richie with engineering by Neal Rauch. It was edited by Patty Hirsch. Katie Canyon is the show's editor, and the indicator is a production of npr.