Instagram: it's where people go to get their daily dose of memes and thirst traps, having long given up on it as a way of actually interacting with other human beings. But the vibes spectacularly blew up in everyone's faces this week, when a change to the platform left users chilled to the bone.
On Wednesday, Meta issued an apology for an "error" that led to many Instagram feeds suddenly being flooded with gore, animal abuse, dead bodies, and videos of real-life murders — triggering an outpouring of shocked complaints online.
"We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended," a Meta spokesperson <a href="https://www.404media.co/instagram-error-turned-reels-into-neverending-scroll-of-murder-gore-and-violence/">told 404 Media</a> in a statement. "We apologize for the mistake."
Although Meta recently announced that it would be <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">loosening some of its content moderation policies</a>, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company insisted that the error was unrelated, according to 404.
The sheer number of complaints suggests that the hapless "error" was widespread. 
"Instagram is now 100% gore," reads the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/1iylu83/instagram_is_now_100_gore/">top voted post</a> this month in the r/Instagram subreddit. 
The comments on the gruesome videos being shown, 404 found, were filled with complaints from baffled users who didn't understand why the content was intruding into their feeds.
"I had never seen someone being eaten by a shark, followed by someone getting killed by a car crash, followed by someone getting shot," a 404 reader, whose feed was "typically dogs and bikes," told the website.
Here's some of what 404 found after being allowed access to the reader's account: a video of an elephant "flattening a man" after repeatedly stomping on him; a video showing a motorcyclist going up to a pedestrian and shooting them in the head; and multiple videos from an account called "PeopleDeadDaily." You get the grisly picture.
In light of that, it's easy to understand why some users found the experience virtually traumatizing.
"I feel like I lost some humanity today when I exposed myself to seeing so many of those types of videos," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/1iz93k8/guys_i_cant_litterally_sleep/?ref=404media.co">wrote one user</a> on Reddit. "I can't sleep when my mind replays those videos."
Instagram and Facebook have long been inundated with horrific content — to such an extent that their moderators, who are often low-paid overseas contractors, <a href="https://futurism.com/facebook-content-moderators-sue-ptsd">have sued Meta</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/18/kenya-facebook-moderators-sue-after-diagnoses-of-severe-ptsd">developing PTSD on the job</a>. 
It's striking, however, to see it all bubble to the surface so quickly. It's also an unnerving reminder of just how much these social media companies dictate what we see and feel — and how that fragile balance can easily be upset.
More on social media: <a href="https://futurism.com/pinterest-ai-slop">Pinterest Is Being Strangled by AI Slop</a>

Gore Parade

Whoops! Sorry for the trauma!

Instagram Apologizes for Showing Stream of Horrific Real-Life Murders in Users' Feeds

Aggressive BMW drivers rejoice: you're no longer the most hated motorists on the road.
That mantle has roundly passed to the class of consumers unfortunate enough to have a Tesla parked in their driveway — though it has less to do with the car itself and more to do with the company's owner, who's undertaken a near-total public makeover from a milquetoast environmental figurehead to a boorish bully who epitomizes Americans' growing disgust with oligarchy.
What's to be said about Elon Musk that hasn't already been said? He's the richest man in the <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/skd47dlxyl">history of currency</a>, raised by a <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/11/elon_musk_was_raised_under_racist">blood emerald magnate</a> in apartheid South Africa who used <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/elon-musk-business-government-contracts-funding/">taxpayer funds</a> to create <a href="https://thepointmag.com/criticism/very-ordinary-men/">hugely successful corporations</a>, then became the Trump administration's unelected hatchet man in charge of slamming the door in the face of the next generation.
Since seizing power, he's decimated the federal government's ability to provide for its citizens, haphazardly slashing <a href="https://futurism.com/faa-fires-hundreds-elon-musk">crucial positions</a> while positioning himself to secure <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-faa-spacex-contract">huge government contracts</a> at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/16/elon-musk-doge-government-privatization">substantial benefit</a> to his portfolio. And that's without getting into his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musks-grok-salute">Nazi salutes</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">Holocaust jokes</a>.
Feeling frustrated and powerless, Americans are turning to consumer activism as the levers of power give way to a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-musk-robber-barons">new class</a> of robber barons.
In the past weeks, dozens of <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91280513/tesla-takedown-protesters-say-theyre-just-getting-started-protesting-doge-at-dealerships">Tesla dealerships</a> across the country have been picketed by federal workers and Musk-objectors. Tesla stores in <a href="https://www.salemreporter.com/2025/02/19/gunshots-fired-into-windows-of-salem-tesla-dealership-police-say/">Oregon</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/tesla-dealership-cybertrucks-spray-painted-loveland-colorado-police-investigate-vandalism/">Colorado</a> have also been vandalized with spraypaint, guns, and molotov cocktails.
Tesla's chargers are likewise being <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-file-charges-against-supercharger-vandals/">marked with graffiti</a>, while the company's infamous Cybertrucks are being <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/culture/egged-cybertruck-brooklyn/">egged</a> and <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-tech/vandals-florida-spray-paint-fleet-tesla-cybertrucks-f-elon">defaced</a> everywhere they go. A few weeks ago, a group of student activists in California <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-owners-threats-vandalized">announced a campaign</a> threatening Tesla owners with property damage. Their sales pitch? Sell your car now, before it's <a href="https://www.carscoops.com/2025/02/anti-nazi-group-vows-to-inflict-physical-damage-on-teslas-starting-today/">too late</a>.
Meanwhile across the pond, guerilla activists in London have started a "<a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-stocks-elon-musk-swasticar">swasticar" campaign</a>, plastering up posters likening Musk to Adolf Hitler and garnering millions of views on social media. That comes as broader anti-Musk protests <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250125-tens-of-thousands-protest-germany-s-far-right-as-musk-backs-afd">gain momentum</a> across Europe, sending <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/27/tesla-sales-drop-in-europe/">Tesla sales</a> into a nosedive.
Though these efforts aren't coordinated, their combined pressure is <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tesla-drivers-are-over-elon-musk_l_67b8d982e4b075fafcec2db5">having an effect</a>, shaming Tesla owners and rallying <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-owners-ditching-cars-protest-elon-musk-2031923">would-be Tesla buyers</a> to look elsewhere. Drivers around the world are <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/747944/tesla-owners-musk-survey-netherlands/">selling off their EVs</a> en masse, flooding social media to vent their frustrations.
"I'm getting rid of my Tesla," wrote <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/1iz1ha1/im_getting_rid_of_my_tesla/">one Reddit user</a>. "In the last three weeks I've had two people give me a Nazi salute and one yell 'heil Hitler'... They were simply shaming me. It worked."
"I'm just a little embarrassed to be driving it at this point," <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/tesla-owners-sour-on-musk-s-venture-into-us-politics-3f7c841d">one driver told Agence France-Presse</a> of his beaming red Tesla, adding that he swore never to buy from the EV company again.
All told, it's shaping up to be a nightmare for investors as the EV giant's stock price sank for the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-investors-furious-stock-plunge-182615418.html">six straight day</a> in a row, for a total decline of nearly 30 percent over the past month.
As backlash against Musk heats up, there's no telling how low Tesla's floor could be.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-gutting-nhtsa-tesla">Elon Musk Is Flagrantly Gutting an Agency in Charge of Regulating Tesla</a>

Brand Damage

"They were simply shaming me. It worked."

Tesla Drivers Overcome With Shame by Protesters

The first metal thingamajig ever 3D printed in space has landed on Earth, where European Space Agency (ESA) scientists are now studying it.
In a <a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/02/Metal_made_in_space_lands_on_Earth">press release</a>, the ESA announced that the object — a round metal demonstration part, produced on the International Space Station, that features a variety of stubby cylindrical objects — is now safely in the hands of agency scientists in the Netherlands.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🤘 Space metal lands on Earth 🌍 The first ever metal part 3D-printed on orbit is here 🛰️🔧 Made on the <a href="https://twitter.com/Space_Station?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Space_Station</a> in <a href="https://twitter.com/esa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@esa</a>’s Metal 3D Printer - built by <a href="https://twitter.com/AirbusSpace?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AirbusSpace</a> &amp; installed by <a href="https://twitter.com/Astro_Andreas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Astro_Andreas</a> during <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Huginn?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Huginn</a> - it has arrived at <a href="https://twitter.com/esa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@esa</a>’s site in the Netherlands for testing… <a href="https://t.co/mXUXRQASEu">pic.twitter.com/mXUXRQASEu</a>
&mdash; Human Spaceflight (@esaspaceflight) <a href="https://twitter.com/esaspaceflight/status/1895030816104947878?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At the ESA's European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC), scientists will soon conduct quality analysis experiments to see what differences show up in objects manufactured in zero-gravity environments. A second, similarly 3D-printed object will be brought back to Earth and handed over to the Technical University of Denmark.
Just over a year ago, ESA astronaut <a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/05/Andreas_installed_Metal_3D_Printer">Andreas Mogensen successfully installed</a> the <a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/05/Andreas_installed_Metal_3D_Printer">Airbus-built</a> metal 3D printer in the Space Station's Columbus module — a feat unto itself, given that setting up complicated machinery like that is hard enough on Earth and all the more so without gravity.
Soon after, the printer proved its prowess when it printed a curly "S" shape on a flat piece of metal, followed by two full samples including the one now in the hands of ESA scientists at ESTEC.
Though this feat will inevitably help pave the way for future off-world manufacturing endeavors, this wasn't the first time an object had been 3D printed in orbit.
That distinction occurred more than a decade ago, when NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore — the same one who's <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/02/11/butch-wilmore-suni-williams-astronauts-nasa-iss/78430747007/">slated to come back down to Earth</a> in a few weeks after being stuck on the ISS for <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/astronauts-suni-williams-and-butch-wilmore-on-their-longer-than-expected-stay-in-space">10 months longer than expected</a> — installed and test-calibrated the first-ever in-orbit 3D printer.
That printer could only produce plastic objects, though, which Wilmore used to craft a faceplate for its own casing.
While we're still many moons away from building self-sufficient space habitats with objects created in situ, this test is a fascinating look into what humans can build for themselves in zero gravity — and a nice reminder that there are broader horizons beyond our Terran foibles.
More on space manufacturing: <a href="https://futurism.com/robot-large-drill-surface-moon">Robot With Large Drill Headed for Surface of Moon</a>

Prints Charming

The world has just gotten one step closer to space manufacturing. 

First Metal Object 3D-Printed in Space Recovered on Earth

Chinese robotics company Unitree has shown off its G1 humanoid robot pulling some gnarly kung fu moves.
In a <a href="https://youtu.be/iULi4-qz22I">video released this week</a>, the child-sized robot can be seen punching the air and even deliver a swooping roundhouse kick.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Kungfu BOT: Unitree G1🥳" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iULi4-qz22I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
"We have continued to upgrade the Unitree G1's algorithm, enabling it to learn and perform virtually any movement," the company wrote in the video's caption. "What other moves would you like to see. Do share with us in the comments."
"Please keep a safe distance from the robot," the company advised.
The stunt highlights how far consumer-facing humanoid robotics have come. Unlike its growing number of Western counterparts, including Tesla's Optimus and Figure's 01, Unitree's G1 is already being sold to consumers. Pricing starts at just $16,000, according to the <a href="https://www.unitree.com/g1">company's website</a>.
The robot features anywhere from 23 to 43 joint motors, depending on the configuration, allowing it to walk, hop — and evidently dabble in martial arts as well.
A <a href="https://youtu.be/eZ8BOd3ERoo">previous video</a> shared by the company shows G1 busting out some dance moves, while — we are not kidding — a human engineer tries to knock it off its feet with what appears to be a padded broom stick. A <a href="https://youtu.be/CIkdq7Zf4Zw">separate video</a> released last month shows it running down a street and briskly walking over an uneven, rocky surface.
YouTuber Sohail Khan <a href="https://youtu.be/j34pfoXzoA8">recently took the robot for a spin</a> after unpacking it from a large check-in luggage-sized hardcase. He even nudges it to demonstrate the robot's ability to right itself, and shows it lying flat on its back before instructing it to clamber back onto its feet.
Apart from bipedal robots, Unitree has also shown off two quadrupedal robot dogs called B2 and <a href="https://www.unitree.com/go2">Go2</a>. The latter can be bought for less than $2,000, a massive discount over Boston Dynamics' Spot Mini, which can cost as much as $75,000.
But when or if these robots will ever be able to defeat a human martial artist or boxer remains to be seen. Considering how easy it is to tip over a Unitree G1 — Khan had more than one hair-raising incident while testing the robot's self-balancing limits — us humans will likely have plenty of time until we'd have to worry about getting knocked out in hand-to-robot-hand combat.
More on humanoid robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-human-robot-race-marathon">China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots</a>

I Know Kung Fu

"Please keep a safe distance from the robot."

We're Apparently Living in an Anime, Because This Robot Has Learned Kung Fu

OpenAI is trying to have it both ways: <a href="https://cdn.openai.com/gpt-4-5-system-card.pdf">calling</a> GPT-4.5 its "largest and most knowledgeable model yet" while managing expectations, cautioning that it's "not a frontier model."
Why? Probably because the company knew what the public response was going to be: muted. From AI critic Gary Marcus' calling the LLM is a "<a href="https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/hot-take-gpt-45-is-a-nothing-burger">nothingburger</a>" to an anonymous <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/02/its-a-lemon-openais-largest-ai-model-ever-arrives-to-mixed-reviews/">expert who told Ars Technica</a> that the model is a "lemon," it appears that the <a href="https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/sam-altman-admits-openais-new-model-is-expensive-but-chatgpt-4-5-is-better-at-soliciting-money">amply-hyped new model</a> is seriously lacking in the type of juice that made the original ChatGPT, or its followup GPT-4, become enormous cultural and financial touchstones.
Priced at a whopping $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens, GPT-4.5 is <a href="https://x.com/michaeltefula/status/1895210946278367323">30 times more expensive</a> than GPT-4o, OpenAI's "reasoning" model — and beyond the sticker shock, it's <a href="https://x.com/simonw/status/1895211244954771931">apparently quite slow</a> and has a focus on "<a href="https://x.com/astraiaintel/status/1895480902849122721">emotional intelligence</a>" instead of more traditionally analytic tasks.
While haters will inevitably hate, and the hype around OpenAI's new models has been decreasing steadily, the sense of underwhelmingness this time is pervasive.
Marcus pointed out that GPT-4.5 still hallucinates and makes errors — and even OpenAI admitted, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1112619/openai-just-released-gpt-4-5-and-says-it-is-its-biggest-and-best-chat-model-yet/">per the MIT Technology Review</a>, that it still made stuff up 37 percent of the time in a key test. The anonymous expert who spoke to Ars, meanwhile, blasted the model's massively increased price and said its performance doesn't bear out such a markup.
Many of OpenAI's self-serving accolades for GPT-4.5 hinge on its ability to chat with sensitivity and intuitiveness — qualities that the company thinks people want, apparently.
"It has the ability to engage in warm, intuitive, natural, flowing conversations," OpenAI research scientist <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1112619/openai-just-released-gpt-4-5-and-says-it-is-its-biggest-and-best-chat-model-yet/">Mia Glease told the MIT Technology Review</a>. "And we think that it has a stronger understanding of what users mean, especially when their expectations are more implicit, leading to nuanced and thoughtful responses."
Basically, the pitch seems to be that the model has been given AI sensitivity training to help it chat with humans more naturally — leading observers online to clown on GPT-4.5 for being emotionally intelligent but not that good at its job.
"So GPT-4.5 is the model you vent to?" <a href="https://x.com/rasmickyy/status/1895205027620495562">one user quipped</a>. "I want a smart model, not a model that understands my feelings."
Indeed, OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen admitted in a recent interview that the benchmarks used to track how much the model had advanced are "<a href="https://x.com/vitrupo/status/1895261606776578318">vibes-based</a>" — a wild acknowledgment, seemingly, of the company's mentality surrounding its hot new model.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-openai-run-out-of-gpus">Sam Altman Says OpenAI Has Run Out of GPUs</a>

FlopGPT

The hype is dying.

OpenAI May Have Really Screwed Up With GPT-4.5

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-gutting-nhtsa-tesla">rampaging</a> through the US federal government at an alarming pace, leaving seemingly no stone unturned.
As <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-antarctica-science-research-china-russia/">Wired reports</a>, even scientists at the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), which operates three permanent stations on the southernmost continent, are feeling the hurt.
Over a thousand people visit these stations each year, conducting important scientific experiments, from studying climate change to peering into the earliest days of the universe with the help of the South Pole Telescope.
Scientists are now worried that the funding for their research could soon be cut off. Managers who were in charge of Antarctic projects at the National Science Foundation, which manages the USAP, were fired last week as <a href="https://fedscoop.com/radio/nsf-terminates-168-probationary-employees-amid-mass-federal-firings-federal-judge-denies-the-request-to-block-doge-and-elon-musk-from-seven-agencies-data-systems/">part of a much broader culling</a> by Musk's DOGE.
These managers serve a crucial role in keeping track of the projects' budgets, while ensuring that funding allows scientists to keep their work going.
"Without them, everything stops," one affected scientist told Wired. "I have no idea who I am supposed to report to now or what happens to submitted proposals."
The National Science Foundation as a whole is <a href="https://www.rdworldonline.com/nsf-layoffs-in-2025-deep-budget-cuts-headed-for-u-s-research-sector/">facing an up to 50 percent staff reduction</a>, a <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-science-no-longer-leads-world-here-s-how-top-advisers-say-nation-should-respond">massive hit</a> to the country's reputation as a place to conduct scientific research.
Worse yet, experts are concerned that other powerful nations, most notably Russia and China, could soon take advantage of the power vacuum and exert their influence, including in places like Antarctica.
"Presumably it would be humiliating for anyone who wishes to promote ‘America First’ to witness China offer to take over the occupation and management of the base at the heart of Antarctica," Royal Holloway University of London geopolitics professor Klaus Dodds told Wired. "China is a very determined polar power."
Besides shifting geopolitics, scientists are worried DOGE's cuts could trigger a brain drain.
"Foreign countries are actively recruiting my colleagues, and some have already left," one Antarctic scientist told Wired. "My students are looking at jobs overseas now... people have been coming [to the US] to do science my whole life. Now people are going the other way."
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/sketchy-government-buy-400-million-armored-teslas">There's Something Very Sketchy Going on With the Government Trying to Buy $400 Million in Armored Teslas</a>

Base Desires

"Without them, everything stops."

Antarctic Research Stations in Chaos

Fresh off the heels of the <a href="https://futurism.com/director-brutalist-used-ai-accents">AI-powered accent adjustments</a> in the Oscar-nominated 2024 film "The Brutalist," the French company that owns the largest call center in the world has announced that it's using similar technology to "soften" its India-based agents' accents.
As <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-27/teleperformance-uses-ai-to-neutralize-workers-indian-accents?sref=YfHlo0rL">Bloomberg reports</a>, the Paris-based outsourcing company Teleperformance — which works with clients including Apple, Samsung, and TikTok — invested $13 million earlier this year in Sanas AI, a "<a href="https://www.sanas.ai/">real-time speech understanding platform</a>" that boasts a so-called "accent translation" feature that uses machine learning to scrub the accents of overseas customer service workers.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Teleperformance deputy chief executive officer Thomas Mackenbrock said that Sanas' technology, which his employer has gained exclusive rights to through its partnership, can "neutralize the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency."
"When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand," Mackebrock said. Translating agents' accents to make them easier for native English speakers on the other end of the line "creates more intimacy, increases the customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time," he added.
"It is a win-win for both parties," the deputy CEO enthused.
Despite those sentiments, however, the markets seem to disagree.
As <a href="https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/teleperformance-projects-revenue-growth-to-accelerate-in-2025-stock-plummets-3898765">Investing.com reports</a>, Teleconference stock fell 11 percent after the company announced in an investor call earlier in the week that it was investing up to $104 million in AI technologies.
Though Teleperformance reported a consolidated revenue of $11 billion in 2024, per that call, investors seem to think the outsourcing company "missed expectations despite higher-than anticipated synergies," JPMorgan analyst Sylvia Barker wrote in a note viewed by Bloomberg.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like investors aren't impressed with that big spend on AI technology — or, perhaps, are displeased by the optics of "neutralizing" call center workers' accents.
In classic C-suite-speak, the deputy CEO spun Teleperformance's accent translation investments as a boon for human labor in the age of AI.
"AI will be ubiquitous, it is already today," Mackenbrock told Bloomberg. "But in order to build connections, customer experience, branding awareness, the human element will be incredibly important."
More on AI in the workplace: <a href="https://futurism.com/study-ai-critical-thinking">Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills</a>

Lost in Translation

Well, that's dystopian.

World's Largest Call Center Deploys AI to "Neutralize the Accent" of Indian Employees

Elon Musk has long been the linchpin of Tesla's appeal, commanding unbelievable hype that has elevated the automaker to a <a href="https://qz.com/tesla-value-market-cap-elon-musk-donald-trump-1851697794">stellar </a><a href="https://qz.com/tesla-value-market-cap-elon-musk-donald-trump-1851697794">valuation</a> while making it a household name.
But as Musk unravels amidst his active role in far-right politics, his deteriorating public image is beginning to have the opposite effect on Tesla's brand. And you don't have to look much further than his own customers.
"The pride and the good feeling I had driving in it is gone for me," Tae Helton, the owner of a Tesla Model 3 who lives near the automaker's factory in Fremont, California, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-26/a-private-equity-disaster-exposes-industry-s-fuzzy-math-for-deals?sref=YfHlo0rL">told Bloomberg</a>.
The tipping point for Helton, a political moderate, was when Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">performed a Nazi salute</a> at president Donald Trump's inauguration celebration. Before that went down, he was considering getting a second Tesla for his family. Now, Helton plans to pay off his car loan early and trade in the vehicle, per Bloomberg.
Souring sentiments like Helton's come as Tesla <a href="https://www.kbb.com/car-news/tesla-sees-worldwide-sales-slump/">sales plunge worldwide</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-absolutely-destroyed-europe">in Europe especially</a>, where he has inflamed public opinion by backing far-right factions <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">like Germany's AfD party</a>, leading to <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">protests, acts of vandalism</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-nazi-salute-german-gigafactory">political stunts decrying Musk's flirting with Nazism</a>.
In January, the number of Tesla vehicles sold in the continent nosedived by 45 percent compared to the same period last year, down to a meager 9,945 sales, according to <a href="https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations-2-6-in-january-2025-battery-electric-15-market-share/">new data</a> from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association.
The trend continues what was a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-profits-falling-off-cliff">rough year for Tesla globally in 2024</a>, in which its total automotive revenue — the money made by selling vehicles, basically — <a href="https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/IR/TSLA-Q4-2024-Update.pdf">declined by over $5 billion</a>, with its profits falling by a staggering 71 percent.
"Tesla's biggest challenge in 2025 isn't technology — it's perception," Jacob Falkencrone, global head of investment strategy at Danish bank Saxo, told Bloomberg. "Elon Musk's political baggage is now weighing on sales, brand loyalty and investor confidence."
Stateside, Musk's role in the Trump administration, ruthlessly <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-shut-down-government-payments">cutting federal spending</a> through his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-gutting-nhtsa-tesla">so-called Department of Government Efficiency</a>, has led to demonstrations and, more pervasively, countless Tesla <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">cars getting trashed by disgruntled citizens</a>.
"I couldn't handle what Elon Musk was doing anymore," San Francisco bay resident Eric Thurber, who bought a Model 3 in 2021, told Bloomberg. Thurber said he sold his car at a hefty loss following the inauguration, buying another EV, the BMW i4 sedan.
Helton, the other Model 3 owner, also turned to one of Tesla's competitors, purchasing a Hyundai Ioniq 5.
And if once enthusiastic customers are turning up their noses, you can bet that potential ones are going to start looking elsewhere, too — like one Micah Barber, a college professor in Austin who wants to make the switch to EVs, and who once admired Tesla's accomplishments. The stink of Musk, though, has proved too powerful of a deterrent.
"He's become one of the most dangerous people in our country," Barber told Bloomberg at a demonstration outside a Tesla showroom in Austin.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/sketchy-government-buy-400-million-armored-teslas">There's Something Very Sketchy Going on With the Government Trying to Buy $400 Million in Armored Teslas</a>

Love Lost

"The pride and the good feeling I had driving in it is gone for me."

Tesla Owners Now Disgusted By Elon Musk

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has unveiled the company's latest large language model, GPT-4.5.
The AI model isn't just powerful; it's <a href="https://x.com/casper_hansen_/status/1895207606471508034">extremely expensive for users</a>. OpenAI is charging a whopping $75 per million tokens, which is equivalent to the input of around 750,000 words — a staggering 30 times as much as OpenAI's preceding GPT-4o reasoning model, as <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/27/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-the-company-is-out-of-gpus/">TechCrunch reports</a>.
There's a good reason for that: the new model is so resource intensive that Altman claimed in a <a href="https://x.com/sama/status/1895203654103351462">recent tweet</a> the company has run "out of GPUs" — the graphics processing units that are conventionally used to power AI models — forcing OpenAI to stagger the its rollout.
"We will add tens of thousands of GPUs next week and roll it out to the plus tier then," he promised. "This isn't how we want to operate, but it's hard to perfectly predict growth surges that lead to GPU shortages."
It's a notable admission, highlighting just how hardware-reliant the technology is. AI industry leaders are racing to build out data centers to keep their increasingly unwieldy AI models running — and are ready to put up <a href="https://futurism.com/huge-financial-problem-trump-ai-stargate">hundreds of billions of dollars</a> for the cause.
Companies are practically tripping over themselves to secure hardware, especially AI cards from leading chipmaker NVIDIA. The Jensen Huang-led firm <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-sells-11-billion-of-next-gen-blackwell-ai-chips-in-fastest-product-ramp-in-our-companys-history-215339003.html">announced on Wednesday</a> that it had sold $11 billion of its next-gen AI chips, dubbed Blackwell, with CFO Collette Kress describing it as the "fastest product ramp in our company’s history."
The payoff from all of this investment, however, has remained somewhat muted, as AI companies are still struggling to meaningfully address some of the tech's glaring shortcomings, from <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbot-hallucinations-marriage">widespread "hallucinations</a>" to <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-new-grok-ai-vulnerable-jailbreak-hacking">considerable cybersecurity concerns</a>.
Despite the sky-high price the company's charging for GPT-4.5, Altman attempted to manage expectations, tweeting in his announcement that "this isn’t a reasoning model and won’t crush benchmarks."
"It’s a different kind of intelligence and there’s a magic to it I haven’t felt before," he added, without elaborating on what he meant. "Really excited for people to try it!"
"What sets the model apart is its ability to engage in warm, intuitive, naturally flowing conversations, and we think it has a stronger understanding of what users mean when they ask for something," OpenAI VP of research Mia Glaese <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/technology/openai-artificial-intelligence-technology.html">told the New York Times</a>.
Altman has <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-lack-of-compute-is-delaying-the-companys-products/">previously complained</a> that shortages in computing power have forced OpenAI to delay shipping new products.
Ironically, GPT-4.5 was designed to lower the amount of compute required. In its "<a href="https://cdn.openai.com/gpt-4-5-system-card.pdf">system card</a>" detailing the model's capabilities, OpenAI revealed that "GPT-4.5 is not a frontier model, but it is OpenAI’s largest LLM, improving on GPT-4’s computational efficiency by more than 10x."
That's despite Altman describing the model as being "giant" and "expensive."
According to the document, the model's "performance is below that of o1, o3-mini, and deep research on most preparedness evaluations."
Interestingly, as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/620021/openai-gpt-4-5-orion-ai-model-release">The Verge points out</a>, a <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/kftzwdyauwt9/7EaDv6OaWHhXLAehUYu7Db/64e9f7916d3581ba4b5d0f0a6c5098d1/GPT-4-5_System_Card_2272025.pdf">new version</a> of the document no longer includes that last quote, suggesting the company is still trying to figure out how to sell its underwhelming new AI.
OpenAI is still looking to follow up on GPT-4.5 with GPT-5, which Altman <a href="https://x.com/sama/status/1889755723078443244">has described</a> as a "system that integrates a lot of our technology."
But whether it'll live up to expectations, let alone bring the company closer to its purported goal of realizing what <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-openai-knows-how-agi">it refers to as artificial general intelligence</a>, remains to be seen.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-engineer-elon-musk-recruiting-rejection">Elon Musk's AI Company Tried to Recruit an OpenAI Engineer and His Reply Was Brutal</a>

Cardon Me?

"This isn't how we want to operate..."

Sam Altman Says OpenAI Has Run Out of GPUs

NASA's Europa Clipper is about to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nasa-europa-clipper-mars-distance.html">use Mars' gravitational pull</a> to slingshot itself as it makes its way to Jupiter's fourth-largest moon later this week.
The craft launched from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, embarking on a 1.8-billion-mile journey to the gas giant.
The goal is to reach Europa, the smallest of the planet's four Galilean moons, in April 2030, as part of the <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/">first mission</a> specifically designed to study the under 2,000-mile-across space rock.
The mission's main objective is to investigate whether the moon is habitable. Its icy surface has long intrigued scientists, with <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-confirm-water-vapor-europa">evidence</a> suggesting it's covered in a massive, salty subsurface ocean, which could <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jupiter-moon-europa-saltwater-support-life">harbor extraterrestrial life</a>.
Experts have previously <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-life-exists-on-jupiters-moon-europa-scientists-might-soon-be-able-to-detect-it-226656">described</a> it as one of the best places to look for alien life.
But getting there is no easy feat. Clipper's journey will involve the "gravity assist" maneuver around Mars later this week, and the Earth again next year — a circuitous path that not only saves plenty of fuel, but will be much faster than traveling straight to Jupiter.
Gravity assists have become common practice for spacecraft venturing to the far reaches of our solar system. For instance, last year, the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) — which will also be exploring Europa, in addition to its larger cousins Ganymede and Callisto — performed a daring "<a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_s_lunar-Earth_flyby_all_you_need_to_know">first-ever double gravity assist maneuver</a>" around the Earth to speed up on its way to Jupiter. (JUICE's anticipated arrival at Jupiter is <a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice">July 2031</a>, roughly a year after Clipper.)
Europa Clipper's flyby of Mars on March 1 will bring it within just 550 miles above the Martian surface, allowing scientists to study the planet's surface using Clipper's radar and thermal imager, according to NASA.
<figure id="attachment_344519" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-344519" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-344519 size-large" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/PIA26435_Europa_Clipper_Trajectory_Updated_Nov_2024-1200x675.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="675" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-344519" class="wp-caption-text">Credit: NASA</figcaption></figure>
During its approach, the 12,750-pound spacecraft will be traveling at roughly 15.2 miles per second. Counterintuitively, instead of speeding up, it's aiming to pump its brakes to around 14 miles per second during its Martian gravity assist.
But during its next flyby of Earth in late 2026, it will use our planet's gravitational forces to boost its velocity to finally beeline it to Jupiter's orbit.
"We come in very fast, and the gravity from Mars acts on the spacecraft to bend its path," said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission systems engineer Brett Smith in a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nasa-europa-clipper-mars-distance.html">statement</a>. "Meanwhile, we're exchanging a small amount of energy with the planet, so we leave on a path that will bring us back past Earth."
Besides saving fuel and traveling vast distances much faster, gravity assists also allow scientists to do some bonus research. Scientists at NASA are already looking forward to getting a close-up look of the Red Planet with the spacecraft's radar and thermal imaging sensors — a cherry on top of an already exciting deep space mission.
More on Europa: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-prepares-launch-europa-clipper-habitable">NASA Preparing to Launch Mission to World That "May Be Habitable Today"</a>