<h2>Drag Race</h2>
For <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-buyers-disgusted-elon-trump">longtime Tesla owners</a>, Elon Musk's increasing <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-anti-jewish-tweet">rightwing crusading</a> has made their electric cars into <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/vandal-spray-painted-cybertrucks">mortifying red flags</a> — and now, a bunch are sticker-slapping back.
As the climate change news site <a href="https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/anti-elon-bumper-sticker-tesla#">Heatmap reports</a>, a Hawaii-based sticker maker is doing a booming business selling bumper stickers to Tesla owners who, as one of his wares advertises, got their EVs "<a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/1384790275/tesla-owner-bumper-sticker-i-bought-this">before we knew [Musk] was crazy</a>."
"I started making stickers on my own before the Elon sticker," explained Matthew Hiller, the Waikiki resident behind the popular Etsy shop "<a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/MadPufferStickers">Mad Puffer Stickers</a>."
An aquarium employee who often makes "fish stickers" for work, Hiller said that he got the idea to start making his tongue-in-cheek accessories in 2023 when considering buying a Tesla of his own. After Musk purchased Twitter and started his "extreme censoring," however, the creative realized he definitely couldn't <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/drivers-turned-off-tesla-elon-musk">handle the heat</a> that came with being <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/buyers-avoiding-teslas-elon-musk-toxic">associated with such a toxic brand</a> — and that gave him an idea.
"I figured, there’s no way I’m buying a Tesla — but there have got to be so many people who are so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who want to completely disavow this guy," Hiller told Heatmap. "Because I know I would want to sell mine immediately after I saw what he was doing."
Hiller's first sticker, a small run of the aforementioned "I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy," repeatedly <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/169m9i7/me_irl/">went viral</a> on social media and even ended up on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sticker-bought-before-elon-was-crazy-debate-reddit-2023-9">news sites like Business Insider</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/musk-tesla-trump-fans/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzIzMjYyNDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzI0NjQ0Nzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MjMyNjI0MDAsImp0aSI6IjVhMDMxM2RmLWNhNTQtNDZkNS1iNzRiLWEzOTZkYTdlNjI0ZCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjQvMDgvMTAvbXVzay10ZXNsYS10cnVtcC1mYW5zLyJ9.AmGp0sVkBjkQU0TphNmAlUcpTRPJaSK6wTJPURTWXac">Washington Post</a>. Unsurprisingly, that meant he had to print way, way more.
"I would be selling five to seven a day," he said, "and then suddenly, there would be 50 a day because someone else talked about it on Reddit."
<h2>Line Goes Up</h2>
More than a year in, Hiller says that the attention his anti-Musk stickers have gotten is "insane" — and that in the aftermath of Donald Trump's electoral upset, sales are up "unbelievably."
"I can barely keep up," he told Heatmap. "My full-time job is at the aquarium, and I come home and pack stickers until 11 p.m. It’s just me and my wife doing it all."
Obviously, there are lots and lots of cheap knockoffs being sold on Amazon and other such sites — but considering that Hiller's are less than $10 a pop without Etsy's sale prices, getting an original is still a viable option.
In a "ballpark" estimate, the sticker salesman said he's sold more than 10,000 units since last year, with an average of 180 going out per day.
"It’s rough," Hiller said.
More on anti-Musk sentiment: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-responds-politics-tesla-sales">Elon Musk Responds to Concerns That His Political Antics Are Tanking Tesla Sales</a>

Bumper to Bumper

"There have got to be so many people who are so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who want to completely disavow this guy."

Embarrassed Teslas Drivers Buying Huge Numbers of Anti-Elon Bumper Stickers

An unusual cosmetic surgery procedure that involves permanently changing the color of your eyes using tattoos soaring in popularity.
As the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/eye-color-change-surgery-risks-keratopigmentation-df99c38b">Wall Street Journal reports</a>, experts are warning that the procedure — called keratopigmentation, or corneal tattooing — could leave lasting damage.
The procedure involves cutting a donut-like tunnel into the cornea of the eye. The surgeon then widens this tunnel and fills it with a special dye that immediately and permanently changes the color of the eye.
Conventionally, the procedure has been used to correct a cosmetic disfigurement from an injury or disease, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/18/keratopigmentation-eyeball-tattoing-on-the-rise">The Guardian reports</a>. For some patients, the procedure can reduce glare following corneal damage.
But as the WSJ reports, European doctors began injecting dyes for solely cosmetic reasons in the 2010s.
"I see it as an enhancement," New Jersey resident Jason Jimenez, who underwent the procedure, told the newspaper. "People get their teeth done, they get implants and Botox. If it’s something that could make you happier, make you look better — then why not?"
The US Food and Drug Administration <a href="https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/view/navigating-the-controversy-exploring-keratopigmentation">has yet to approve</a> keratopgimentation as a procedure in the US. But that hasn't stopped surgeons from finding workarounds: some are using lasers designed for vision correction off-label and buying dyes from companies overseas where they're certified, the WSJ reports.
Earlier this year, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) <a href="https://www.aao.org/newsroom/news-releases/detail/academy-issues-warning-on-eye-color-procedures">issued a public warning</a> on the risks of eye color-changing surgeries, including "damage to the cornea that can lead to cloudiness" and "leakage of the dye into the eye."
Other patients have reported an increased sensitivity to light, according to the WSJ.
"No surgery is free of risk," AAO clinical spokesperson JoAnn Giaconi in a statement at the time. "With purely cosmetic surgeries on the eye, it’s just not worth the risk when it comes to your good vision."
Instead, patients seeking to change the color of their eyes should resort to far less invasive options, such as colored contact lenses, the AAO advises.
More on cosmetic procedures: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/influencers-boccal-fat-removal">Expert Warns of Grim Consequences of New Cosmetic Surgery Trend</a>

iTattoo

Developments

This is nuts.

People Are Getting Their Eyeballs Tattooed

<h2>Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Musk </h2>
A body language expert assessed Elon Musk and Donald Trump's behavior around each other and concluded that the future president is acting uncharacteristically deferential around his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-donald-trump-weird">star-crossed friend</a>. 
Former police officer Darren Stanton analyzed a video of the pair at Musk's latest flatlined <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-watch-elon-musk-starship-explodes">SpaceX rocket launch</a> <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/11/20/musk-trump-body-language-awkward-spacex/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first">for The Telegraph</a>, establishing that "only other figure with whom the president-elect is so submissive is Vladimir Putin."
"Trump was very uneasy," Stanton said. "Usually, he comes over as this alpha male, the most empowered, most powerful person in the room." But on that blustery November day in Texas, Trump was "out of his depth — his hands were just by his side like a mannequin." 
<h2>Big Dog on Capitol Hill </h2>
To be clear, body language isn't exactly a reliable science. In fact, it hardly even exists; in 2023, a group of nonverbal communication researchers <a href="https://spsp.org/news/character-and-context-blog/fridlund-patterson-crivelli-body-language-misconceptions">explained in The Society for Personality and Social Psychology</a> that "outside of gestures like OK signs and extended third fingers, there aren't the kinds of precise meanings [in nonverbal communication that] we see in language." 
That said, the vibes are unmistakable: Trump does appear uncharacteristically timid around Musk, a dynamic that might fuel his team's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blowout-fight-trump-adviser">growing exasperation</a> with Musk's overbearing presence.  
A member of Trump's inner circle <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-trump-donald-mar-a-lago-appointment-position-rcna179826">reportedly complained</a> recently that Musk has been "behaving as if he's a co-president," trying to "make President Trump feel indebted to him." 
And of course, Musk did unload around $200 million to get Trump into office — so maybe it's no wonder that Trump would pause his usual <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GnYtuhZXzo">hand flapping</a> to act unusually docile in his presence.
"He was playing with his pockets, but he didn't put his hands in his pockets," Stanton told The Telegraph about the video of Musk and Trump. "It’s the anxiety of not knowing what to do with [his] hands." 
Or, possibly, his presidency. 
More on Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-planning-self-driving-cars-loose">Trump Reportedly Planning to Let Self-Driving Cars Loose</a>

Very Demure

"The only other figure with whom the president-elect is so submissive is Vladimir Putin."

Body Language Expert Says Trump Is Acting "Submissive" Around Musk

<h2>AI Gore</h2>
Coca-Cola <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/coke-hideous-ai-commercial">drew criticism</a> for rolling out an uninspired and lazily AI-generated holiday advertisement this year.
The ad is pretty much exactly the kind of insipid corporate sludge you'd expect from AI: predictable, unimaginative and vaguely uncanny.
Fortunately, Redditors took matters into their own hands, celebrating tooth-rotting soft drinks with a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/the_new_cocacola_ai_ad_is_unhinged/">far more "unhinged" take on Coke's concept</a>.
The result harkens back to the glowy days of AI gore, when <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/horrific-ai-generated-video-shows-will-smith-eating-spaghetti">Will Smith glitchily "eating" a bowl of spaghetti</a> went mega-viral, with unsettling mishmashes of morphing body appendages and explosions. At one point, a polar bear even yeets its offspring into an icy lake for no discernible reason.
"Brilliant," one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxy85dj/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">assessed</a>. "No notes."
<h2>Out of Touch</h2>
Coke <a href="https://www.forbes.com./sites/danidiplacido/2024/11/16/coca-colas-ai-generated-ad-controversy-explained/">contracted three separate AI studios</a> for its cheap-looking ad, and it didn't take long for netizens to call out the company for brazenly replacing human artists with bland AI.
"FUN FACT: Coca-Cola is ‘red’ because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists!" Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney TV show "Gravity Falls," <a href="https://x.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1857847598054518921">tweeted</a> in a tongue-in-cheek post.
It's only the latest in a string of companies relying on cheap generative AI for its ads. Earlier this year, the corporate husk of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/toys-r-us-ai-video-ad-controversy-explained-commercial-rcna159030">Toys "R" Us was flamed</a> for a similar effort.
Perhaps it would've served Coke better to lean into the limitations of the tech. During this year's Super Bowl half-time, after all, its sports drink brand Bodyarmor released a nausea-inducing generative AI ad in an attempt to make a point about offering its customers a "real" product.
At least, the ad passed the low bar of being somewhat entertaining to watch, which can't be said of its latest cringe-inducing attempt.
"They should've made it more self-aware and comical, it would've had a better reception IMO," one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxyd58w/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">argued</a>.
"Tough for the marketing department to make a self-aware ad when they are all out of touch in the first place," another <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxytmlg/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">replied</a>.
More on AI ads: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/coke-hideous-ai-commercial">Coke's AI Commercial for the Holidays Has Us Wondering If We Live in a Fallen World</a>

AI Polar Bears

"Brilliant. No notes."

Someone Made a Deranged Version of Coke's AI Holiday Ad and It's Way Better

To celebrate its new image-understanding capabilities, Elon Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-grok-medical-scans">encouraged his followers to share medical documents</a> like MRI scans and x-rays with Grok, his AI chatbot integrated into X-formerly-Twitter.
"This is still early stage, but it is already quite accurate and will become extremely good," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1851206080564773344">wrote in a tweet</a> at the end of last month. "Let us know where Grok gets it right or needs work."
Despite the many baffling privacy implications, many of his fans have done just that. In some cases, they've even <a href="https://x.com/SpaceX69_420/status/1851207226645532947">shared their results publicly</a>.
Now, experts are warning against sharing such information with Grok — echoing security concerns <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/italy-ban-chatgpt-privacy-gdpr/">with chatbots at large</a>, but also emphasizing some of the lack of transparency around Musk's companies.
"This is very personal information, and you don't exactly know what Grok is going to do with it," Bradley Malin, a professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/well/x-grok-health-privacy.html">told The New York Times</a>.
People sharing their medical information with Musk's chatbot may be under the impression that it's protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
But the protections enshrined by the federal law, which prevent your doctor from sharing your private health info, do not extend beyond the medical purview, the NYT notes. Once you put it out in the open, like on a social media site, it's fair game.
This is in stark contrast to when tech companies have official partnerships with hospitals to obtain data, Malin said, which are stipulated with detailed agreements on how that information is stored, shared, and used.
"Posting personal information to Grok is more like, 'Wheee! Let's throw this data out there, and hope the company is going to do what I want them to do,'" Mailin told the NYT.
The risks of inaccurate answers may also put patients in danger. Grok, for instance, misidentified a broken clavicle for a dislocated shoulder, according to the report. Doctors responding to Musk's tweet also found that the chatbot failed to recognize a "<a href="https://x.com/DrDatta_AIIMS/status/1851218293845295191">textbook case</a>" of tuberculosis, and <a href="https://x.com/heacockmd/status/1851231467226964097">in another case</a> mistook a benign cyst for testicles.
Then there are also concerns with how the chatbots themselves use the information, because their underlying large language models rely on the conversations they have to fine-tune their capabilities. That means that potentially anything you tell one could be used to train the chatbot, and <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-ai-doctor-lies-records">considering their</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/whisper-nabla-hospital-ai-details-patients">proclivity for hallucinating</a>, the risk of one inadvertently <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-begs-employees-chatgpt">blurting out sensitive information</a> is <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.17035">not unfounded</a>.
To that end, the privacy policies of X and Grok developer xAI, are unsatisfying. The latter's, for example, claims that it will not sell user data to third parties, but that it does with "related companies," per the NYT.
There's reason enough to doubt how faithfully this is enforced in practice, however, because Musk brazenly encouraged people to submit medical documents, even though xAI's policy states it "does not aim to collect sensitive personal information," including health and biometric data.
Still, it's possible that Musk's companies may have explicit guardrails around health information shared with Grok that hasn't been shared publicly, according to Matthew McCoy, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
"But as an individual user, would I feel comfortable contributing health data? Absolutely not," McCoy told the NYT.
More on Grok: <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-elon-musk-anti-woke-grok">Sam Altman Points Out That Elon Musk's "Anti-Woke" Grok AI Seems to Actually Support Kamala Harris</a>

From the HIPPA

"This is very personal information, and you don't exactly know what Grok is going to do with it."

Experts Alarmed by People Uploading Their Medical Scans to Elon Musk's Grok AI

<h2>Dog Racing</h2>
A robot dog has run and completed an entire 26.2 mile marathon.
Built by the South Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the dogged competitor — dubbed RAIBO2 — is the first quadrupedal robot to complete a full-length marathon in an official competition, the university <a href="https://news.kaist.ac.kr/newsen/html/news/?mode=V&amp;mng_no=41590">claimed in a statement</a>.
The event took place on Sunday. Clocking in at a time of four hours, 19 minutes, and 52 seconds, the robodog's no Olympian yet; the first place time by a human competitor in the race was two hours, 36 minutes, and 32 seconds, <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/robo_dogs_marathons/">according to The Register</a>.
It's fair to say that slow and steady did not win the race this time — but did get the little machine over the line. And who's to say that the old adage won't be redeemed by a future iteration of the robodog?
<h2>Steep Competition</h2>
The competition, the 22nd Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon, is apparently infamous for its arduous hills, including two approximately 50-yard elevation climbs.
That's tough enough for a human runner, and very energy-demanding for a four-legged bot, potentially causing "unexpected losses in efficiency." Depleting its battery pack, after all, would be tantamount to a human competitor dropping out of the race.
But the robodog's engineers had a solution. By simulating the course's hilly environment and its diverse terrains, they were able to develop what they're calling a "high torque transparency joint mechanism" that allows the robot to harvest energy on the downhill slopes, thereby recouping what it lost on the uphill portions.
And that's not all. As anyone who does a lot of running can tell you, all those impacts of your feet striking the ground can take a toll on your joints. It's no different for a robot, meaning that enduring four hours of activity was a testament to the in-house built bot's robustness.
<h2>Whirring Up</h2>
The robodog, however, faces bipedal competition. Earlier this month, a humanoid robot called "Tiangong" <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1322879.shtml">ran alongside human competitors</a> in a half-marathon in China, serving as a pace-setter for the very last 100 yard stretch of the race. Not bad, but it obviously has some catching up to do with our quadruped.
Speaking of: this won't be the last we'll see of RAIBO2, according to its builders.
"Through the marathon project, we demonstrated that RAIBO2 has the walking performance to stably execute services such as delivery and patrol in urban environments with many people and random objects," Choongun Lee, a researcher at KAIST and co-lead author of the studies on the robodog, said in a statement. "In follow-up research, we will add autonomous navigation functions to RAIBO and strive to achieve the world's best walking performance in mountainous and disaster environments."
More on robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-dog-spotted-guarding-mar-a-lago">Robot Dog Spotted Guarding Mar-a-Lago</a>

Doggone 

Go, robodog, go.

Robodog Runs Full Marathon

Though Elon Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-denies-emerald-mine">disputes various claims</a> about his life story, one thing is perfectly clear: he has immense daddy issues.
"Almost every crime you can possibly think of, [my father] has done," Musk <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-musk-the-architect-of-tomorrow-120850/">told Rolling Stone</a> in 2017 — reportedly while crying — of his father, a South African wheeler-dealer who has <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-dad-has-secret-second-child-1383353/">several children with his own stepdaughter</a>. "Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done."
"I tried threats, rewards, and arguments to change my father for the better," Musk later told biographer Walter Isaacson. "No way, it just got worse." 
It's been hard not to think of that dynamic while watching Musk's strident embrace of Donald Trump's dark agenda. As the SpaceX and Tesla CEO spent an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-america-pac-trump-d248547966bf9c6daf6f5d332bc4be66">eyewatering $200 million</a> supporting Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and effectively turned Twitter-formerly-X into a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/elon-musk-turned-x-trump-echo-chamber-rcna174321">far-right megaphone</a>, it's often felt like the troubled Musk is embracing Trump as some sort of disturbing father figure.
In turn, Trump can often sound more enthusiastic about Musk than he does about his own children — including, as Guardian columnist Marina Hyde recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/19/donald-trump-jr-elon-musk-nepo-baby-billionaire">pointed out</a>, in ways that feel like they're eclipsing the future president's rapport with his own eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. 
"Exciting to be the eldest child then to suddenly gain a new big brother!" Hyde wrote. "Especially one who your dad wants to involve in absolutely everything while you act super cool about it." (Trump also had a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/26/donald-trump-fred-trump-father-relationship-business-real-estate-art-of-deal">strange relationship</a> with his own dad, Fred Trump.)
Adding to the warped family dynamic is the fact that Musk has been pointedly restrained in his public appreciation for any of his 11 known children — other than a marked favoritism toward his eccentrically-named son X Æ A-12, whose mother Claire "Grimes" Boucher <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/03/grimes-cover-story-on-music-and-mars">worried to Vanity Fair</a> about being overexposed and treated "as a protégé." 
In fact, Musk can even be <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/vivian-wilson-slams-elon-musk-control-freak">openly antagonistic</a> toward his own kids. He's become estranged with his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson over her gender transition, publicly deadnaming and misgendering her and <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/13/elon-musk-s-ambition-repopulating-the-planet-and-destroying-the-woke-virus_6714239_4.html">raging that</a> she was "killed by the woke mind virus." (Wilson has fired back, saying Musk has behaved abusively and <a href="https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous/post/DCFUO7hTEIb?xmt=AQGzDAT21d5okiyswjXqu9nRq3TYsTwD4WdN2Ii6p5ardg">describ</a><a href="https://www.threads.net/@vivllainous/post/DCFUO7hTEIb?xmt=AQGzDAT21d5okiyswjXqu9nRq3TYsTwD4WdN2Ii6p5ardg">ing him</a> as a "delusional and grubby little control freak.")
Watching Musk's whirlwind embrace of Trump's extreme worldview, that debris field of family dysfunction starts to take on a different quality. Is Musk really concerned about falling birthrates and social progressivism from a point of view of rational policy, or has he just found a more responsive daddy — not to mention one whose affection he can buy — in Trump's strongman image?
Despite Musk's undying admiration and fountains of money, though, he may yet flame out with yet another father figure. Trump has reportedly been ignoring his team's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blowout-fight-trump-adviser">swelling frustration</a> with the billionaire, giving Musk a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-department-fake-feel-important">dubious official position</a> while <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-warning-elon-musk">publicly ribbing him</a> in a way that sounds a bit like a warning.
Musk may need Trump, in other words. But whether Trump still needs Musk is another question entirely — and if the relationship does break down, only one thing is certain: never expect psychological stability from the richest man in the world.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/republicans-suspect-trump-musk">Republican Power Players Suspect Trump Is Going to Kick Musk to the Curb</a>

Inter

Trump and Musk are bonded in familial trauma.

We Have to Point Out That Elon Musk Clearly Has Huge Daddy Issues

<h2>Mike Mulligan</h2>
Autonomous robots are filling up Amazon warehouses, where they're sorting, loading, and unloading packages with impressive efficiency. But it sounds like they're still outmatched by humans when it comes to many essential tasks.
The e-commerce giant's robotic arm Sparrow, for example, excels at what's called "top-picking," or picking up an item at the top of a storage container. It can even manipulate over 200 million items of varying sizes and weights, Amazon claims.
But it struggles at "targeted picking," which involves having to search through a container to pluck out an item hidden by other stuff. It's a common task that any able human employee could do. For robots to do the same, however, will require nothing short of a breakthrough in the field.
"That's a really hard job," Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/business/robots-warehouses-amazon.html">told The New York Times</a>.
"I'm not saying it's impossible," he added, but that level of functionality would be "kind of the next frontier."
<h2>Stretched Win</h2>
Even with their incipient capabilities, Amazon warehouses are already heavily relying on on robots, especially if their sheer quantity is any indication. The company has over 750,000 of the machines in use overall, per the NYT, or about half of its 1.55 million human workers.
In many cases, the robots do excel. A mobile robotic arm mounted on top of a wheeled platform called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYUuWWnfRsk">Stretch</a>, created by Boston Dynamics, deftly unloads packages from the back of a truck and places them on a conveyor belt.
According to Sally Miller, global chief information officer at the shipping giant DHL, Stretch can unload around twice as many boxes per hour as humans, who might earn something like $17 an hour for the job. She did not say how much the robot cost, but gloated about its advantages over pesky human workers.
"It doesn't call in sick, and it can work for several hours," Miller told the NYT. "It's a great solution."
Meanwhile, Brady claimed that one of Amazon's new warehouses uses an automated inventory management system called Sequoia, boosting the speed of package processing by 25 percent compared to older ones, while being 25 percent cheaper.
<h2>Machine Churning</h2>
The encroachment of the machines is a grim prospect for human warehouse workers, who may fear for their jobs. Fulfillment centers have high rates of employee turnover — jargon for people either getting fired or quitting the job a lot — because it's often grueling work for menial wages. Because companies like Amazon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html">will do anything to avoid paying their employees more</a>, automation is seen as a way to make up for the shortfall.
Nonetheless, robot advocates say that automation will actually be good for workers.
"Menial, mundane, repetitive tasks will be replaced by automation," Brady told the NYT. "That may freak people out, but it's going to allow people to focus more on what matters."
Another argument is that the deployment of robots will necessitate new jobs to oversee the technology, but a manager at one of Amazon's fulfillment centers told the NYT there were only around 100 such jobs out of the 2,500 who worked there.
More on robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-dog-spotted-guarding-mar-a-lago">Robot Dog Spotted Guarding Mar-a-Lago</a>

Unfulfillment Center

Some simple tasks are just too hard for the robots.

Amazon Robots Struggling to Keep Up With Human Workers

Now that president-elect Donald Trump has <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-america-space-policy-wild-ride">solidified his bromance</a> with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the role of NASA could start to look dramatically different.
Trump has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-department-fake-feel-important">put </a><a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-department-fake-feel-important">Musk in charge</a> of a so-called "Department of Government Efficiency," where the mercurial CEO has promised to excise $2 trillion from the national budget — meaning that he'll be evaluating contracts for his own company, SpaceX.
That conflict of interest could come at great cost to NASA, as Progressive Policy Institute director of national security Peter Juul argued in an <a href="https://spacenews.com/dont-let-trump-and-musk-gut-nasa/">opinion piece for SpaceNews</a>, with the danger of turning the space agency into a funnel that moves taxpayer dollars into Musk's pocket.
"If President-elect Donald Trump and techno-oligarch Elon Musk get their way, NASA — one of America’s crown jewels — may become a glorified contracting agency," he wrote.
Juul didn't mince words, dismissing SpaceX's progress on its Mars-bound Starship rocket, which NASA is still hoping to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-render-spacex-starship-moon-surface">tap for its upcoming return to the lunar surface</a>.
For one, SpaceX may need to <a href="https://spacenews.com/gao-report-details-rejection-of-hls-protests/">launch 16 Starship fuel tankers</a> to get a single spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. While Musk has since argued that it would only <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1425473261551423489">require eight</a>, that's still a considerable cadence for a rocket that has yet to reach orbit.
"To put it bluntly, the company has not demonstrated the technical competence required to execute even less demanding missions," Juul wrote.
And of course, that isn't even getting into Musk's growing character issues that could make him an even bigger liability as a key part of the space program: his <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-conversations-37e1c187">close relationship</a> with Russian president Vladimir Putin, his increasing embrace of <a href="https://futurism.com/civil-rights-groups-horrified-elon-musk-racist">racist</a> and <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-condemns-x-elon-musk-for-accepting-timeline-takeover-of-transphobic-fact-free-documentary">transphobic</a> worldviews, or his <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/06/12/elon-musk-spacex-sexual-harassment-lawsuit">formidable catalog</a> of sex allegations.
However, Juul argued that "Congress has the ability to prevent the incoming administration from dismantling NASA and effectively turning its activities over to one private company."
We've already seen Congress step in when it comes to NASA's direction, from <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-jpl-laying-off-hundreds">slashing its budget</a> to <a href="https://www.space.com/nasa-revamp-mars-sample-return-plan">forcing a major overhaul</a> of the space agency's Mars sample return mission.
Now, Juul suggested, Congress should double down on the development of NASA's non-renewable Space Launch System, a "unique capability that no other nation or private company can match."
The SLS has become a major political football, having gone <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-sls-moon-rocket-might-be-canceled">billions of dollars over budget</a> and many years behind schedule.
Juul also called for Congress to enforce NASA's "dual-source commercial contracting policy," which requires two companies to compete, instead of letting SpaceX run away with the contract.
On the other hand, of course, that strategy also led to Boeing's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-sell-off-starliner">Starliner disaster</a>, which has cost the space agency <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/boeing-warns-of-more-financial-losses-on-starliner-commercial-crew-program/">twice as much</a> as SpaceX's far more reliable Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Nonetheless, Juul's argument that Congress should protect NASA as an "American crown jewel that deserves to be shielded from the depredations of would-be oligarchs" still stands.
Especially now that the role of scientific research is actively under threat by an incoming administration that has historically turned a blind eye to empirical evidence — case in point, <a href="https://futurism.com/exxon-mobil-trump-climate-plan">Trump's own climate denialism</a> — it's more important than ever to stop the space agency from being gutted.
More on NASA: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-complains-that-its-spacesuits-are-a-decrepit-mess">NASA Complains That Its Spacesuits Are a Decrepit Mess</a>

NASA Fast

"If President-elect Donald Trump and techno-oligarch Elon Musk get their way, NASA — one of America’s crown jewels — may become a glorified contracting agency."

Expert Warns That Elon Musk May Gut NASA

<h2>Swing and a Miss</h2>
On Tuesday afternoon, president-elect Donald Trump attended his <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-america-space-policy-wild-ride">new buddy</a> SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's rocket launch, like a hands-off dad showing up at his son's softball game.
But Musk didn't exactly hit it out of the park this time around. Unfortunately for the tycoon, minutes after the gigantic rocket took off from SpaceX's testing facilities in South Texas, the space company called for a "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-starship-banana-cargo">booster offshore divert</a>" that derailed the show.
The original plan was to catch Starship's gigantic Super Heavy booster with SpaceX's massive, chopstick arms-wielding tower — like at <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-caught-starship-booster-chopsticks-tower">Starship's </a><a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-caught-starship-booster-chopsticks-tower">fifth test flight last month</a>.
But this time around SpaceX called off the maneuver, sending the 233-foot stainless steel structure into the Gulf of Mexico, where it erupted in a gigantic fireball — the perfect prelude for Trump's triumphant return to the White House.
<h2>Not a Home Run</h2>
It's an unfortunate turn of events for Trump, who came all this way to watch his new protégé hit a home run.
"I’m heading to the Great State of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to be elevated, not only to Space, but simply by lifting off the ground," Trump gushed in a typo-riddled missive on Truth Social. "Good luck to Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!"
Other than the missed opportunity for a second catch of its booster, SpaceX did pull off an impressive Starship launch, sending the spacecraft well past the edge of space and even reigniting one of its Raptor engines once there, a critical milestone.
Even Starship's return went relatively smoothly, with a controlled bellyflop maneuver resulting in an almost perfectly executed dip in the Indian Ocean. That's despite SpaceX removing a whopping 2,100 heat shield tiles and greatly increasing the angle of Starship's descent.
<h2>Take Me Out</h2>
Now that Trump and Musk are fully in their honeymoon phase, we should expect plenty more moments involving SpaceX's massive rocket. With the president on his side, Musk could soon be dismantling pesky environmental regulations that were designed to protect the <a href="https://futurism.com/wildlife-starship-explosion">surrounding wildlife</a> that his rockets have quite literally <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/starship-launch-state-park-fire">lit on fire</a>.
In short, Musk's Mars rocket playground could soon become the epicenter of the United States' space program, a refocusing of federal funds that could <a href="https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2024/11/17/elon-musk-president-trump-impact-on-nasa-artemis-sls-moon-mars-spacex-starship/76255421007/">leave NASA's operations in ruins</a>.
The mercurial CEO has made some characteristically overly ambitious predictions when it comes to his Mars rocket, promising Trump that Starship would visit the Red Planet <a href="https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-mars-launches-2026-elon-musk">as soon as two years from now</a>.
But given the current state of the company's development — despite some considerable advancements over the last six test flights alone — that's looking less and less likely.
After all, massively missing the mark on his timelines is kind of Musk's thing.
More on Starship: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-starship-banana-cargo">Starship Shoots Into Space With Single Banana in Cargo Hold</a>