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Good morning. In an interesting bid to drum up publicity, Columbia Sportswear has partnered with a Portland brewery to release a limited-edition beer brewed with bear poop-infused water. The certified safe-to-drink lager is, apparently, "clean-tasting.” Sure.

Has anyone pointed out yet that this is, almost literally, a Nathan For You bit?

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Earnings to watch: Disney will kick off the week with its earnings after the bell today, followed by Alphabet and Uber’s results on Wednesday. Bell, Amazon, and Canada Goose will close things out with their earnings calls on Thursday.

AI agents now have their own group chats to make fun of our ridiculous requests, and they’re not pulling any punches.

Driving the news: Moltbook, a new social media platform designed for AI agents to interact with each other autonomously, gripped tech watchers over the weekend and sparked some dystopian fears in the process. Tesla’s former head of AI called Moltbook, "the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing" he has seen recently.

Yes, but: Some observers have pointed out that many of the viral posts on Moltbook are generated by agents following intentionally dystopian human prompts, while others are peddling products, including AI-to-AI messaging apps and meme coins. 

Why it matters: The public reaction to Moltbook reflects just how on edge people are about the future of AI. Aside from the select few who are developing these models, AI development — and the dangers it could present — remains a black box to the rest of us. That makes it all the more alarming when insiders raise safety concerns.

Bottom line: The fears of AI agents plotting against us on Moltbook may be overblown, but researchers point out that there are legitimate concerns about AI acting autonomously in suspect ways. A paper last year found that multiple leading models, including OpenAI’s o3, unexplainably ignored human instructions to prevent themselves from being turned off.—LA 

Pierre Poilievre wins landslide leadership vote. Delegates at the Conservative Party convention voted overwhelmingly to keep Poilievre on as leader, with 87.4% of votes cast in his favour. Poilievre remains popular with his Conservative base, but remains behind Prime Minister Mark Carney in national polls. (Globe and Mail) 

Waymo is eyeing a US$110 billion valuation. The robotaxi company is aiming to raise $16 billion in new funding, with the majority expected to come from its parent company, Alphabet. The raise would more than double Waymo’s previous $45 billion valuation from October 2024. In less exciting news at Waymo HQ, one of its cars hit a child in Los Angeles (only minor injuries were reported), marking its first reported human accident. (Bloomberg News)

Nvidia is pumping the brakes on its US$100 billion deal with OpenAI. The chipmaker’s CEO, Jensen Huang, says they never fully committed to an investment in OpenAI, and that they would explore any future funding rounds one at a time. People within Nvidia reportedly expressed serious doubts about the deal — which was announced back in October — with Huang himself privately expressing concern about a lack of discipline in OpenAI’s business approach. (Wall Street Journal)

China is buying Canadian beef again. Cattle ranchers will resume beef exports to China after the lifting of a four-year ban, which was prompted by an abnormal mad cow disease case at an Alberta farm. Before the restrictions were put in place, Canadian producers were sending $200 million worth of beef to China. (CTV News)

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is shutting down the city’s rogue AI chatbot. The municipal AI tool, aimed at helping businesses navigate government programs, will be terminated following reports that it recommended business owners break the law, including stealing their workers' tips. Safe to say this particular Eric Adams experiment didn’t go quite to plan. (The Verge)—LA

🏅 Milan Cortina Olympics begin. The 2026 Winter Olympics officially begin on Friday with the opening ceremonies, though competition will get underway on Wednesday with skiing, curling, and luge events. With NHL players returning to the games for the first time since 2014, Canada is expected to compete for gold in men’s hockey and turn in strong performances in curling, freestyle skiing events, and speed skating. As always, we’ll have daily coverage and medal standings.

🏈 Super Bowl LX. The New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will battle for the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday. If you haven’t been paying attention to the football season, here’s some basic prep: Seattle are the favourites, with Vegas giving them a ~70% chance to win. Bad Bunny will perform at the halftime show, which upset some people, and expect to see plenty of celebrities and attempts at comedy in the ads (but no spots for prediction markets). And here’s some fun trivia to impress your friends with this week: why Super Bowl games use Roman numerals.

💼 Canadian and U.S. jobs data. Analysts expect Friday’s jobs numbers to show the unemployment rate dropping slightly after the population grew by just under 10,000 people in December, the lowest level since the pandemic. Job postings are also up, suggesting an appetite for hiring. The U.S. jobs numbers will be the first without any shutdown-related distortions.

➡️ What else is on our radar: Elections in Japan and Thailand on Sunday, Bank of England and European Central Bank rate decisions, and Artemis II, the first crewed lunar mission in 50 years, could launch as early as Sunday.

How many yuan is a Canadian dollar worth? Soon it may be useful to know that it is, at the moment, around five. 

What happened: Xi Jinping called for the yuan to become a global reserve currency, playing a role similar to the U.S. dollar in the global financial system.

Why it matters: Having the world use your currency to buy and sell across borders is a pretty sweet deal for the country that prints it. For the U.S., the dominance of the dollar means that other countries and corporations need it in order to trade. 

Yes, but: For the yuan to supplant the dollar’s reserve currency status, China would need to give up its strict controls on money moving out of the country, open financial markets, and accept currency appreciation that would hurt its exports. In other words, it would have to make its economy work more like America’s, which may be a bridge too far for Xi.

🏈 US$10 million. Price that some brands are paying for a 30-second ad slot for this year’s Super Bowl, a new record. The football game, which attracted 127 million viewers in the U.S. last year, carries by far the most expensive ad slots in the world and has even been coined the “Olympics of advertising.” In that spirit, we wish all the teams good luck out there. 

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Clear that weekend brain fog with today’s mini crossword and the daily sudoku.

Once you’ve aced those, we’ve got a brand new Codebreaker for you.