While going through a rough patch, Spanish agency The Clueless decided it had enough of nagging and demanding human clients — so it cooked up an AI model instead.
As <a href="https://archive.is/iyJph">Euronews reports</a>, the agency says it used AI tools to create Aitana, a 25-year-old pink-haired woman from Barcelona. They say she looks real enough to fool a human celebrity into sliding into her DMs and asking her out.
And the agency says the gambit has paid off financially, with Aitana netting the team up to $11,000 a month in revenue.
"We did it so that we could make a better living and not be dependent on other people who have egos, who have manias, or who just want to make a lot of money by posing," Aitana's cocreator, and founder of The Clueless Rubén Cruz told Euronews.
If true — the whole thing does smack of intentionally courting controversy — it's a fascinating new turn for a burgeoning AI influencer industry. We've already seen AI-generated models <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-generated-influencers">gaining huge social media followings</a>, as well as ad agencies leveraging <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cgi-influencer-100-brands">awkward-looking CGI influencers</a> during the period before generative AI.
Now this team is apparently taking the concept to its logical conclusion by overtly commercializing it and saying the quiet part out loud: that they have no interest in working with human models now that AI image generators exist.
Besides netting brand deals worth over $1,100 each, Aitana also sells racy images on an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-models-creators-see-success-on-onlyfans-challenger-fanvue-2023-11">OnlyFans-like platform called Fanvue</a>. Her Instagram account is also popping off and has amassed <a href="https://www.instagram.com/fit_aitana/?hl=en">almost 150,000 followers</a>.
Are Aitana's too-smooth glamour shots fooling anybody? Cruz says they are.
"One day, a well-known Latin American actor texted to ask her out," he told Euronews. "This actor has about five million followers and some of our team watched his TV series when they were kids."
"He had no idea Aitana didn't exist," he added.
Apart from raking in revenue, AI influencers like Aitana could allow other agencies to create models that won't cause messy human drama.
"They want to have an image that is not a real person and that represents their brand values," Cruz told Euronews, "so that there are no continuity problems if they have to fire someone or can no longer count on them."
Additionally, using an AI image generator to create photos of influencers comes with some serious savings, considering the cost of working with a human celebrity.
"Kim Kardashian makes a million euros for an Instagram photo and she doesn't cure cancer," Cruz said. "Nobody earns a million euros for uploading a photo to a social network, it seems absurd to me."
Of course, replacing human influencers with AI-generated models is as contentious as it is potentially lucrative. After all, it's a rare and brazen example of AI tech directly being used to replace human labor.
It's also a particularly pertinent topic these days. The use of AI to replace actors was a key topic of this year's <a href="https://futurism.com/studios-ai-replace-background-actors">Hollywood actors' strike</a>, with SAG-AFTRA union members <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/hollywood-scan-actors-recent-episode-black-mirror">horrified by proposals</a> to scan background actors' likenesses in order to use them in perpetuity.
Is this really the end of human influencers? While more agencies are jumping on the AI bandwagon, nobody really knows if the concept will have long-term appeal.
More on AI influencers: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-generated-influencers">Fully AI-Generated Influencers Are Getting Thousands of Reactions per Thirst Trap</a>

AI Model

A well-known actor apparently slid into her DMs, not realizing she "didn't exist."

Creators of Fake Influencer Say She's Generating $11,000/Month

In May 2021, a team of astronomers made an exceedingly rare discovery: an extremely high-energy cosmic ray beaming from outer space — which, confusingly, seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular.
"When I first discovered this ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, I thought there must have been a mistake, as it showed an energy level unprecedented in the last three decades," said Osaka Metropolitan University associate professor Toshihiro Fujii, author of a <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo5095?utm_source=sfmc&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=ScienceAdviser&amp;utm_content=distillation&amp;et_rid=960447322&amp;et_cid=5002598">new paper</a> published in the journal Science, in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1008434?et_rid=960447322&amp;et_cid=5002598">statement</a>.
Fuji was referring to the "<a href="https://futurism.com/what-is-the-oh-my-god-particle">Oh-My-God" particle</a>, which was detected back in October 1991 and remains the highest-energy cosmic ray ever detected.
Cosmic rays are highly charged subatomic particles from outer space that can reach energy levels roughly a million times higher than those produced by the most powerful particle accelerators ever built back on Earth.
Despite their incredible power, their origins have remained a complete mystery. A perfect example? That 2021 cosmic ray, which was named after the Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu.
"No promising astronomical object matching the direction from which the cosmic ray arrived has been identified, suggesting possibilities of unknown astronomical phenomena and novel physical origins beyond the Standard Model," said Fuji in the statement.
Fuji has been collaborating with an international team of scientists known as the Telescope Array experiment. Since 2008, the team has been chasing ultra-high-energy cosmic rays using a Utah-based observatory made up of 507 surface detectors spread out over 270 square miles.
That's where they detected the extraordinary 2021 Amaterasu signal. At 240 exa-electronvolts, it was so powerful that it rivals the 1991 "Oh-My-God" particle, which was measured at around 320 exa-electronvolts.
Despite being the second most powerful cosmic ray ever detected, Fuji and his team ran into trouble trying to pinpoint the source of Amaterasu. According to the team's calculations, the ray came from a relatively empty corner of the universe that's home to only a few spread-out galaxies.
"There was nothing," Fuji <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03677-0">told Nature</a>.
That perplexing conclusion led the team to suggest that our understanding of how magnetic fields can influence the path of these cosmic rays before reaching the Earth may be inherently flawed. In other words, Amaterasu may have come from an entirely different region.
"We think we’ve got good estimates, but maybe we’re wrong," Clancy James, an astronomer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, who was not involved in the research, told Nature.
Even events like supernovas are "nowhere near energetic enough for this," said coauthor and Telescope Array co-spokesperson John Matthews in a university <a href="https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/cosmic-ray-2023/">press release</a>. "You need huge amounts of energy, really high magnetic fields to confine the particle while it gets accelerated."
Another possibility: entirely unknown physical processes could allow these rays to cover even longer distances than previously thought.
"These events seem like they’re coming from completely different places in the sky," said coauthor and University of Utah professor John Belz in the press release. "It’s not like there’s one mysterious source."
"It could be defects in the structure of spacetime, colliding cosmic strings," he added. "I mean, I’m just spit-balling crazy ideas that people are coming up with because there’s not a conventional explanation."
For now, Fuji and his colleagues hope to glean more insights into these mysterious particles after upgrading the Telescope Array to make it four times as sensitive.
But whether they'll have a second chance to detect another cosmic ray nearly as powerful as Aamterasu remains to be seen.
More on cosmic rays: <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-puzzled-strands-galaxy">Scientists Puzzled by Weird "Strands" at the Center of Our Galaxy</a>

From Nowhere

"There was nothing."

Scientists Puzzled by High Energy Signal Coming From Seemingly Empty Space

We're only three days away from Tesla's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/matte-black-cybertruck-looks-horrendous">long-awaited delivery event</a> of its Cybertruck, and there's a ton we still don't know — including basic specs like price and range.
There's a potential aesthetic wrinkle as well: while Tesla's marketing materials so far show the truck as having a mirror-like finish, the reality will likely be <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertrucks-smudgy">much smudgier</a>.
Besides making manufacturing an <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-cybertruck-grave">absolute hell</a> for the EV maker, the choice of stainless steel has raised plenty of eyebrows among experts. For one, it's less malleable and more expensive compared to conventional materials like plastic composites and aluminum, as the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/behind-teslas-challenges-in-making-the-cybertruck-ultrahard-stainless-steel-8cb4c1b9">Wall Street Journal points out</a>.
Stainless steel is also a lot more prone to attracting fingerprints and blemishes, meaning the truck will likely be relatively high maintenance and require owners to polish their vehicles to maintain some semblance of polish.
One clue as to what that maintenance might look like comes from the DeLorean DMC, famously featured in the iconic 1985 sci-fi romp "Back to the Future." As DeLorean restoration expert Chris Nicholson told the WSJ, in fact, owners may need to go as far as sanding off the top layer of metal to remove stains that arise from organic debris like bird feces.
That'll be a strange new reality in a market in which carmakers have long perfected simpler solutions in the form of automotive paint and clear, scratch-resistant topcoats.
A lot will ride on the aesthetic reality of the Cybertruck for Tesla. Pictures <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cybertruck/comments/184ncb6/tesla_cleans_the_truck_with_cyber_shield/?share_id=4dI4fzPEw_27-77QXcb2c&amp;utm_content=1&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=ioscss&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_term=1">recently shared</a> on the Cybertruck subreddit show an employee polishing a Cybertruck with a product called "Cyber Shield," presumably a consumer-grade cleaner that's designed to keep fingerprints, smudges, and corrosion to a minimum.
"Cyber Shield is a cutting-edge cleaner and protective solution that redefines the way you care for the exterior stainless surfaces of the Cybertruck," an <a href="https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/sneak-peek-cyber-shield-cleaning-protective-spray-for-cybertruck-stainless-steel.9876/">official description</a> spotted by a Cybertruck Owners Club Forum user reads.
It's still unclear, however, if the product will end up being made available to Cybertruck owners.
"I’ll use Barkeeper's Friend, thank you very much," one redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cybertruck/comments/184ncb6/comment/kawsl97/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3">argued</a>, referring to a popular cleaning agent.
"These will be like your phone glass," another user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cybertruck/comments/184ncb6/comment/kaxd6ap/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3">added</a>. "You can polish the shit out of it and it will be super sleek and look awesome. Then you use it for two minutes and it looks like absolute garbage."
Apart from blemishes and fingerprints, getting dents and scratches out of the Cybertruck's unusually hardened exterior might also prove difficult. Since Tesla CEO Elon Musk was hellbent on making the truck "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-tommy-gun-cybertruck">bulletproof</a>," the company was forced to use a fairly thick metal, which is incredibly hard to bend back into shape after damage.
To fix a dent, Nicholson told the WSJ, "you’d have to beat the absolute hell out of it."
More on the truck: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-christmas-tree-bed">Cybertruck Spotted With Christmas Tree Sticking Way Out of Its Tiny Bed</a>

Cyber Barkeeper's Friend

Talk about high maintenance.

Cybertruck Owners May Need to Sand Them Down

There was nothing in Drew Ortiz's <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221205082417/https://www.si.com/review/author/drewortiz/">author biography</a> at Sports Illustrated to suggest that he was anything other than human. 
"Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature," it read. "Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm."
The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated <a href="https://archive.is/ndV3A">is for sale</a> on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he's described as "neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes."
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-305752" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/drew-1200x421.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="421" />
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<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-305776" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/drew_ai-1-1200x524.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="524" />
Ortiz isn't the only AI-generated author published by Sports Illustrated, according to a person involved with the creation of the content who asked to be kept anonymous to protect them from professional repercussions.
"There's a lot," they told us of the fake authors. "I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist."
"At the bottom [of the page] there would be a photo of a person and some fake description of them like, 'oh, John lives in Houston, Texas. He loves yard games and hanging out with his dog, Sam.' Stuff like that," they continued. "It's just crazy."
The AI authors' writing often sounds like it was written by an alien; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221004090814/https://www.si.com/review/full-size-volleyball/">one Ortiz article</a>, for instance, warns that volleyball "can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with."
According to a second person involved in the creation of the Sports Illustrated content who also asked to be kept anonymous, that's because it's not just the authors' headshots that are AI-generated. At least some of the articles themselves, they said, were churned out using AI as well.
"The content is absolutely AI-generated," the second source said, "no matter how much they say that it's not."
After we reached out with questions to the magazine's publisher, The Arena Group, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from Sports Illustrated's site without explanation.
Initially, our questions received no response. But after we published this story, an Arena Group spokesperson provided the following statement that blamed a contractor for the content:
<blockquote class="c-mrkdwn__quote" data-stringify-type="quote">Today, an article was published alleging that Sports Illustrated published AI-generated articles. According to our initial investigation, this is not accurate. The articles in question were product reviews and were licensed content from an external, third-party company, AdVon Commerce. A number of AdVon's e-commerce articles ran on certain Arena websites. We continually monitor our partners and were in the midst of a review when these allegations were raised. AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans. According to AdVon, their writers, editors, and researchers create and curate content and follow a policy that involves using both counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software on all content. However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy — actions we don't condone — and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership.</blockquote>
It sounds like The Arena Group's investigation pretty much just involved asking AdVon whether the content was AI-generated, and taking them at their word when they said it wasn't. Our sources familiar with the creation of the content disagree.
The statement also never addresses the core allegation of our story: that Sports Illustrated published content from nonexistent writers with AI-generated headshots. The implication seems to be that AdVon invented fake writers, assigned them fake biographies and AI-generated headshots, and then stopped right there, only publishing content written by old-fashioned humans. Maybe that's true, but we doubt it.
Regardless, the AI content marks a staggering fall from grace for Sports Illustrated, which in past decades won numerous National Magazine Awards for its sports journalism and published work by literary giants ranging from William Faulkner to John Updike.
But now that it's under the management of The Arena Group, parts of the magazine seem to have devolved into a Potemkin Village in which phony writers are cooked up out of thin air, outfitted with equally bogus biographies and expertise to win readers' trust, and used to pump out AI-generated buying guides that are monetized by affiliate links to products that provide a financial kickback when readers click them.
Do you know anything about The Arena Group's use of AI-generated content? Shoot us an email at <a href="mailto:tips@futurism.com">tips@futurism.com</a>. We can keep you anonymous.
Making the whole thing even more dubious, these AI-generated personas are periodically scrubbed from existence in favor of new ones.
Sometime this summer, for example, Ortiz disappeared from Sports Illustrated's site entirely, his profile page instead redirecting to that of a "<a href="https://archive.is/D9DV2">Sora Tanaka</a>." Again, there's no online record of a writer by that name — but Tanaka's profile picture <a href="https://generated.photos/face/joyful-asian-young-adult-female-with-long-brown-hair-and-brown-eyes--5f1836d41f67b00006889840">is for sale</a> on the same AI headshot marketplace as Ortiz, where she's listed as "joyful asian young-adult female with long brown hair and brown eyes."
"Sora has always been a fitness guru, and loves to try different foods and drinks," read Tanaka's bio. "Ms. Tanaka is thrilled to bring her fitness and nutritional expertise to the Product Reviews Team, and promises to bring you nothing but the best of the best."
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-305754" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/sora-1200x448.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="448" />
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<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-305778" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/sora_ai-1200x512.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="512" />
But Tanaka didn't last, either. Eventually she also disappeared, replaced by yet another profile that carried no headshot at all, which Sports Illustrated deleted along with the other AI-generated content after we reached out.
It wasn't just author profiles that the magazine repeatedly replaced. Each time an author was switched out, the posts they supposedly penned would be reattributed to the new persona, with no editor's note explaining the change in byline.
None of the articles credited to Ortiz or the other names contained any disclosure about the use of AI or that the writer wasn't real, though they did eventually gain a disclaimer explaining that the content was "created by a 3rd party," and that the "Sports Illustrated editorial staff are not involved in the creation of this content."
Do you know anything about that "3rd party," or how the content was created? Email us at <a href="mailto:tips@futurism.com">tips@futurism.com</a>. We can keep you anonymous.
Though Sports Illustrated's AI-generated authors and their articles disappeared after we asked about them, similar operations appear to be alive and well elsewhere in The Arena Group's portfolio.
Take TheStreet, a financial publication cofounded by Jim Cramer in 1996 that The Arena Group <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190808005215/en/Maven-Closes-Acquisition-TheStreet-New-Jim-Cramer">bought for $16.5 million</a> in 2019. Like at Sports Illustrated, we found authors at TheStreet with highly specific biographies detailing seemingly flesh-and-blood humans with specific areas of expertise — but with profile photos traceable to that same AI face website. And like at Sports Illustrated, these fake writers are periodically wiped from existence and their articles reattributed to new names, with no disclosure about the use of AI.
Sometimes TheStreet's efforts to remove the fake writers can be sloppy. On its <a href="https://archive.is/EVdBw">review </a><a href="https://archive.is/EVdBw">section's title page</a>, for instance, the site still proudly flaunts the expertise of AI-generated contributors who have since been deleted, linking to writer profiles it describes as ranging "from <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/review/author/domino-abrams/">stay-at-home dads</a> to <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/review/author/denise-mcnamara/">computer and information analysts</a>." This team, the site continues, "is comprised of a well-rounded group of people who bring varying backgrounds and experiences to the table."
People? We're not so sure.
The "stay-at-home dad" linked in that sentence above, for instance, is a so-called "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211022203137/https://www.thestreet.com/review/author/domino-abrams/">Domino Abrams</a>" — "a pro at home cleaning and maintenance," at least until he was expunged from the site — whose profile picture can <a href="https://images.generated.photos/2X9jxxHg-BqU-lY8ER7BYjhM7v7Mk1lvBdZLexTtQjo/rs:fit:256:256/czM6Ly9pY29uczgu/Z3Bob3Rvcy1wcm9k/LnBob3Rvcy92M18w/ODk3Njc1LmpwZw.jpg">again be found</a> on that same site that sells AI-generated headshots. 
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-305755" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/domino-1200x379.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="379" />
Or look at "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220706182957/https://www.thestreet.com/review/author/denise-mcnamara/">Denise McNamara</a>," the "information analyst" that TheStreet boasted about — "her extensive personal experience with electronics allows her to share her findings with others online" — whose profile picture is <a href="https://images.generated.photos/aArmEGQt-wLB_b9taXiittj3hoiXzDkOp8Npv-yDnSk/rs:fit:256:256/czM6Ly9pY29uczgu/Z3Bob3Rvcy1wcm9k/LnBob3Rvcy90cmFu/c3BhcmVudF92My92/M18wMzc1ODk5LnBu/Zw.png">once again listed</a> on the same AI headshot marketplace. Or "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211203045751/https://www.thestreet.com/review/author/nicole-merrifield/">Nicole Merrifield</a>," an alleged "first grade teacher" who "loves helping people," but whose profile is <a href="https://images.generated.photos/a7aiK5ivGIOmRmVNbqI17mxJ6bknNdLxB6l2LQTEFkA/rs:fit:256:256/czM6Ly9pY29uczgu/Z3Bob3Rvcy1wcm9k/LnBob3Rvcy92M18w/MTQ5Nzc5LmpwZw.jpg">again from</a> that AI headshot site. (At some point this year, Abrams, McNamara, and Merrifield were replaced by bylines whose profile pictures aren't for sale on the AI headshot site.)
Basic scrutiny shows that the quality of the AI authors' posts is often poor, with bizarre-sounding language and glaring formatting discrepancies.
This <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221004132724/https://www.thestreet.com/review/improve-your-finances/">article about personal finance</a> by the AI-generated Merrifield, for example, starts off with the sweeping libertarian claim that "your financial status translates to your value in society." 
After that bold premise, the article explains that "people with strong financial status are revered and given special advantages everywhere around the world," and launches into a numbered list of how you can "improve your finance status" for yourself. Each number on what should be a five-point list, though, is just number one. Mistakes happen, but we can't imagine that anyone who can't count to five would give stellar financial advice.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-305756" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2023/11/merrifield-1200x1186.jpg" alt="" width="723" height="715" />
Abysmal-quality AI content, though, shouldn't be surprising at The Arena Group.
Back in February, when the company first started publishing AI-generated health advice at its magazine Men's Journal, <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/magazine-mens-journal-errors-ai-health-article">we found that its first story</a> was riddled with errors, prompting it to issue a massive correction.
Before that, when The Arena Group first announced its foray into AI, its CEO Ross Levinsohn promised in an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sports-illustrated-publisher-taps-ai-to-generate-articles-story-ideas-11675428443">interview with The Wall Street Journal</a> that its quality would be outstanding.
"It’s not about 'crank out AI content and do as much as you can,'" he told the newspaper early this year. "Google will penalize you for that and more isn't better; better is better."
Needless to say, neither fake authors who are suddenly replaced with different names nor deplorable-quality AI-generated content with no disclosure amount to anything resembling good journalism, and to see it published by a once-iconic magazine like Sports Illustrated is disheartening. Bylines exist for a reason: they give credit where it's due, and just as importantly, they let readers hold writers accountable.
The undisclosed AI content is a direct affront to the fabric of media ethics, in other words, not to mention a perfect recipe for eroding reader trust. And at the end of the day, it's just remarkably irresponsible behavior that we shouldn't see anywhere — let alone normalized by a high-visibility publisher.
The Arena Group is also hardly alone, either. As powerful generative AI tools have debuted over the past few years, many publishers have quickly attempted to use the tech to churn out monetizable content.
In almost every case, though, these efforts to cut out human journalists have backfired embarrassingly.
We <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cnet-publishing-articles-by-ai">caught CNET</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/cnet-bankrate-restarts-ai-articles">Bankrate</a>, both owned by Red Ventures, publishing barely-disclosed AI content that was filled with <a href="https://futurism.com/cnet-ai-errors">factual mistakes</a> and even <a href="https://futurism.com/cnet-ai-plagiarism">plagiarism</a>; in the ensuing storm of criticism, CNET issued corrections to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571082/cnet-ai-written-stories-errors-corrections-red-ventures">more than half</a> its AI-generated articles. G/O Media also published AI-generated material on its portfolio of sites, resulting in embarrassing bungles <a href="https://futurism.com/gizmodo-kotaku-staff-furious-ai-content">at Gizmodo</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-av-club-imdb">The A.V. Club</a>. We <a href="https://futurism.com/buzzfeed-publishing-articles-by-ai">caught </a><a href="https://futurism.com/buzzfeed-publishing-articles-by-ai">BuzzFeed</a> publishing slapdash AI-generated travel guides. And USA Today and other Gannett newspapers <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/tech/gannett-ai-experiment-paused/index.html">were busted publishing</a> hilariously garbled AI-generated sports roundups that one of the company's own sports journalists <a href="https://futurism.com/gannett-sports-writer-ai-generated-content">described as</a> "embarrassing," saying they "shouldn't ever" have been published.
If any media organization finds a way to engage with generative AI in a way that isn't either woefully ill-advised or actively unethical, we're all ears. In the meantime, forgive us if we don't hold our breath.
Disclosure: Futurism's parent company, Recurrent Ventures, previously worked with AdVon in 2022 via its partnership to distribute select content on third-party e-commerce platforms. This content was written by Recurrent’s contributors. Presently, Recurrent maintains a business relationship with them to test Commerce content internationally for select brands (of which Futurism is not one). AdVon content has never been published on Futurism or any of Recurrent’s websites.
More on AI-generated journalism: <a href="https://futurism.com/usa-today-updates-ai-generated-sports">USA Today Updates Every AI-Generated Sports Article to Correct "Errors"</a>

Neutral White Male

We asked them about it — and they deleted everything.

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

Mystery lingers over why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-leaving-openai">thrown out of the company</a> and then <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/in-stunning-reversal-openai-rehires-sam-altman">reinstated</a> less than a week later — a dramatic reversal by the company's non-profit board that spurred an astronomical amount of speculation.
Nonetheless, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/reason-openai-fired-sam-altman">theories</a> have floated to the top of the rumor mill. One of the most intriguing: that OpenAI might have been <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-sam-altman-agi">quietly working on a highly advanced AI</a> that could have thrown the board into panic mode and sparked the dustup.
After all, OpenAI has long made it its primary mission to realize an artificial general intelligence (AGI) — loosely defined as an algorithm that can complete complex tasks as well as or even better than humans — to "benefit all of humanity," in the <a href="https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond">words of Altman himself</a>.
Whether the company's actually getting closer to achieving this goal remains highly debatable. The company has also historically been highly secretive when it comes to its research, making it even more difficult to read the tea leaves over recent weeks.
But an interesting new twist to the story suggests OpenAI may have been on the verge of a major leap forward, and that it may indeed have been related to the shakeup.
Last week, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/">Reuters</a> and <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-made-an-ai-breakthrough-before-altman-firing-stoking-excitement-and-concern">The Information</a> reported that some OpenAI leaders may have gotten spooked by a powerful new AI the company was working on called Q*, pronounced "Q star." This new system was apparently seen by some as a significant step towards the company's goal of establishing AGI, and is reportedly capable of solving grade school math problems.
According to Reuters, Mira Murati, a former OpenAI nonprofit board member who <a href="https://futurism.com/mira-murati-openai-new-ceo">held the title of CEO</a> for a very short period following Altman's dismissal, acknowledged the existence of this new model in an internal message to staffers.
Reuters' sources claim Q* was one of many factors leading to Altman's firing, triggering concerns about commercializing a product that still wasn't entirely understood.
While school-grade math may not sound like a groundbreaking achievement, researchers have long seen such an ability as a considerable benchmark. Instead of simply predicting the next word in a sentence like the company's GPT systems, an AI algorithm that could solve math problems would need to "plan" several steps ahead.
Think of it as a <a href="https://decrypt.co/207413/what-is-q-star-q-learning-agi-openai">Sherlock Holmes-like entity</a> that can string together clues to reach a conclusion.
"One of the main challenges to improve LLM reliability is to replace Auto-Regressive token prediction with planning," explained Yann LeCun, "godfather of AI" and Meta's chief AI scientist, in a <a href="https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1728126868342145481">tweet</a>. "Pretty much every top lab (FAIR, DeepMind, OpenAI etc) is working on that and some have already published ideas and results."
"It is likely that Q* is OpenAI attempts at planning," he added.
"If it has the ability to logically reason and reason about abstract concepts, which right now is what it really struggles with, that's a pretty tremendous leap," Charles Higgins, a cofounder of the AI-training startup Tromero, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-project-q-sam-altman-ia-model-explainer-2023-11">told Business Insider</a>.
"Maths is about symbolically reasoning — saying, for example, 'If X is bigger than Y and Y is bigger than Z, then X is bigger than Z,'" he added. "Language models traditionally really struggle at that because they don't logically reason, they just have what are effectively intuitions."
"In the case of math, we know existing AIs have been shown to be capable of undergraduate-level math but to struggle with anything more advanced," Andrew Rogoyski, a director at the Surrey Institute for People-Centered AI, told BI. "However, if an AI can solve new, unseen problems, not just regurgitate or reshape existing knowledge, then this would be a big deal, even if the math is relatively simple."
But is Q* really a breakthrough that could pose an actual existential threat? Experts aren't convinced.
"I don’t think it immediately gets us to AGI or scary situations," Katie Collins, a PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge, who specializes in math and AI, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/27/1083886/unpacking-the-hype-around-openais-rumored-new-q-model/">told MIT Technology Review</a>.
"Solving elementary-school math problems is very, very different from pushing the boundaries of mathematics at the level of something a Fields medalist can do," she added, referring to an international prize in mathematics.
"I think it's symbolically very important," Sophia Kalanovska, a fellow Tromero cofounder and PhD candidate, told BI. "On a practical level, I don't think it's going to end the world."
In short, OpenAI's algorithm — if it indeed exists and its results can withstand scrutiny — could represent meaningful progress in the company's efforts to realize AGI, but with many caveats.
Was it the only factor behind Altman's ousting? At this point, there's plenty of evidence to believe there was <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-dramatic-firings">more going on behind the scenes</a>, including internal disagreements over the future of the company.
The extraordinary rise of AI has often been spurred on by seemingly outlandish claims, plenty of <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-ceo-predicted-end-world-huge-wealth">fearmongering</a>, and a <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/how-big-techs-ai-hype-cycle-swallowed-sam-altman-openai.html">considerable amount of hype</a>. The latest excitement surrounding OpenAI's rumored follow-up to its GPT-4 model is likely no different.
One of Reuters' sources claimed that despite only performing grade school-level math problems, researchers were nonetheless optimistic about the latest model's success.
But Gary Marcus, an AI expert and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-gary-marcus-ai-stupid-dangerous/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-analytics-product-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="100" data-mrf-link="https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-gary-marcus-ai-stupid-dangerous/" data-uri="fcd4f296de5f91dba1049392307c89a2">deep-learning critic</a>, called out the discourse around the system as "wild extrapolation" in a <a href="https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/about-that-openai-breakthrough">recent post</a> on his Substack.
"If I had a nickel for every extrapolation like that — today, it works for grade school students! next year, it will take over the world! — I’d be Musk-level rich," he wrote, referring to OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk, who <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-quits-research-group">left OpenAI's board</a> over his own disagreements in 2018.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-dramatic-firings">This Apparently Wasn’t the First Time Sam Altman Was Dramatically Fired</a>

Q Star Anon

OpenAI's latest AI could represent a "tremendous leap" forward.

OpenAI's Chaos Linked to Super Powerful New AI It Secretly Built

In early 2022, a piece of Chinese space junk hit the Moon and left a mysterious double pockmark on its surface — and, as it turns out, there's more to this story than meets the eye.
In a <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/acffb8">new paper</a> published in the Planetary Science Journal, researchers from the University of Arizona explained that per their findings, there's little doubt that the object that hit the moon in March 2022 was debris from a <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/4/22958705/chinese-rocket-space-debris-moon-collision-change-5-t1">Chinese Long March 3C rocket booster</a>, and that the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/missions/lro/nasas-lunar-reconnaissance-orbiter-spots-rocket-impact-site-on-moon/">strange double crater</a> it left suggests that it carried an undisclosed payload along with it.
This specific lunar collision, to be fair, has been mired in speculation since before it even happened.
As <a href="https://www.space.com/moon-crash-march-2022-china-rocket-body">Space.com recounts</a> in its own write-up of the research, the debacle began in 2015 when scientists noticed that some manner of space junk was on a collision course with the Moon. Astronomers <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rocket-crashing-moon-not-spacex">initially believed</a> it was a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, but eventually, scientists figured out that it was the launcher for China's Chang'e lunar rover mission, which had been <a href="https://www.space.com/23786-china-moon-rover-mission-photos-change3-lander.html">launched a year prior</a>.
Though <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/china-denies-rocket-set-moon-crash-was-2014-chinese-mission-2022-02-21/">China denied</a> that the craft was part of a Chinese mission, the <a href="https://spacenews.com/moon-impact-chinese-rocket-stage-still-in-space-says-u-s-space-command/">US Space Command pushed back on that assertion</a>, saying that the probe's spent upper stage never re-entered our atmosphere, which would mean it was out there floating somewhere near-ish to our planet (or, as it turns out, our Moon).
Not only did the latest study find with a high degree of confidence that the debris that hit the Moon in March 2022 was almost certainly from the Long March 3C rocket, but the researchers also concluded that the strange double crater it left behind indicates that it was carrying something else.
However, what that second object could be is still a matter of guesswork, it seems.
Specifically, the researchers' observations of the Chinese rocket suggested that there was something heavy attached to it that made it tumble in space before its crash landing — which isn't how these kinds of objects would normally act in these situations.
"Something that's been in space as long as this is subjected to forces from the Earth's and the Moon's gravity and the light from the Sun," UA aerospace doctoral student Tanner Campbell said in a <a href="https://news.arizona.edu/story/tracking-errant-space-rocket-mysterious-crater-moon">school press release about the research</a>. "So you would expect it to wobble a little bit, particularly when you consider that the rocket body is a big empty shell with a heavy engine on one side. But this was just tumbling end-over-end, in a very stable way."
Whatever was attached to the obliterated rocket, it seems to have been big enough to counterbalance its two 1,200-pound engines and make it tumble like a kid in gymnastics class. But after looking at the booster's known payloads, the AU team determined an object of a suitable mass was mysteriously missing from the list.
"Obviously, we have no idea what it might have been — perhaps some extra support structure, or additional instrumentation, or something else," Campbell said. "We probably won't ever know."
More on China: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinas-doubling-size-space-station">China's Doubling the Size of Its Space Station</a>

Moon Mystery

Mysterious.

Chinese Spacecraft That Smashed Into Moon Was Carrying Something Mysterious, Scientists Say

What role should text-generating large language models (LLMs) have in the scientific research process? According to a team of Oxford scientists, the answer — at least for now — is: pretty much none.
In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01744-0">new essay</a>, researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute argue that scientists should abstain from using LLM-powered tools like chatbots to assist in scientific research on the grounds that AI's penchant for hallucinating and fabricating facts, combined with the human tendency to anthropomorphize the human-mimicking word engines, could lead to larger information breakdowns — a fate that could ultimately threaten the fabric of science itself.
"Our tendency to anthropomorphize machines and trust models as human-like truth-tellers, consuming and spreading the bad information that they produce in the process," the researchers write in the essay, which was published this week in the journal Nature Human Behavior, "is uniquely worrying for the future of science."
The scientists' argument hinges on the reality that LLMs and the many bots that the technology powers aren't primarily designed to be truthful. As they write in the essay, sounding truthful is but "one element by which the usefulness of these systems is measured." Characteristics including "helpfulness, harmlessness, technical efficiency, profitability, [and] customer adoption" matter, too.
"LLMs are designed to produce helpful and convincing responses," they continue, "without any overriding guarantees regarding their accuracy or alignment with fact."
Put simply, if a large language model — which, above all else, <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-ai-superhuman-persuasion">is taught to be </a><a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-ai-superhuman-persuasion">convincing</a> — comes up with an answer that's persuasive but not necessarily factual, the fact that the output is persuasive will override its inaccuracy. In an AI's proverbial brain, simply saying "I don't know" is less helpful than providing an incorrect response.
But as the Oxford researchers lay out, AI's hallucination problem is only half the problem. The <a href="https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/eliza-effect">Eliza Effect</a>, or the human tendency to <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-isnt-sentient-morons">read way too far into human-sounding AI outputs</a> due to our deeply mortal proclivity to anthropomorphize everything around us, is a well-documented phenomenon. Because of this effect, we're already primed to put a little too much trust in AI; couple that with the confident tone these chatbots so often take, and you have a perfect recipe for misinformation. After all, when a human gives us a perfectly bottled, expert-sounding paraphrasing in response to a query, we're probably less inclined to use the same <a href="https://futurism.com/lawyer-fired-using-chatgpt-keep-using-ai-tools">critical thinking</a> in our fact-checking as we might when we're doing our own research.
Importantly, the scientists do note "zero-shot translation" as a scenario in which AI outputs might be a bit more reliable. This, as Oxford professor and AI ethicist Brent Mittelstadt <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/11/20/unreliable-research-assistant-false-outputs-from-ai-chatbots-pose-risk-to-science-report-s">told EuroNews</a>, refers to when a model is given "a set of inputs that contain some reliable information or data, plus some request to do something with that data."
"It's called zero-shot translation because the model has not been trained specifically to deal with that type of prompt," Mittelstadt added. So, in other words, a model is more or less rearranging and parsing through a very limited, trustworthy dataset, and not being used as a vast, internet-like knowledge center. But that would certainly limit its use cases, and would demand a more specialized understanding of AI tech — much different from just loading up ChatGPT and firing off some research questions.
And elsewhere, the researchers argue, there's an ideological battle at the core of this automation debate. After all, science is a deeply human pursuit. To outsource too much of the scientific process to automated AI labor, the Oxforders say, could undermine that deep-rooted humanity. And is that something we can really afford to lose?
"Do we actually want to reduce opportunities for writing, thinking critically, creating new ideas and hypotheses, grappling with the intricacies of theory and combining knowledge in creative and unprecedented ways?" the researchers write. "These are the inherently valuable hallmarks of curiosity-driven science."
"They are not something that should be cheaply delegated to incredibly impressive machines," they continue, "that remain incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction."
<div>
<div class="c-article-section">More on people using AI tools where they definitely shouldn't: <a href="https://futurism.com/lawyer-fired-using-chatgpt-keep-using-ai-tools">Lawyer Fired for Using ChatGPT Says He Will Keep Using AI Tools</a></div>
</div>

Bad Research Assistant

"Our tendency to anthropomorphize machines and trust models as human-like truth-tellers — consuming and spreading the bad information that they produce in the process — is uniquely worrying for the future of science."

Scientists Warn That AI Threatens Science Itself

Even before advertisers began jumping ship over <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-anti-jewish-tweet">Elon Musk's antisemitic shenanigans</a>, the site had been in deep doo-doo — and now, it's hard to see how he plans to pull the site up by its bootstraps this time.
As <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/20/advertiser-exodus-expected-to-deeply-impact-x-ad-revenue-analysis-indicates/">TechCrunch reports</a>, an October analysis from the market research firm Insider Intelligence found that X-formerly-Twitter was already barrelling towards a more than 50 percent decline in ad sales compared to the previous year. Those numbers were notably drawn up before Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299">decided to agree</a> with another user spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories, leading to the most recent <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/apple-drops-twitter-elon-antisemitism">advertiser exodus</a>.
In other words, the situation may be even worse for Twitter now, with analysts predicting the company's decline in ad sales could be even more significant.
While things clearly <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/twitter-elon-musk-value-halves">weren't going great beforehand</a>, the fallout from the brash billionaire's bigotry has been shockingly swift and severe.
After the inciting tweet, the media watchdog Media Matters for America (which, full disclosure, used to employ this writer) published an exposé about ads for huge companies like Microsoft and IBM <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle">running adjacent to explicit white supremacist content</a> on X.
The watchdog's report, in turn, led to many of these big-name advertisers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html">pausing their ad spend on X</a> — and to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/20/musk-sues-media-matters-advertising-exodus-00128206">Musk making good on his promise to sue MMFA</a> for, as he alleges, manipulating the images that show the aforementioned ads next to Nazi posts.
Beyond the immediate drama, however, this arguably deserved kerfuffle is exposing what was once a crack in the dam of X's advertiser exodus that may soon become a full-on flood.
"The damage to X’s ad business will be severe," Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg told TechCrunch. "A big-name advertiser exodus will inspire other advertisers to follow suit, and there is already likely a long tail of less vocal advertisers that have pulled spending."
Indeed, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698755938541330907?s=20">Musk himself admitted</a> just a few months ago that the company's advertising revenue was down about 60 percent year-over-year from 2022. Characteristically, he blamed the decline on the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit extremism watchdog that he also, coincidentally, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-threatens-to-sue-anti-defamation-league-x-twitter-anti-semitism/">threatened to sue</a>.
In the aftermath of Musk's shocking faux pas, things have gotten so bad at the site formerly known as Twitter that CEO Linda Yaccarino has been calling on employees to pull new revenue streams out of thin air while privately <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/twitter-ceo-colleagues-urge-resignation">fielding texts from concerned colleagues</a> begging her to save herself while she still can.
There have, of course, been mass advertiser exits elsewhere before — but this time is, by all indications, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/18/twitter-x-boycott-apple-ibm-advertisers">substantially different</a> given Musk's own actions.
"Advertisers are accustomed to dealing with brand safety concerns on social media, particularly during periods of political and social tension or war," Enberg said. "But they’re not accustomed to a platform’s owner amplifying misinformation and hate speech, and emboldening conspiracy theorists."
More on Twitter: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rabbis-antisemitism">Rabbis Warn That Elon Musk Is Spreading the Type of Antisemitism "That Leads to Massacres"</a>

Trouble Finds Me

Elon Musk's really stepped in it this time. 

Twitter Is in Extremely Deep Trouble

Everyone's still <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/reason-openai-fired-sam-altman">scrambling to find a plausible explanation</a> as to why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was suddenly fired from his position last Friday, a decision that has led to <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-employees-say-firms-chief-scientist-has-been-making-strange-spiritual-claims">absolute carnage</a> at the company and beyond.
Beyond some <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-leaving-openai">vague language</a> accusing him of not being "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities," the company's nonprofit board has stayed frustratingly quiet as to why it sacked Altman.
And at the time of writing, the company's future is still in the air, with the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ponders-crush-staff-revolt">vast majority of employees</a> ready to quit unless Altman is reinstated.
While we await more clarity on that front, it's worth looking back at the possible reasoning behind Altman's ousting. One particularly provocative possibility: there's been plenty of feverish speculation surrounding Altman's role in the company's efforts to realize a beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) — its stated number one goal since it was founded in 2015 — and how that may have led to his dismissal.
Was the board cutting Altman out to rescue humanity from impending doom, in other words? It sounds very scifi, but then again so does the whole company.
Making matters even hazier is that we <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-agi-explained/">still haven't fully agreed</a> on a single definition of AGI, a term that roughly equates to a point at which an AI can conduct intellectual tasks on a level with us humans.
OpenAI's <a href="https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond">own definition</a> states that AGI is a "system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work," but that doesn't quite capture the way some of OpenAI's own leaders are talking about the notion. Just last week, days before he was ousted, Altman himself described AGI as a "magic intelligence in the sky" during an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/dd9ba2f6-f509-42f0-8e97-4271c7b84ded">interview with the Financial Times</a>, invoking a <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-imply-openai-building-god">borderline God-like entity</a> — language <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-employees-say-firms-chief-scientist-has-been-making-strange-spiritual-claims">echoed by the company's chief scientist Ilya Sutskever</a>, who was instrumental in kicking Altman out of OpenAI.
But how close is OpenAI really to achieving that goal? Some have speculated that OpenAI's board rushed to dump the former CEO because he was acting recklessly and didn't sufficiently consider the risks of developing an AGI.
That line of reasoning could suggest the company may be closer than it's letting on, especially considering the apparent urgency surrounding Altman's firing (even major investor Microsoft was blindsided).
However, telling with any degree of certainty when we've actually come to the point where an AI algorithm is better at completing a given task than a human is far trickier than it sounds.
Some researchers have <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.02462.pdf">offered up possible frameworks</a> to gauge if any given algorithm has achieved levels of AGI performance, but other experts argue it's a transition that won't simply happen overnight.
Earlier this year, Microsoft researchers <a href="https://futurism.com/gpt-4-sparks-of-agi">claimed</a> that OpenAI's GPT-4 is showing "sparks" of an AGI, comments that were <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2365864-is-gpt-4-already-showing-signs-of-artificial-general-intelligence/">quickly criticized</a> by their peers.
After Altman <a href="https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond">published a blog post</a> about the topic in February, fleshing out his company's goal of creating an AGI that "benefits all of humanity," experts were <a href="https://futurism.com/experts-slam-openais-meaningless-new-promises-about-agi">left unimpressed</a>.
"The term AGI is so loaded, it's misleading to toss it around as though it's a real thing with real meaning," Bentley University mathematics professor Noah Giansiracusa argued in a <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://twitter.com/ProfNoahGian/status/1630501440010563585">tweet</a> at the time. "It's not a scientific concept, it's a sci-fi marketing ploy."
"Your system isn't AGI, it isn't a step towards AGI, and yet you're dropping that in as if the reader is just supposed to nod along," <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://twitter.com/emilymbender/status/1629710965737656321?s=20">added</a> University of Washington linguistics professor Emily Bender.
In short, we still don't know how close OpenAI is to realizing its goal, and given what we've seen so far — heck, GPT-4 can't even <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-warned-microsoft">reliably tell truth from fiction</a> — it's likely going to take a lot more research to get there.
Under Altman's leadership, OpenAI's own core priorities have notably shifted. Last month, <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/10/12/2023/openai-quietly-changed-its-core-values">Semafor reported</a> that the firm changed its purported "core values" on its website to focus them on AGI, swapping values on a job openings page from "Audacious," "Thoughtful," "Unpretentious," and "Impact-driven" to "AGI focus" — the first on the list — "Intense and scrappy," "Scale," and "Team spirit."
The timing of Altman's firing could also offer clues. Early last week, the company proudly announced a new, more efficient version of its large language model called GPT-4 Turbo, as well as tools that allow users to create their own chatbots using its tech.
It's still technically possible Altman's moves to capitalize on the company's financial successes, most notably ChatGPT, may have instilled fear among OpenAI's board. The announcements last week triggered a frenzy, with OpenAI being forced to temporarily pause new sign-ups to its paid ChatGPT Plus service due to "<a href="https://tech.co/news/openai-stops-new-chatgpt-plus-subscriptions">overwhelming demand</a>."
For now, we're reading tea leaves left by a deeply weird group of people.
Considering OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever almost immediately regretted his central role in the board's move to discharge Altman, it's likely that the situation is far more complex than the company is letting on.
"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions," he <a href="https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028?s=20">tweeted</a>. "I never intended to harm OpenAI."
"Why did you take such a drastic action?" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who cofounded OpenAI alongside Altman but left the company in 2018 over core disagreements and has since <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-existential-angst-ai">rung the alarm bells</a> over the tech, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1726753202786173249?s=20">replied</a>.
"If OpenAI is doing something potentially dangerous to humanity, the world needs to know," he added.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-employees-say-firms-chief-scientist-has-been-making-strange-spiritual-claims">OpenAI Employees Say Firm's Chief Scientist Has Been Making Strange Spiritual Claims</a>

Magic Intelligence in the Sky

"If OpenAI is doing something potentially dangerous to humanity, the world needs to know."

Is OpenAI Melting Down Because It Secretly Created Something Really Scary?

Why does it feel like everybody at OpenAI has lost their mind?
In what's arguably turning into the hottest AI story of the year, former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-leaving-openai">was ousted</a> by the rest of the company's nonprofit board on Friday, leading to a seemingly endless drama cycle that's included hundreds of staffers <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-staffers-demand-altman-reinstated">threatening to quit en masse</a> if the board doesn't reinstate him.
A key character in the spectacle has been OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever — who, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/">according to The Atlantic</a>, likes to burn effigies and lead ritualistic chants at the company — and appears to have been one of the main drivers behind Altman's ousting.
But clearly, he almost immediately regretted his decision in a bizarre attempt to save face just days later.
"I never intended to harm OpenAI," he <a href="https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1726590052392956028?s=20">tweeted</a> Monday morning, not long after Microsoft, which owns a 49 percent stake in the company, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-hires-sam-altman">offered Altman a CEO position</a>. "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions."
The entire situation is baffling. OpenAI, which is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/09/26/openai-could-reach-massive-90-billion-valuation-with-new-share-sales-report-says/?sh=4039b11d55c2">quickly approaching</a> a $90 billion valuation, has been thrown into a deepening crisis by its overarching non-profit arm.
In the meantime, we're getting a closer than ever peek at what makes OpenAI's power players tick. Case in point, Sutskever has established himself as an esoteric  "spiritual leader" at the company, per The Atlantic, cheering on the company's efforts to realize artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hazy and ill-defined state when AI models have become as or more capable than humans — or maybe, according to some, <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-imply-openai-building-god">even godlike</a>. (His frenemy Altman has long championed attaining AGI as OpenAI's number one goal, despite warning about the possibility of an evil AI outsmarting humans and taking over the world <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/reddit-cofounder-mocks-elon-musks-ai-warnings">for</a> <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/mark-zuckerberg-responds-to-elon-musks-warnings-about-ai">many years</a>.)
Still, the Atlantic's new details are bizarre, even by the standards of tech industry wackadoos.
"Feel the AGI! Feel the AGI!" employees reportedly chanted, per The Atlantic, a refrain that was led by Sutskever himself.
The chief scientist even commissioned a wooden effigy to represent an "unaligned" AI that works against the interest of humanity, only to set it on fire.
In short, instead of focusing on meaningfully advancing AI tech in a scientifically sound way, some board members sound like they're engaging in weird spiritual claims.
Sutskever's strange behavior may also help explain at least some of this weekend's chaos.
At the time of writing, we still don't know <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23969586/sam-altman-plotting-return-open-ai-microsoft">exactly where OpenAI and Microsoft stand</a>. In a Monday afternoon <a href="https://twitter.com/sama/status/1726686611260494238">tweet</a>, Altman argued that "Satya and my top priority remains to ensure OpenAI continues to thrive," referring to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, a vague statement that can be interpreted in several different ways.
For now, we can only sit and watch as the chaos unfurls. Given the rollercoaster over the last couple of days, it's more than likely we'll see a shuffle of OpenAI's non-profit board — if the company even lives to tell the tale, that is.
There's a good chance that the board members who united to boot Altman last week drank just a little too much of the AGI Koolaid and got spooked by the possibility that humanity was hurtling toward the singularity (or heck, maybe they were right to think that!)
Or was it just plain-old locker room hostility and internal rivalries, with colleagues failing to see eye to eye?
It's a perplexing  and riveting story that seemingly has even more twists and turns than HBO's hit TV drama "Succession."
And we're here for it.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-staffers-demand-altman-reinstated">700 OpenAI Staffers Demand Board Reinstate Sam Altman</a>

AI Shamanism

"Feel the AGI! Feel the AGI!"

OpenAI Employees Say Firm's Chief Scientist Has Been Making Strange Spiritual Claims

We're still reeling from the just-breaking news that OpenAI's enigmatic CEO and figurehead Sam Altman has been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-leaving-openai">sacked by the company's board of directors</a>. And make no mistake that we're still intensely curious what went down behind the scenes that led the company to part with Altman during the exact moment when its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/gpt-5-openai-ceo">ascendant tech</a> is <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-plus-signups-halted">driving the nascent AI industry</a>. But as the dust settles, there's another looming question: what's the deal with Mira Murati, the company's interim CEO who's stepping in to lead immediately?
One thing's for sure: she's no lightweight. Here's what <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90855799/6-things-to-know-about-openais-mira-murati-the-most-interesting-person-in-tech-right-now">Fast Company had to say</a> earlier this year:
ChatGPT and Dall-E might get the lion’s share of the spotlight, but Mira Murati may be the real star of OpenAI.
The story goes on to note that Murati, originally from Albania, is a Tesla veteran who led development of the Model X after starting at the company in 2013 — a potentially dramatic detail, because Tesla boss Elon Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI alongside Altman before <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-quits-research-group">flaming out with its leadership</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-horrified-openai">publicly turning on the venture</a>.
Murati's time at Tesla, the story goes on, was where she first became interested in AI, since that's the era when the company was first dabbling in its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-furious-autopilot-tried-kill-him">now-controversial Autopilot feature</a> and making its <a href="https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/excessive-automation-at-tesla-was-a-mistake-elon-musk-story-znM4IMcCe9996BnXAblLJL.html">eventually-troubled inroads</a> toward factory automation as well.
Her resume's not entirely star-studded, though. After Tesla, in 2016 she ended up at Leap Motion, the once-buzzy hand tracking startup that, although it had a great tech demo, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-flops-tech-science-culture-apple-google-data-kickstarter-2010-2019">never really went anywhere</a>.
And in 2018 she landed at OpenAI, according to Fast Company, where she oversaw the "rollouts of Dall-E and ChatGPT."
As with anyone in the AI space, Murati has had to confront the tech's tumultuous current and future impacts on everything from the job market to the education system — and all the discourse and pressure that goes along it. Like her predecessor Altman, she doesn't always mince words, making it clear that her vision of AI is one with far-reaching effects in the work force and beyond.
"As with other revolutions that we’ve gone through, there will be new jobs and some jobs will be lost," Murati told The Daily Show's then-host Trevor Noah last year, "but I’m optimistic."
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mira Murati - DALL·E 2 and the Power of AI | The Daily Show" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ba_C-C6UwlI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Though this role will expose her to new pressures, she's clearly a seasoned communicator for the tech who's charmed the media in the past.
"Somehow, Mira Murati can forthrightly discuss the dangers of AI while making you feel like it’s all going to be OK," Time Magazine wrote early this year.
Sometimes, though, she can sound like she's talking in circles about the importance of a deliberate conversation even as the company continues rolling out waves of disruptive new tech.
"This is a unique moment in time where we do have agency in how it shapes society," she told Time in the same interview. "And it goes both ways: the technology shapes us and we shape it. There are a lot of hard problems to figure out. How do you get the model to do the thing that you want it to do, and how you make sure it’s aligned with human intention and ultimately in service of humanity? There are also a ton of questions around societal impact, and there are a lot of ethical and philosophical questions that we need to consider. And it’s important that we bring in different voices, like philosophers, social scientists, artists, and people from the humanities."
She's also not opposed to regulation of the tech, she's said — though it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in practice, because Altman had a tendency to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/technology/openai-altman-artificial-intelligence-regulation.html">express support for regulation in the abstract</a> while getting salty when authorities <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-not-happy-ftc-chatgpt-investigation">actually stepped in</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-eu-sam-altman">regulate</a>.
"It’s important for OpenAI and companies like ours to bring this into the public consciousness in a way that’s controlled and responsible," she told Time. "But we’re a small group of people and we need a ton more input in this system and a lot more input that goes beyond the technologies — definitely regulators and governments and everyone else."
And where does she fall on the thorny question of defining artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a hypothetical form of future AI that'll either be <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-deepmind-agi">around a human level of cleverness</a> or <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-close-are-we-to-ai-that-surpasses-human-intelligence/">superintelligent</a>, depending who you ask?
"By artificial general intelligence, we usually mean highly autonomous systems that are capable of producing economic output, significant economic output," she <a href="https://apnews.com/article/openai-cto-mira-murati-chatgpt-gpt4-dalle-0e701dd406b4a1a2d625e779de0c5164">told the Associated Press</a> back in April. "In other words, systems that can generalize across different domains. It’s human-level capability. OpenAI’s specific vision around it is to build it safely and figure out how to build it in a way that’s aligned with human intentions, so that the AI systems are doing the things that we want them to do, and that it maximally benefits as many people out there as possible, ideally everyone."
Fair enough. And what are her thoughts on OpenAI's transition from non-profit to for-profit? (For those keeping score, that's one of OpenAI's moves that <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/elon-musk-criticizes-openai-for-profit-after-investment">incensed Musk</a>, who's now <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musks-new-chatbot-ai-vulgar">building his own for-profit AI</a> over at a company he's dubbed xAI.)
"When I joined OpenAI, it was a nonprofit," she told the AP in the same interview. "I thought this was the most important technology that we will ever build as humanity and I really felt like a company with OpenAI’s mission would be most likely to make sure that it goes well. Over time, we changed our structure because these systems are expensive. They require a lot of funding.
"We made sure to structure the incentives in such a way that we would still serve the nonprofit mission," she continued. "That’s why we have a 'capped profit' structure. People at OpenAI are intrinsically motivated and mission-aligned and that hasn’t changed from the beginning. But over the course of five years, our thinking has evolved a lot when it comes to what’s the best way to deploy, what’s the safest way. That’s probably the starkest difference. I think it’s a good change."
We'll likely be hearing a lot more about Murati in her high-profile new role — and if you know anything, please shoot us an email at <a href="mailto:tips@futurism.com">tips@futurism.com</a>.
One more detail from that Time piece, by the way: one of Murati's favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," in which a murderous AI turns on the crew of a spacecraft far from Earth, attempting to kill them all.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-plus-signups-halted">ChatGPT Is So Slammed That It's Closing Down to New Users</a>

New Boss

Here's what we know.

What Do We Know About OpenAI's New CEO, Mira Murati?

More than 150 Jewish leaders have signed a <a href="https://www.xouthate.org/">renewed call</a> for companies to cease advertising on the Elon Musk-owned X-formerly-Twitter, warning that Musk is now openly supporting antisemitic rhetoric they say is specifically linked to violent extremism.
"Elon Musk is spreading the kind of antisemitism that leads to massacres," reads the decree, which was signed by 164 "rabbis, leaders of Jewish organizations, artists, activists, and academics." "And advertisers are funding the platform that allows him to spread his ideology to hundreds of millions [of] people."
The re-upped appeal from the Jewish community follows a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-anti-jewish-tweet">disturbing incident</a> in which Musk outright called a deeply antisemitic tweet espousing the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/a-deadly-ideology-how-the-great-replacement-theory-went-mainstream">ridiculously bogus</a> "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory the "<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299">actual truth</a>." And by funding X — the platform that Musk doesn't only own, but is using to spread his fringe rhetoric — the leaders say advertisers including Apple, Google, and Disney are complicit, too.
Indeed, when you look at the history of this hare-brained ideology and its connection with violent white supremacy, the pattern is as clear as it is troubling. In 2017, when white supremacists marched on Charlottesville with their hands in Nazi salutes, they shouted "Jews will not replace us." The next year, in 2018, a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/us/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-trial-sentencing-deliberations/index.html">shooter motivated by the conspiracy</a> killed 11 people at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue. Shortly thereafter, in 2019, the theory was <a href="https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/poway-synagogue-shooter-to-be-sentenced-in-state-court/2731560/">linked to yet another shooter</a> who murdered a worshipper and injured three others at a California synagogue.
The theory doesn't just target Jewish people, either. The popular alt-right conspiracy, which is often embedded into <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/fox-s-tucker-carlson-s-biggest-racist-conspiracy-theory-n1295212">right-wing anti-immigration platforms</a>, is used by extremists to justify anti-Black, anti-Latino, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence as well. Last year, in Buffalo, New York, the gunman who killed 13 people at a supermarket in a famously Black neighborhood <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/buffalo-shooters-manifesto-promotes-great-replacement-theory-antisemitism-and-previous-mass-shooters">espoused the Great Replacement in his manifesto</a>; in 2019, the shooter who perpetrated a deadly attack on a Muslim mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/06/christchurch-endures-extremist-touchstone-investigators-probe-suspected-el-paso-manifesto/">called upon the theory</a> in his own writing.
Make no mistake: the claim that Musk is supporting deadly ideology is no exaggeration. It's a throughline in white supremacist violence — and now, on a massive social media stage that he now owns, the world's richest man is embracing that blood-soaked theory in broad daylight.
Musk did try to save some face, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724932619203420203">claiming</a> without evidence that he was referring only to what perceives as the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) — the antisemitism-battling organization that Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-anti-semitism-adl">repeatedly blamed</a> for X's dropping advertisers — repeated "attacks on the majority of the West." (If you're thinking "that doesn't make any sense, Elon" you're correct: it doesn't.)
"This does not extend to all Jewish communities," Musk, in a voice that we can only imagine was heavily muffled by the very large antisemitic foot in his mouth, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1724933980276084909">continued</a> in the cursed X thread, "but it is also not just limited to ADL."
Despite his backtracking, though, it seems that at least some damage has already been done. As <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/17/x-elon-musk-ibm-amazon-apple-ads-antisemitic">Axios reports</a>, following a report revealing that its ads had been placed next to pro-Nazi posts, IBM on Thursday announced that it would pull its advertisements off of the platform.
X, per Axios, has since issued assurances that "the X system is not intentionally placing a brand actively next to this type of content, nor is a brand actively trying to support this type of content with an ad placement." The fact remains, though: when you allow a platform to disintegrate into an <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-melts-down-advertisers-twitter-chaos">unmoderated cesspool</a>, it's impossible to guarantee advertisers that they, too, won't end up covered in filth.
Meanwhile, a <a href="https://twitter.com/lindayaX/status/1725253849953276304?s=20">distinctly empty-tasting tweet</a> from the platform's beleaguered Girlboss in Chief, Linda Yaccarino, assured weary advertisers that X is "extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination" and that "there's no place for it anywhere in the world — it's ugly and wrong. Full stop."
"You should tell your boss," <a href="https://twitter.com/TravisAllen02/status/1725261262341149155">one X user responded</a>.
More on Elon and antisemitism: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-anti-jewish-tweet">Elon Musk Calls Disgusting Anti-Jewish Tweet the "Actual Truth"</a>