As whispers of AI hype <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/12/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-humans/">filled the air</a> in 2018, it seemed almost inevitable that we would soon be facing a whole new world, full of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/sophia-robot-artificial-intelligence-science">near-human robots</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/21/boston-dynamics-teaching-robot-dog-fight-back-humans">cybernetic dogs</a>. But with that came a host of questions: how would it all change our jobs, how might we protect ourselves from an AI takeover, and more broadly, how could AI be designed for good instead of evil?
Facing those questions and an uncertain future, Google <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-07/news/google-renounces-ai-work-weapons">affirmed its commitment</a> to ethical tech development in a statement on its AI principles, including commitments not to use its AI in ways "likely to cause overall harm," like in weapons or surveillance tech.
Fast forward seven years later, and those commitments have been quietly scrubbed from Google's <a href="https://ai.google/responsibility/principles/">AI principles page</a>. The move has drawn a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/04/google-ai-policies-weapons-harm/">host of criticism</a> at the change's ominous undertones.
"Having that removed is erasing the work that so many people in the ethical AI space and the activist space as well had done at Google," former head of Google's ethical AI team Margaret Mitchell told Bloomberg, which <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-04/google-removes-language-on-weapons-from-public-ai-principles?sref=YfHlo0rL">broke the story</a>. "More problematically it means Google will probably now work on deploying technology directly that can kill people."
Google isn't the first AI company to retract its commitment not to make killbots. Last summer, OpenAI likewise deleted its pledge not to use AI for "military and warfare," as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/">reported by </a><a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/">The Intercept</a> at the time.
Though it hasn't announced any Terminator factories — yet — Google said in a <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/responsible-ai-2024-report-ongoing-work/">statement yesterday</a> that "companies, governments, and organizations... should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security."
Read: we can do whatever we want. Deal with it.
And while the company's news is troubling, it's drawing on a long history of <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/12/02/google-project-nimbus-ai-israel/">dubious profiteering</a>. After all, Google was the first major tech company to recognize the value of surveillance through data.
"Google is to surveillance capitalism what the Ford Motor Company and General Motors were to mass-production-based managerial capitalism," wrote acclaimed tech critic Shoshana Zuboff in 2019. "In our time Google became the pioneer, discoverer, elaborator, experimenter, lead practitioner, role model, and diffusion hub of surveillance capitalism."
As far back as the early 2000s, Google has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html">exploring the value</a> of personal browsing data — a leering asset <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/492297006">sometimes known</a> as "digital exhaust" — which it realized contained predictive information about individual users as they traveled across the web.
Soon, pressured by the Dot-com collapse and the need to generate revenue, Google leaned into that tech as it built the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/technology/google-antitrust-ad-technology.html">dominant</a> tracking and advertising apparatus of our time. The revelation that user data could translate into cold hard cash spun off into a host of data-driven products like hyper-targeted ads, predictive algorithms, personal assistants, and smart homes, all of which propelled Google into the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/technology/google-antitrust-ruling.html">market giant</a> it is today.
Now, the past feels like prelude. As tech companies like Google dump untold billions into developing AI, the race is on to generate revenue for <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-hype-cliff-costs">impatient investors</a>. It's no wonder that unscrupulous AI profit models are now on the table — after all, they're the supposed new backbone of the company.
More on Google: <a href="https://futurism.com/something-bad-inside-google-labor">Something Bad Is Brewing Inside Google</a>

Okay, Be Evil

Be evil?

Google Quietly Walks Back Promise Not To Use AI for Weapons or Harm

<h2>Target Practice</h2>
Google's parent company Alphabet failed to hit sales targets, falling a 0.1 percent short of Wall Street's revenue expectations — a fraction of a point that's seen the company's stock slide almost eight percent today, in its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/05/alphabet-shares-fall-7percent-on-revenue-miss-heightened-ai-investments.html">worst performance since October 2023</a>.
It's also a sign of the times: as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/technology/alphabet-google-earnings.html">New York Times reports</a>, the whiff was due to slower-than-expected growth of its cloud-computing division, which delivers its AI tools to other businesses.
While a reported $96.5 billion in revenue versus the expected $96.6 billion sounds well within a margin of error, it shows that even for a company of Google's scale and stature, actually making money off AI — even on the infrastructure side — is still a risky business.
That's despite Alphabet committing a whopping $75 billion on capital expenditures as it builds out AI infrastructure, $22 billion more than just last year, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/24/zuckerberg-sets-metas-ai-targets-for-the-year-expects-to-spend-60-billion-on-growth.html#:~:text=Tech-,Zuckerberg%20sets%20Meta's%20AI%20targets%20for%20the%20year%2C%20expects,spend%20%2460%20billion%20on%20growth&amp;text=Meta%20CEO%20Mark%20Zuckerberg%20on,builds%20out%20its%20AI%20infrastructure.">following the lead of its competitors</a> in the AI space, including Meta. Everyone's pouring money in, but it's as <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/alarms-ai-bubble">unclear as ever</a> when the industry will start generating meaningful revenue — and for how many players.
<h2>Catching Up</h2>
Investors are also still reeling from the emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which <a href="https://futurism.com/silicon-valley-shambles-chinese-startup-deepseek">shook Silicon Valley to its core</a> last week. The company's ultra-lean and highly efficient AI models — that can be trained for a tiny fraction of the price of Western competitors but still keep up — caught the AI industry by surprise, <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-embraced-ai-exploded-deepseek">wiping out over $1 trillion</a> in market value in a single day.
Is Alphabet's latest earnings result the canary in the coal mine? Should the AI industry brace for tougher days ahead as investors become <a href="https://futurism.com/investors-concerned-ai-making-money">increasingly skeptical of what the tech has to offer</a>? Or are investors concerned over OpenAI's ChatGPT overtaking Google's search engine?
Illustrating the drama, this week Google <a href="https://futurism.com/google-retroactively-edits-ai-ad">appears to have retroactively edited</a> the YouTube video of a Super Bowl ad for its core AI model called Gemini, to remove an extremely obvious error the AI made about the popularity of gouda cheese.
"Although it’s still well insulated, Google’s advantages in search hinge on its ubiquity and entrenched consumer behavior," Emarketer senior analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/04/google-alphabets-q4-earnings">told The Guardian</a>.
This year "could be the year those advantages meaningfully erode as antitrust enforcement and open-source AI models change the game," she added. "And Cloud’s disappointing results suggest that AI-powered momentum might be beginning to wane just as Google’s closed model strategy is called into question by DeepSeek."
More on Google: <a href="https://futurism.com/google-retroactively-edits-ai-ad">Google Retroactively Edits Super Bowl Ad to Remove Embarrassing Error Its AI Made</a>

AI Struggle Bus

Is the momentum of AI starting to wane?

Google's Finances Are in Chaos as the Company Flails at Unpopular AI

<h2>Much Sad</h2>
Formerly known for rockets and electric cars, Elon Musk has emerged as a central personality of the Trump administration as he's hyper-publicly torn through the federal government, leaving a trail of <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055.1.0.pdf">lawsuits</a> and <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_gao_on_musk_and_treasury.pdf">investigations</a> in his wake.
As that drama has played out across the United States and the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/official-warns-musk-thousands-usaid-people">rest of the world</a>, one particularly niche group has looked on with horror: early fans of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally started to make fun of meme coins, but which spiked significantly in value after Musk <a href="https://decrypt.co/291361/elon-musk-dogecoin-timeline-explained">became publicly obsessed with it</a>, and has now become inextricably linked to Musk's legacy as he's organized his efforts with the Trump White House under a group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
"Elon corrupted Doge," one fed-up user posted on Reddit in a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/1ih825y/elon_corrupted_doge/">thread full of similar gripes</a>. "When Elon first got involved I was excited. Over the past couple years that excitement has turned sour. I have decided that I cannot morally be involved with any thing related to that sub human."
Others concurred, sometimes in eviscerating terms.
"Time to either remove Musk from the project or change the slogan: Do Only Genocide Everyday," one wrote. "These creeps have started suggesting actual ethnic cleansing. Feels disgusting to be a part of this thing." Another commented that Dogecoin "was supposed to be a fun crypto, not associated with right wing politics." wrote another.
<h2>Coin Community</h2>
The rejection of Musk's crypto-hegemony is a reminder of what crypto once was to some: a niche if forward-looking community of blockchain nerds brought together by the promise of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/crypto-optimist-land-opportunity-1986724">market egalitarianism</a>. Dogecoin is probably the epitome of that; its origins lie in a 2013 meme making fun of <a href="https://dogecoin.com/dogepedia/articles/history-of-dogecoin/">speculative altcoins</a>. It was  supposed to remain worthless, a joke allowing Reddit users to <a href="https://dogecoin.com/dogepedia/faq/dogecoin-is-a-joke/">tip each other pennies</a> as kudos for funny posts.
Those golden days are now long gone as <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/12/trump-musk-republicans-billionaire-rule">high-moneyed players</a> like Musk have toppled crypto's optimism, turning it into yet another vehicle for <a href="https://therealnews.com/i-lost-all-my-life-savings-cryptos-hype-and-promises-come-crashing-down">speculation and profit</a> framed as a social good. In the new crypto order, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/investing/meme-coin-trump-crypto-nightcap/index.html">rug pulls</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-bankman-fried-sentenced-25-years">scams</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/mrbeast-crypto-fraud-claims">fraud</a> are the order of the day, <a href="https://dailyhodl.com/2025/01/21/brian-armstrong-says-crypto-to-usher-in-new-phase-of-capitalism-and-economic-freedom/">despite marketing</a> that it will usher in a "new phase of capitalism and economic freedom."
And Dogecoin has now become the very thing it set out to lampoon — whatever it started as, it's now <a href="https://futurism.com/doge-website-ai-american-flag">literally the face</a> of a soft-coup usurping the power of the federal government.
As legislators jump to force cryptocurrency into <a href="https://futurism.com/states-taxpayer-money-crypto-reserves">public trust funds</a> and the White House makes moves to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/">legitimize crypto</a> as a monetary asset, it's imperative to remember the lesson these Dogecoin users have learned the hard way: that the <a href="https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/blowing-up-the-crypto-cartel-silverman">purpose of a system is what it does</a>.
On Reddit, that chagrin played out in sometimes startlingly peculiar ways. One former Dogecoin investor even chose to eulogize the good times in an AI-generated Reggae tune reminiscing about a moment when Dogecoin users <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/20/jamaican-bobsled-team-raises-dogecoin-winter-olympics">rallied to fundraise tens of thousands of dollars</a> for the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team (no we are not kidding.) You can hear that endearing if <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2024/04/02/200-musical-artists-sign-an-open-letter-against-harmful-ai-in-music/73179130007/">misguided</a> attempt on <a href="https://x.com/OneGoodShibe/status/1884592346475516242?t=OIRf0onHFucXqlNXlJFH3Q&amp;s=19">X-formerly-Twitter</a> — also now owned by Musk — but we don't recommend it.
More on crypto: <a href="https://futurism.com/ivanka-trump-annoyed-meme-coin">Ivanka Trump Warns of $IVANKA Meme Coin That's Grifting Her Fans Without Even Paying Her</a>

Digital Downer

"Feels disgusting to be a part of this thing."

Fans of the Actual Dogecoin Cryptocurrency Are Disgusted With Elon Musk's Antics

Elon Musk and his gang of young interns are descending on US federal agencies like flies.
After a tense weekend in which Musk forced his way into the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-treasury-5e26cc80fcb766981cea56afd57ae759">Treasury's servers</a> — gaining access to Social Security, Medicare, and possibly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/04/elon-musk-government-legal-doge/">student loan</a> payment information — it was widely reported that Trump's broligarch has "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/treasury-says-elon-musk-doge-has-read-only-access-to-payment-systems/">read only access</a>" to the department's sensitive information. Essentially, he can't gunk up any ongoing payments, at least yet, though his team theoretically has access to huge amounts of personal information about Americans the Treasury holds, inviting legal attacks for <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-7.pdf">unlawful disclosure</a>.
And to hear him tell it, Musk is only getting started. Now he's signaling a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-treasury-officials-190015454.html">radical plan</a> to transfer the US Treasury to the blockchain.
"Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress," he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886134485822922785">posted</a> on Monday.
The tech mogul failed to share any evidence to back up his claim, but when asked by an acolyte if the Treasury should be put on the blockchain "so this doesn't happen," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886164124981166241">replied</a> with an enthusiastic "yes!"
If it's unclear to you what that even means in practice, you're not alone. Forbes <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250205142347/https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-needs-to-stop-now-elon-musk-confirms-radical-doge-us-treasury-plan/">has reported</a> that, so far, Musk has floated using the blockchain to safeguard data, track federal spending, make payments on behalf of the federal government, and manage agency buildings — things that are already done with regular payment systems using the dollar. Musk hasn't yet explained what any of his nebulous blockchain plans mean, <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/01/25/elon-musk-blockchain-department-of-government-efficiency-doge-crypto-bitcoin/">except that</a> they will "save us money."
But the richest man in the world might be building the case against his plans on his own. Musk's Treasury takeover on Monday was met swiftly with a <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/advocacy-group-unions-sue-treasury-department-over-illegal-doge-data-access/">joint lawsuit</a> filed by a number of activist groups and unions, which sent the crypto market into turmoil.
Soon after the Treasury lawsuit was announced, Musk's favorite crypto asset, Dogecoin, saw its <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/dogecoin-doge-drops-15-as-musks-role-in-us-treasury-sparks-lawsuit/">price tumble</a> 15 percent. Bitcoin likewise dropped by 2.5 percent — a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/bitcoin-slides-below-100000-tariffs-rattle-markets-2025-02-02/">three week low</a> — and Ethereum fell by 18 percent, its largest drop since November, likely aggravated by Trump's <a href="https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/bitcoin-price-today-slumps-to-94k-as-trump-tariffs-spark-global-selloff-3844338">ongoing tariff war</a>.
Those price drops come amidst an <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=df054736d75a2025&amp;q=crypto+volatile&amp;tbm=nws&amp;source=lnms&amp;fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpA-dk4wpBWOGsoR7DG5zJBnsX62dbVmWR6QCQ5QEtPRqInn_ud8BG5tWxPdEiOpZiqcs2-8hm_Lubj82L_E5oFZ1GAR8ZXyi0qwbr1lm6izDy51NgmK9ekZXicCScMIHxIMDuFbGUCd37NvTt2aj8d3dTC6hLe3cybX2kzDQI_2MJfTyiGcboUYyEJri_gb0FsVyIZA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi_prmT8KyLAxXLMlkFHQXPLKMQ0pQJegQIDxAB&amp;biw=1536&amp;bih=695&amp;dpr=1.25">increasingly volatile</a> crypto market more broadly, as government actions like Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/">executive orders</a> and State lawmakers' plans to develop "<a href="https://futurism.com/states-taxpayer-money-crypto-reserves">Bitcoin Strategic Reserves</a>" make waves in the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e0e5e286-1885-4d72-8b65-3333069815c1">already rocky</a> digital currency space. Put simply, crypto is an extremely reactive asset, which doesn't make a great foundation for a massive economy like the US.
Critics have <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-06/bitcoin-reserve-would-be-a-bad-deal-for-americans?sref=YfHlo0rL">long charged</a> that moving Treasury assets to the blockchain could result in increased inflation, slower transaction processing times, and soaring crypto prices. While some of that might be good for deep-pocketed <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-several-reasons-musk-wants-113921314.html">blockchain investors</a> like Musk, it's a raw deal for American taxpayers, who stand to gain very little from the deal.
In addition, many experts worry that the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/01/31/leak-reveals-trump-feared-to-be-fueling-a-dangerous-bitcoin-and-crypto">speculative market</a> legitimated by the likes of Musk and Trump is pushing crypto toward a large and dangerous <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/01/31/activist-investor-elliott-management-crypto-inevitable-collapse-white-house-bubble-trump/">bubble</a>, which is liable to burst at any moment. They also flag that driving full-throttle toward blockchain-as-currency serves to weaken the US dollar — which America has spent decades installing as the standard <a href="https://jacobin.com/2013/07/dollar-diplomacy">throughout the world</a> — potentially crippling the actual, real-life market while the made-up fantasy one <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/09/04/mission-accomplished-rate-cuts-from-the-fed-will-boost-bitcoin-weaken-dollar/">soars</a>.
With all that in mind, Musk's unprecedented plans for the Treasury sound less like a play for "transparency and accountability" and more like <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/11/15/how-tesla-and-spacex-benefit-from-government-spending/76301473007/">yet another handout</a> from American taxpayers to the wealthy. At least we'll be able to verify it on the blockchain.
More on the blockchain: <a href="https://futurism.com/blockchains-unhackable-getting-hacked">Blockchains Were Supposed to Be "Unhackable." Now They're Getting Hacked.</a>

Cryp No

"This needs to stop NOW!"

Elon Musk Proposes Putting US Treasury on Blockchain

Google retroactively edited the YouTube video of an advertisement for Gemini, the company's core AI model, to remove an obvious error the AI made about the global popularity of gouda cheese.
On January 30, the search giant released a Super Bowl ad promoting "Google Workspace with Gemini," which is <a href="https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/">described</a> by the company as an AI-integrated "upgrade" to its workspace products like Docs, Sheets, and more. In the ad, a down-home Wisconsin cheese mart owner, explaining that the bulk of his business these days is done through e-commerce, discusses how helpful Gemini has been in writing web product descriptions about the various cheeses he sells.
The video then shows Gemini being prompted with a request to generate a "description of Smoked Gouda that would appeal to cheese lovers." In response, the AI produces a short paragraph of copy that, amid glowing sentiments about gouda's creamy texture, confidently declares that gouda accounts for "50 to 60 percent of the world's cheese consumption."
X-formerly-Twitter user and travel blogger Nate Hake was <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1885137074673549460">quick to call this gouda claim</a> into question. After all, though gouda is certainly popular, 50 to 60 percent of total global consumption is a lot of cheese, especially considering the immense popularity of cheeses like cheddar and mozzarella. The Verge, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/604679/google-ai-super-bowl-ad-gouda-cheese">which first reported on the initial incident over the weekend</a>, consulted a professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University named Andrew Novakovic, who agreed that "while Gouda is likely the most common single variety in world trade, it is almost assuredly not the most widely consumed."
Regardless, Google defended the AI-generated gouda assertion, with Google Cloud apps president Jerry Dischler even <a href="https://x.com/jdischler/status/1885806962605957555">taking to X</a> to insist that the error was "not a hallucination."
"Gemini is grounded in the Web — and users can always check the results and references. In this case, multiple sites across the web include the 50-60 percent stat," Dischler wrote in response to Hake. "Gouda news: many love this cheese! Bada news: not everyone thinks it's as grate." (When the Verge reached out for comment, Google directed them to Dischler's X post.)
It's unclear exactly what sites Dischler was referring to, but it's true that some — including the <a href="https://www.cheese.com/gouda/">authoritative-sounding Cheese.com</a> — do make that exact claim.
But of course, that's the problem Google and other tech companies keep running into: when you automate the process of gathering information, it's easy enough to grab whatever information looks true and repeat it as fact, but hard to duplicate the power of a skeptical human who can evaluate a sketchy claim before putting it on their small business' website — or into a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad, for that matter.
Regardless of its cutesy nothing-statement, it seems that Google recognizes the gravity of the error. As <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1886931460541534488">Hake first caught once again</a>, it looks like Google quietly scrubbed the embarrassing mistake, which has now mysteriously disappeared from the YouTube version of the ad entirely.
The description of the YouTube video doesn't denote any kind of update; it also still lists the original publish date of the ad, January 30. Before and after screenshots, though, <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1885137074673549460">clearly show the alteration</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-341522" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-05-at-10.24.14-AM.png" alt="" width="2022" height="1624" />
In addition to admitting that its AI still isn't ready for prime time, the quiet update also appears to be a remarkable exertion of Google's power as the owner of YouTube.
Per <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/55770?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop#:~:text=You%20can't%20replace%20a%20video.,%2C%20description%2C%20and%20privacy%20settings.">YouTube policies</a>, creators may retroactively alter or edit smaller details of uploaded videos, like the title, description, and title cards. But making major edits to the actual content of an uploaded video has long been forbidden; a substantive alteration, like the correction of a factual error stated mid-video, requires creators to upload a new clip entirely. Google, though, appears to have broken this rule for itself by uploading an edited video under the same URL.
After this article was published, a spokesperson for Google confirmed to Futurism that the ad was edited, explaining that the change was made after Google had consulted with the featured cheese shop owner.
"After the question came up about the Gouda stat, we spoke with the owner of the Wisconsin Cheese Mart to ask him how he would handle it," said the spokesperson. "Following his suggestion to have Gemini rewrite the product description without the stat, we updated the UI to reflect what the business would do."
The company declined to comment on whether it had flouted YouTube's policies.
More on Google and AI:  <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-baby-elephants">Google's AI Overview Believes Baby Elephants Can Sit in the Palm of a Human Hand</a>

Bada Look

Oops.

Google Retroactively Edits Super Bowl Ad to Remove Embarrassing Error Its AI Made

An unknown bandit filmed themselves defacing a Tesla Cybertruck with an, er, anatomical drawing — all while someone was seemingly inside of the vehicle.
Posted <a href="https://x.com/creepydotorg/status/1886017934327152732">on X</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/another_cybertruck_vandalized_is_tesla_vandalism/">Reddit</a>, the first-person video shows a vandal spraypainting a cartoonish phallus on the side of the silver geometric vehicle — while, as sharp-eyed observers quickly noticed, someone was still behind the wheel.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Live-action of mild vandalism to a Tesla Cybertruck 👀 <a href="https://t.co/VdxRpkP2QD">pic.twitter.com/VdxRpkP2QD</a>
&mdash; Creepy (@creepydotorg) <a href="https://twitter.com/creepydotorg/status/1886017934327152732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"Be careful," a user on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unusual_whales/comments/1ifrscg/comment/majbsza/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">r/unusual_whales cryptocurrency subreddit</a> warned potential copycats. "Pretty sure all [Teslas] have cameras looking out from the vehicle."
"In this case the driver was in the truck," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unusual_whales/comments/1ifrscg/comment/mak37oc/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">another commented</a>. "Which is even funnier."
Elsewhere on Reddit, folks debated the morality of vandalism as it pertains to Tesla's infamous owner, Elon Musk.
"There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether vandalizing a Tesla is ethical or not," waffled a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/another_cybertruck_vandalized_is_tesla_vandalism/">user on r/EnoughMuskSpam</a>, a subreddit geared towards dunking on Musk. "All of us could easily come up a list of pros and cons."
"One thing we can probably agree on is that if people see more videos like this, they will be shy about buying a Tesla, hurting Tesla's stock and Elon's pocketbook," the user continued. "I’m not going to tell you [what] to do except to let your conscience be your guide and act accordingly."
In a nod to the South African-born billionaire's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jewish-leaders-elon-musk-holocaust-jokes">Sieg Heil last month</a> — and certain Musk boosters' <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-and-the-history-of-the-roman-salute-248032">equivocation that</a> it was a "Roman Salute" — another <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/comment/maklgpt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">r/EnoughMuskSpam user joked</a> that the vandalism "is not a dick" but is instead a "Roman picture."
And speaking of that salute: around the same time this Cyberdick video was going viral, a Tesla showroom in the Netherlands' Hague — yes, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/nuremberg-trials-a-warning-to-war-criminals-and-dictators/a-55634256">that one</a> — was <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-showroom-netherlands-vandalized-nazi-imagery/">vandalized with anti-Nazi imagery</a> and slogans.
As photos taken after the incident show, angry bilingual vandals spraypainted "f*ck off fascist" and "Nee tegen nazi's," which is Dutch for "no to Nazis." The person or persons also drew two swastikas, making the meaning behind the whole gambit a bit confusing.
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🚘 A Tesla showroom in The Hague, Netherlands, has been vandalized with swastika and anti-Nazi slogans. It is not yet known who did it. <a href="https://t.co/0l0PxNN0Ka">pic.twitter.com/0l0PxNN0Ka</a>
&mdash; Bakhmut IN.UA (@Bakhmutinua_eng) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bakhmutinua_eng/status/1886391689260261867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Taken in tandem, these two disparate defacements serve not only as a reminder of how differently Americans and Europeans treat graffiti, but also stand as stark visual references to the times we're living in.
Be it a dick on a Cybertruck or swastikas at a Tesla showroom, the messages are roughly the same: the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-bizarre-behavior-killing-tesla-sales">world is getting extremely sick</a> of Musk and the horse he rode into the White House on.
More on Tesla and tyranny: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-nazi-salute-german-gigafactory">Huge Image of Musk’s Nazi Salute Projected Onto German Gigafactory</a>

Members Only

Another day, another dick. 

Tragedy! Cybertruck Defaced With Large Crude Drawing

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has laid waste to USAID, an international development agency that typically spends tens of billions of dollars on aid across the world.
Its demise could <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/official-warns-musk-thousands-usaid-people">result in the death</a> of "thousands, if not hundreds of thousands" of people, as one anonymous USAID official <a href="https://www.politico.com/playbook">told Politico</a>.
In an excoriating series of tweets, Musk <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjdmx12j9no">called the agency</a> a "criminal organization" and argued that it was "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886099001876832480">evil</a>," while furthering harebrained conspiracy theories claiming it was somehow linked to the outbreak of COVID.
Now, it's starting to sound like Musk's seething hatred towards the aid organization can be traced back to at least one conflict of interest at one of his business ventures: according <a href="https://www.levernews.com/from-watergate-to-elon-gate/">to The Lever</a>, USAID's inspector general was investigating Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-manipulated-starlink-ukrainian-attack-russia">Starlink partnership with the Ukrainian government</a> around the time DOGE shut down the organization.
Needless to say, it's a charge that perfectly illustrates why Musk is unsuited for the job he's been given. Besides the billionaire's <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">racist and xenophobic ideologies</a>, Musk's singling out of USAID was more than likely self-serving — and has nothing to do with it allegedly being run by "radical left lunatics," as he's said.
Put simply, Musk's own greed could soon kickstart a senseless and entirely preventable humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, with The Lever reporting that USAID's office of inspector general informed Congress in September that it was reviewing "USAID’s oversight of Starlink Satellite Terminals provided to the Ukrainian government, and USAID’s efforts to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse in Ukraine."
USAID's website has also since been scrubbed of any mentions of Musk's ventures, including SpaceX and Starlink after Musk started gutting.
In early 2022, SpaceX <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-starlink-ukraine">delivered tens of thousands</a> of Starlink terminals to Ukrainians on the front lines, greatly enhancing their connectivity. It didn't take long for Musk to <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-stopping-ukraine-free-starlink">get cold feet</a>, arguing that it was "unreasonable" for SpaceX to continue footing their bills.
Musk has also <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule">reportedly met with Russian president Vladimir Putin</a> several times during the country's invasion.
According to Walter Isaacson's biography of the mercurial entrepreneur, Musk intentionally hamstrung the Starlink satellite network to <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/elon-musk-biography-walter-isaacson-ukraine-starlink/index.html">thwart a Ukrainian attack</a> on Russia's naval fleet near the Crimean coast.
"How am I in this war?" Musk asked Isaacson. "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes."
In response, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-to-sabotaging-ukraines-military">admitted</a> that he refused to "agree" to an "emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol," which had the "obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor."
Russian forces have since <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/12/starlink-russia-ukraine-elon-musk/">made use of black market Starlink terminals</a> to power their warfare in Ukraine.
Several years later, Musk's coup in Washington, DC, is already claiming plenty of victims. USAID workers and their families have already <a href="https://time.com/7212938/trump-administration-pulling-almost-all-usaid-workers-off-job-worldwide/">been told to uproot their lives</a>, leaving a massive <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-usaid-official-calls-closure-extinction-level-event/story?id=118422085">vacuum in the global aid sector</a>.
The organization's dismantling is nothing less than a massive overreach of power, orchestrated by the richest man in the world.
"I don’t even know if crime is the right word for the illegal destruction of USAID," New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote in a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lhfm7ughms2e">post on Bluesky</a>. "It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-shut-down-government-payments">Elon Musk Says DOGE Will Now Shut Down Government Payments He Doesn't Like</a>

We Are No Longer the World

"It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."

Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID

<h2>Time of Death</h2>
General Motors' robotaxi company Cruise has begun laying off half of its workforce, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/605941/cruise-layoff-employee-robotaxi-gm">The Verge reports</a> — a nail in the coffin for the company, two months after General Motors <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/10/24318259/gm-cruise-shutdown-robotaxi-super-cruise">pulled its funding</a>.
GM has <a href="https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/topic/us/en/2025/feb/0204-cruise.html">announced</a> that it's acquired "full ownership" over the once-promising startup, while doubling down on the advancements of its assisted-driving feature Super Cruise.
Once hailed as a pioneer in the autonomous ride-hailing service space, Cruise had a lot to lose. In October 2023, a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/pedestrian-under-self-driving-car">pedestrian became trapped underneath</a> a Cruise robotaxi, launching a lengthy investigation and eventually leading to California <a href="https://futurism.com/california-revokes-cruise-robotaxi-permit">yanking its permit in the state</a>.
Despite lofty plans to bring its robotaxi service to more cities, Cruise never recovered, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cruise-recalling-all-cars">pulling its entire fleet</a> from the streets in November and never making a return.
Cruise's spectacular fall from grace highlights nagging shortcomings of the tech, resulting in <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/san-francisco-sues-self-driving-cars-streets">plenty of mayhem</a> on public streets and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cruise-robotaxis-children">terrifying run-ins</a> with pedestrians, despite many years of testing and billions in investment.
"We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support," Cruise spokesperson Sara Autio told The Verge. "While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles."
<h2>Highway to Hell</h2>
Where Cruise's demise leaves the industry as a whole remains to be seen. Once its fiercest competitor, Alphabet's Waymo, is still <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/waymo-expansion-san-francisco">planning a major expansion nationwide</a> and is currently operating a <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-waymo-robotaxis-19592112.php">300-vehicle fleet in San Francisco</a>.
Elon Musk's Tesla is also planning a rollout of <a href="https://futurism.com/why-tesla-cybercab-robotaxi-no-sense">autonomous "Cybercabs</a>," but when — or if — that'll happen remains extremely fuzzy.
Now that Musk, currently distracted by a side quest to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/treasury-payments-system-musk-doge-access/index.html">machete his way through the US government</a>, has floated the idea of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-eliminate-regulations">getting rid of essentially all regulations</a>, it remains to be seen whether Tesla will have to battle the same regulatory hurdles that Cruise failed to clear.
More on robotaxis: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/crowd-tears-apart-waymo">Furious Crowd Tears Waymo Robotaxi Limb From Limb</a>

It's the end of the road for Cruise.

Failed Robotaxi Company Laying Off Workforce

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware that the United States' federal government is <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/12/trump-musk-republicans-billionaire-rule">lurching toward</a> an unabashed oligarchy, with the Trump administration actively cutting through agencies with an extremely regressive agenda.
One of those agencies is the National Science Foundation (NSF), which previously supported research and education in the fields of science and engineering through publicly-funded grants.
That now all seems poised to change. A week ago, one of Trump's many executive orders seemed to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/01/29/grant-reviews-nsf-and-nih-still-paused">freeze all NSF grants</a>, to the shock of the academic community.
That pause subsequently got walked back, but the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-science-foundation-trump-executive-orders-words/">Washington Post reports</a> that teams there are now combing through any active research involving a secret list of words, to inspect whether it falls afoul of Trump's draconian new crackdown on anything even close to identity and diversity.
The partial list flags terms and phrases including "equity," diverse groups," "under served," along with some identity-based demographic nomenclature such as "LGBT," "Indigenous community," "Black and Latinx," as well as "BIPOC." Others, like "sense of belonging," are downright baffling.
As if those weren't broad enough, the blacklist also includes any mention of "women," "racial," "gender," and "trauma."
"These keywords could show up in the text of ANY grant involving human participants," wrote Dr. Darby Saxbe, a USC professor who <a href="https://x.com/darbysaxbe/status/1886584919947927816">published the list</a>. "You can't design a study of humans without using at least one of these terms, which means that biomedical, brain, social science research is now on ice in the USA."
The list also comes with a "decision tree" for reference by the employees conducting the reviews, showing them how to sort work into categories of acceptable and unacceptable — a process that sounds an awful lot like the "<a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/thought-crime">thought crime</a>" described by George Orwell in the iconic 1949 novel "1984."
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-341431 size-large" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/decision_tree_NSF-1200x952.jpg" alt="National Science Foundation Decision Tree circa Monday, February 3rd, 2025" width="1200" height="952" />
Last year, the <a href="https://new.nsf.gov/about/budget#budget-baf">NSF reported</a> distributing some $9 billion in grant money, supporting over 350,000 researchers, teachers, and students. While that's a massive boon for the scientific research community, it's chump change compared to the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60039#:~:text=Federal%20outlays%20in%202024%20total,percent%20of%20GDP%2C%20in%202024.">national federal budget</a> of $6.9 trillion — or just over a tenth of one percent of the nation's total expenditures.
If Trump and co. wanted to target <a href="https://time.com/7209307/elon-musk-elizabeth-warren/">ineffective use of government funds</a>, he might set his sights on the US Armed Forces, which together accounts for roughly <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2025">$1.5 trillion</a> in federal resources, the most of any G7 nation.
You'd be forgiven, then, for wondering what the justification for going after such a tiny agency could possibly be. After all, the NSF is by all accounts a <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240912921237/en/NSF-Celebrates-80-Years-of-Improving-Human-and-Planet-Health">global leader in scientific research</a> — literally setting the global standards of the WHO's Drinking Water Safety and Treatment guidelines, for example. As with everything <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/03/president-trump-federal-government-makeover/78182174007/">this administration</a> has shown us so far, the point is to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/30/trump-executive-orders-pressure-universities-to-end-dei-programs/">debase Trump's stated enemies</a>.
"The goal seems to be to create chaos, demoralize researchers, and undermine science and research," Dr. Saxbe told this publication. "The keywords are so broad that they would apply to any research conducted with humans, including neuroscience, child development, economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. It is already having a chilling effect on the science community."
The release of censored phrases, which so-far has not been acknowledged by the agency, is likewise in contradiction with previous instructions for grant proposals, furthering the confusion.
"The NSF... was charged by the US Congress in 1980 with the goal of 'broadening participation,' eg, by training a more diverse scientific workforce," Saxbe explains. "All NSF grants are required to have language about 'Broader Impacts,' or how this work will benefit society, for example by providing opportunities to trainees from diverse backgrounds."
"In other words," she says, "anyone who follows directions in a grant proposal is going to get flagged for 'DEI language.'"
As NSF grant-writing forms a major cornerstone to STEM research, it remains to be seen what broader implications this will have for the research community going forward. Unfortunately, this is likely just a taste of things to come as Trump and his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-kids-gutting-opm-doge">merry band of cost cutters</a> continue to ravish the critical agencies governing our country.
More on research: <a href="https://futurism.com/springer-nature-ai-media-kit">The Publisher of the Journal "Nature" Is Emailing Authors of Scientific Papers, Offering to Sell Them AI Summaries of Their Own Work</a>

Black List

"You can't design a study of humans without using at least one of these terms."

Leaked Decision Tree Shows How the Government Now Decides What Is Thought Crime

<h2>Tesla Tank</h2>
Tesla sales are falling off a cliff in key markets around the world — as its CEO Elon Musk continues working overtime to tank not just his own reputation but that of his embattled carmaker.
Sales in California fell almost eight percent in the fourth quarter of last year and are down 12 percent overall for the year, as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-03/tesla-sales-decline-in-california-with-model-3-plunging-36?sref=YfHlo0rL">Bloomberg reports</a>. Annual registrations for the company's best-selling vehicle, the Model 3, slide by over a third in the state. (As a harbinger of the trouble, Tesla posted its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-moves-workers-cybertruck-demand-slumps">first yearly sales drop in over a decade</a> last month.)
Similarly, the EV maker's performance is <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/tesla-tsla-sales-are-dropping-like-a-rock-in-europe-but-its-not-just-because-of-elon-musk/">down in almost every single European market</a>, with year-over-year sales dropping over 63 percent in France — as Musk has threatened to upend the continent by <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">throwing his weight behind</a> a political party linked to neo-Nazism in Germany.
Even in Sweden and Norway, key markets for the company, Tesla is losing significant market share, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-loses-market-share-sweden-norway-musk-looms-large-2025-02-03/">Reuters reports</a> — despite car sales overall soaring there.
While it's unclear exactly how much Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">bizarre and polarizing behavior</a> is contributing to Tesla's woes, surveys show it's definitely a factor, with consumers choosing alternatives rather <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/drivers-turned-off-tesla-elon-musk">than driving</a> a "giant red MAGA hat."
<h2>Naz-EV</h2>
A recent survey showed that the proportion of Swedes viewing Tesla in a positive light slid to an abysmal 11 following Trump's inauguration, according to Reuters. It's a significant change of heart, considering Tesla's Model Y was the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/norway-nearly-all-new-cars-sold-2024-were-fully-electric-2025-01-02/">most-sold car in both Sweden and Norway</a> last year.
Another survey by brand reputation analytics firm Caliber, reviewed by Bloomberg, also showed that Tesla's reputation dipped to its lowest levels since at least 2023 in November and January.
Meanwhile, EV alternatives including those by Honda and Hyundai are <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/honda-hyundai-ford-kia-ev-sales-climb-higher-january/">starting to really eat into Tesla's market share</a>, with strong end-of-year sales.
In short, it's not surprising to see consumers abandon Tesla's brand, which has been dragged through the mud by the troubling behavior of its CEO.
Apart from Tesla's tanking reputation, investors have long warned that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/21/tesla-lost-15-billion-in-brand-value-in-2024-brand-finance-found.html">EV maker's lineup is starting to look stale</a>, despite the launch of a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-moves-workers-cybertruck-demand-slumps">divisive and extremely problems-prone pickup truck</a> in late 2022. Musk has bet big on the <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-robotaxi-event-disappointment">development of a "robotaxi</a>," which given the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-fsd-hardware">sorry state of the company's driver assistance software</a>, likely won't be ready for deliveries for quite some time.
Overall, Tesla has now slid to the fourth most valuable car brand globally, according to a <a href="https://www.carscoops.com/2025/01/toyota-worlds-most-valuable-car-brand-tesla-4th-having-shed-15b-due-to-old-cars-musk-study-finds/">recent Brand Finance report</a>, with Japanese carmaker Toyota claiming the number one spot.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-fsd-hardware">Elon Musk Finally Admits That Teslas Don't Have What It Takes for Full Self-Driving</a>