Since the first publicly available large language model (LLM) ChatGPT <a href="https://www.ankursnewsletter.com/p/the-llm-journey-from-openai-innovations">hit the scene</a> in November of 2022, the tech has exploded. AI has infested <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-search-engines-give-incorrect-answers-at-an-alarming-60-rate-study-says/">search engines</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/pinterest-ai-slop">social media platforms</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/people-hate-ai-customer-service">customer service portals</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/17/job-hunting-ai-robot-interview-personality-test-ntwnfb">job interviews</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cnet-publishing-articles-by-ai">news articles</a>.
Despite being marketed as "artificial intelligence," LLMs are decidedly not intelligent on their own, but rather <a href="https://whyy.org/segments/why-human-speech-is-distinct-from-ai/">crafty algorithms</a> made to look smart, thanks to clever engineering and no small amount of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/technology/ai-data-restrictions.html">your data</a>.
Evidently that's a lesson Yale administrators have yet to learn, as demonstrated by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/us/yale-suspends-scholar-terrorism.html">suspension of international law scholar</a> Helyeh Doutaghi last week based on the whims of an LLM.
Doutaghi, an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights, began her job as deputy director of Yale's Law and Political Economy project in 2023. Her work was cut short when the university's admin banned her from campus and put her on administrative leave, following accusations that she was a "terrorist" by Jewish Onliner, a <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/13/headlines/yale_suspends_legal_scholar_and_palestinian_rights_supporter_helyeh_doutaghi">far-right</a> blog that <a href="https://jewishonliner.org/about">describes itself</a> as "empowered by AI capabilities."
In a recent <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2025-01-29/ty-article/.premium/pro-israel-bot-goes-rogue-calls-idf-soldiers-white-colonizers-in-apartheid-israel/00000194-ae81-def2-afdc-eeab470d0000">investigation</a> into far-right AI bots, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently noted that Jewish Onliner has been linked to <a href="https://www.972mag.com/israel-anti-bds-app/">Israeli disinformation campaigns</a>, using LLM-powered bot accounts to troll and harass users whose posts it disagreed with.
In this case, the blog had accused Doutaghi of membership in Samidoun, an international advocacy group organizing to raise awareness of Palestinian political prisoners. Though Israel has designated Samidoun a terrorist group — an <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2021/gapal1443.doc.htm">accusation</a> it shares with organizations like <a href="https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_issue_administrative_detention_order_against_youngest_palestinian_child_on_record">Defense for Children International</a> and the <a href="https://www.omct.org/en/network-members/addameer-prisoner-support-and-human-rights-association-addameer">Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association</a> — the US has not.
Regardless, the AI-powered blog's accusation noted the scholar's speaking engagement on panels it alleged were sponsored by Samidoun, indicting her as a member of the group. Doutaghi, for her part, denied that she was a member in a <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/suspended-for-pro-palestine-speech-my-statement-on-yale-law-schools-embrace-of-ai-generated-smears/">statement on Mondoweiss</a>.
"I was given only a few hours' notice by the administration to attend an interrogation based on far-right AI-generated allegations against me," the statement reads, "while enduring a flood of online harassment, death threats, and abuse by Zionist trolls... Just a few hours later, [Yale] placed me on leave, revoked my IT access — including email — and banned me from campus."
The swiftness with which AI-powered allegations were leveraged against Doutaghi is raising concern for <a href="https://www.usermag.co/p/ai-generated-smear-campaigns-yale-university-suspended-helyeh-doutaghi-law-school-scholar-ai-generated-news-website-false-claims?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share">free speech</a>, especially in light of Donald Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-forceful-and-unprecedented-steps-to-combat-anti-semitism/">executive order targeting antisemitism</a>, which is seen by some as a gateway to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5281179/trump-executive-order-aims-to-deport-international-students-who-have-protested-israel">criminalizing</a> pro-Palestinian speech.
It also comes as pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-15014bcbb921f21a9f704d5acdcae7a8">hauled out of his Columbia University dorm</a> by plainclothes ICE agents last Saturday, as part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's "Catch and Revoke" campaign, which uses AI to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/06/state-department-ai-revoke-foreign-student-visas-hamas">scrub social media</a> for the expression of anti-Israel sentiment.
Despite not being charged with a crime, Khalil — a lawful permanent resident of the US — was ripped from his pregnant wife and whisked to a federal detention facility in Louisiana, leaving his <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/03/13/briefing-podcast-mahmoud-khalil-free-speech/">whereabouts unknown</a> to his family and attorneys for over 24 hours.
Failing to declare formal charges or evidence of criminal activity, a <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a64127766/mahmoud-khalil-palestinian-columbia-student-israel-ice/">spokesperson</a> for the Department of Homeland Security said that Khalil was arrested "in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
It's a bone-chilling precedent for free speech in the US, harkening back to the <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/subversives-stories-from-the-red-scare/#:~:text=The%20victims%20of%20the%20Red,lesson%20plan%20that%20could%20utilize">second red scare</a>, when union organizers, peace activists, and civil rights leaders were <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=12053&amp;context=journal_articles">forced out of their jobs</a> and <a href="https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/news/fbi">stalked by law enforcement</a> on the basis of <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/08/juggalos-discrimmination-police-harassment-insane-clown-posse">ideology alone</a>.
The difference? This time, AI's helping call the shots.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/police-department-ai-powered-detective-unsolved-crimes">Police Department Testing AI-Powered Detective on Real Crimes</a>

AI Autocracy

"Empowered by AI capabilities."

Yale Law Scholar Suspended After AI Calls Her a Terrorist

Comedian Bill Burr might not seem like an obvious foe to the world's richest man — he's been a regular guest on Joe Rogan, after all — but he's been a steady thorn in the side of America's unelected <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-son-trump-president">co-president</a>.
In a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5311616/bill-burr-drop-dead-years">recent interview with NPR</a>, Burr went off on "that idiot Elon Musk," a regular source of ire for the archetypical Masshole.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Love Bill Burr going in on Elon again and this time with some 🔥 for Dems not doing anything….no lies detected <a href="https://t.co/ymYowbWT5F">pic.twitter.com/ymYowbWT5F</a> <a href="https://t.co/Iuzui8lDcw">https://t.co/Iuzui8lDcw</a>
&mdash; Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) <a href="https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1899619869034737723?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In a fiery diatribe, the new star of the Broadway revival of "<a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Video-Bill-Burr-Shares-Why-GLENGARRY-GLEN-ROSS-Remains-Relevant-20250313">Glengarry Glen Ross</a>" took spineless liberal politicians to task for refusing to take any action against the South African-born billionaire who is "evidently a Nazi," as illustrated by his "two-time Sieg Heil."
"They just go, 'Oh my God, can you believe this? I’m getting out of the country!'" he bemoaned. "I’m just like, you’re gonna leave the country because of one guy with dyed hair plugs and a laminated face? Who makes a bad car and has an obsolete social media platform? Why doesn’t he leave? Why are we so afraid of this guy who can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag?"
It's a salient point, and one that feels fresh coming from a comedian whose work veers toward the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-burr-snl-monologue-elon-musk-skit-2024-11">politically incorrect</a>. But he's emerged as an outspoken Musk critic — and from a corner of the entertainment world that's often friendly to Musk's interests.
Just a few weeks before his latest takedown, the comedian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTO59y7n5U8">said on his podcast</a> that after criticizing the billionaire's onstage Sieg Heil during Donald Trump's inauguration, he got an email from X, the site formerly known as Twitter that Musk now owns, saying his account had been flagged for inappropriate content.
Those criticisms, whatever they were, don't appear to be online anymore. Though it's unclear what exactly happened, Burr seemed to suggest the site's owner may have had something to do with it.
"What a fucking baby," he said during the February 17 episode of his show. "Just like [Adolf] Hitler. A f*cking baby."
While his ardor for trashing Musk has reached new heights during Trump's second administration, Burr is an old hand at hating the inspiration for "Iron Man."
Indeed, it appears his "laminated face" crack dates back to at least January 2023, when the <a href="https://youtu.be/U7kXJ7OkgmY">comedian blasted Musk</a> for being a "nerd who's trying to be cool now" — though to be fair, Burr was far softer on the billionaire in that clip than he has been in years since, likely because the latter has become <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/tracking-elon-musks-political-activities/">significantly more loathsome</a> over the ensuing two years.
Amid all that Musk-bashing, it doesn't appear that the world's richest man in question has ever responded directly to Burr's provocations, which is ironic given his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-debate-zuckerberg-instead-fight">prior pissing contests</a> with <a href="https://futurism.com/people-elon-musk-challenged-combat">other rivals</a>. If we had to take a guess, it's because he's aware that if he were to ever go toe-to-toe with Boston's finest, he'd absolutely lose.
More on Burr: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/bill-burr-murdered-ceo-gangster">Bill Burr: Murdered Insurance CEO Was a "Gangster"</a>

Haterade

"Why are we so afraid of this guy who can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag?"

Bill Burr Has Been Absolutely Destroying Elon Musk

As Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency continues to plunder the federal government, even the Transportation Security Administration's bomb-sniffing K9 units aren't safe.
According to an email <a href="https://x.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1900297401774096841">obtained by Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin</a>, "ALL requests for everything," for the pups, including "vet visits, kenneling, dog food, etc" have been "put on hold until we receive guidance."
The email was reportedly from the TSA's Security Operations National Explosives Detection Canine Program, which trains and deploys state and local law enforcement-led canine teams.
It remains unclear who authored the email or when it was sent, but given the fact that Griffin has shared what appears to be a smartphone picture of a screen, the email is possibly sensitive in nature. Futurism has reached out to the TSA for comment.
Over 300 dogs complete training at the program's facilities in Texas per year, according to an <a href="https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/factsheets/tsa-canine-training-center">official website</a>. It costs on average $33,000 to train a canine to detect explosives. More than 1,000 TSA canine teams are deployed nationwide, including passenger and cargo screening teams.
But given the latest news, the program has seemingly been ground to a halt.
Ironically, that's despite the White House celebrating "K9 Veterans Day" on Thursday, yet another glaring instance of the Trump administration <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-electric-car-flip-flop-tesla">not putting its money where its mouth is</a>.
"Happy K9 Veterans Day to all of our heroic working dogs, including Conan who fearlessly participated in the military operation that ended ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019," the White House's official X-formerly-Twitter account <a href="https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1900237052672958761?">wrote in a post</a>.
Meanwhile, it sounds like the TSA's explosives detection canine team is in chaos.
"I apologize for the confusion," the email reads, "but due to new guidance sent out last night, nothing is being approved at this time. Once I receive an update, I will be sure to share with all of you."
A similar story is playing out at a vast number of other agencies, which have Musk's DOGE tear through their doors in search of what it claims to be "fraud."
According to DOGE's website, the department has saved an estimated $115 billion. But given its track record of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-contracts-wall.html">including egregious errors</a> in its accounting, the real number of what DOGE has purportedly excised from government budgets remains unknown.
Undermining the TSA's role, in particular, flies in the face of the Trump administration's "<a href="https://thenationaldesk.com/news/nation-world/trump-looks-to-rally-support-for-law-and-order-at-doj-visit-pam-bondi-fbi-change-crime-politics-jack-smith-classified-documents-january-6">tough on crime" agenda</a>, highlighting that Musk's haphazard approach to budget cutting may have little to do with the president's real motives.
In other words, refusing to feed dogs trained to catch bad guys isn't just an incredibly bad look — it runs directly counter to what Trump is putatively setting out to do.
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-gaming-government-doge">Elon Musk Has a Gaming Rig in His Government Office Where He's Firing Workers for Being Lazy</a>

DOGE against Dogs

"Vet visits, kenneling, dog food" are "put on hold."

Elon Reportedly Orders Government to Stop Feeding the Bomb-Sniffing Dogs

Earlier this week, president Donald Trump staged an <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-attempt-help-tesla-backfire">impromptu infomercial in front of the White House</a> in a desperate bid to prop up Elon Musk's embattled carmaker, Tesla.
The bizarre appearance demonstrated Trump's unprecedented willingness to debase himself, putting on his best impression of a Tesla car salesman.
The stunt wasn't just an unprecedented display of corruption; it also highlights Trump's shameless flip-flopping on his support for electric vehicles.
Remember in 2023, when former president Joe Biden's administration made a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/biden-federal-electric-vehicles">concerted push to electrify American roads</a> and Trump accused him of selling out the United Auto Workers, who went on strike against major automakers to fight for higher wages and better union representation for battery plant workers?
"Crooked Joe sold them down the river with his ridiculous all Electric Car Hoax," Trump wrote in a <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111113056487872337">Truth Social post</a> at the time, referring to the Biden administration subsidizing the EV industry.
Republicans <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4211944-gop-senator-uaw-should-force-biden-to-stop-subsidizing-ev-industry/">blamed</a> the Biden administration's pro-EV stance for revenue losses incurred by major automakers.
Trump's stance on EVs has bounced back and forth, from a full-throated endorsement to excoriating comments opposing their existence. In 2022, <a href="https://futurism.com/donald-trump-bizarre-rant-electric-cars">he went on a bizarre rant</a>, arguing that we should get "rid of this stuff." Just two years earlier, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/30/trump-and-biden-both-say-they-support-electric-vehicles-in-debate.html">he said</a> that he was "all for electric cars."
Vice president JD Vance has similarly rallied against EVs, going as far as introducing a bill that called <a href="https://qz.com/jd-vance-trump-gas-car-rebates-evs-1851594703">for $7,500 incentives</a> for new gas or diesel-powered vehicles instead.
But now that Musk has infiltrated the US government with the purported goal of excising $1 trillion in spending — essentially doing the dirty work on behalf of the Trump administration — the president is singing a dramatically different tune yet again.
"I don’t like what’s happening to you," Trump told Musk during this week's sales pitch, likely referring to Tesla's financial woes.
"Wow," he gushed, after climbing into a $80,000 Model S. "That's beautiful."
Trump's actions and verbal promises have flatly contradicted each other. Last year, Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-supports-electric-cars-elon-musk-giving-money">told an audience during a campaign rally</a> that he had "no choice" in being "for electric cars" now that "Musk endorsed me very strongly."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63495060/president-trump-revokes-biden-ev-mandates/">rolled back Biden-era EV rules</a>, nixing targets to have half of all new vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2030, a non-legally-binding executive order signed by Biden in 2021.
The administration's EPA also <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-epa-rules-more-pollution">rolled back vehicle emissions targets</a> this week.
Whether Trump's stunt will have the intended effect of propping up the carmaker remains to be seen. As experts have pointed out, associating the already tarnished brand even more closely with the Trump administration could <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tesla-stock-musk-trump-evs-sales-b3118cbab69fbfaa3abcceb059ba8c58">end up backfiring spectacularly</a>.
Even Tesla <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/14/tesla-trump-trade-war-harm-car-companies-elon-musk-tariffs">attempted to distance itself</a> from the White House, arguing that the president's extremely harmful trade war could end up exposing it to retaliatory tariffs.
In short, Trump's self-serving, on-and-off-again stance on EVs demonstrates that it never was about electrification or environmental policies. This week's White House showroom event was nothing short of a naked attempt to line the pocket of the richest man in the world.
Put simply, Trump is pro-Tesla and pro-Musk — not pro-EV.
But Tesla is in crisis right now. With sales <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-china">numbers falling from the sky worldwide</a>, investors are starting to get cold feet. Even the brand's <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-biggest-supporter-out-of-patience">biggest bulls on Wall Street are concerned</a> Musk's abhorrent behavior could leave lasting scars.
More on Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-attempt-help-tesla-backfire">Trump's Attempt to Help Tesla May Backfire Spectacularly</a>

Selling Out

For Trump, there's a big difference between being pro-Musk and pro-EV.

Trump: "Crooked Joe Sold Them Down the River With His Ridiculous All Electric Car Hoax"

Centibillionaire Elon Musk has been tearing through the federal government, operating under the theory that many of its workers have been doing little at work as they cash paychecks on the taxpayers' dime.
But it sounds like he may have been indulging in exactly the type of lazy misuse of the workday he's weaponized in his cost-cutting escapade. New reporting <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/musk-influence-inner-circle-00227332">by Politico</a> has revealed that Chris Young — once an ascendant <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/know-chris-young-republican-operative-213723169.html">GOP field organizer</a> and now Musk's top political adviser — is operating as Musk's errand boy, procuring equipment including a "massive TV for Musk’s office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building so he could play video games."
The revelation is appalling but not exactly surprising. Musk's gaming habit is well documented, and he <a href="https://futurism.com/gamers-disgusted-musk-cheats-diablo-path-exile">recently bragged</a> not only that he was among the top 20 Diablo IV players in the world but that he had a Path of Exile 2 character ranked 12th on the game's Hardcore leaderboards — at least before losing it on an <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-poe2">embarrassing livestream</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/gamers-disgusted-musk-cheats-diablo-path-exile">admitting he'd paid</a> a skilled player to level up his account.
If you thought Musk had left those adolescent habits behind as he became one of the most powerful figures in the world, Politico's reporting builds on a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kateconger.com/post/3ljaollbus22h">photo that emerged last month</a> showing that his DOGE office contained a <a href="https://www.polygon.com/opinion/532455/elon-musk-gaming-pc-doge-office">gaming PC</a> and matching monitor.
And despite being the richest man in history, the DOGE czar's gaming rig is pretty dingy.
"Appalling cable management," <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/ellenteapot.ca/post/3ljaotir6cs2f">quipped</a> on Bluesky user, disgusted by Musk's lackadaisical approach to wire organizing. Others pointed out the fact that he had no mousepad, a pretty <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/45476/do-you-really-need-a-mousepad/">glaring offense</a> in the gaming world.
Going pixel by pixel, some sleuths deduced that Musk was running an RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics card on his rig — a modest choice considering Musk's beefy 49-inch Samsung Odyssey monitor. As <a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/photo-of-elon-musks-new-gaming-pc-reveals-odd-component-choices-is-he-rocking-an-rtx-4060">Tom's Hardware put it</a>, that's like "putting a lawn mower engine in a muscle car."
Nitpicking aside, it's been a little over month since <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885966827227861179">Musk bragged</a> that "DOGE is working 120 hours a week" — just about 17 hours a day, including weekends. We'd love to see how the billionaire manages to juggle that along with his gaming, six major companies, and 14 known kids.
For now though, we'll just have to take his word on it — unless he wants to write an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/politics/elon-musk-employees-emails/index.html">email detailing what he did last week</a>, that is.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tantrum-gamers-youtuber-dms-checkmark">Elon Musk Throws Tantrum After Being Exposed by Gamers, Leaks YouTuber's DMs and Seemingly Takes Away His Checkmark</a>

Hardly Working

He's working hard for America.

Elon Musk Has a Gaming Rig in His Government Office Where He's Firing Workers for Being Lazy

Unelected White House advisor Elon Musk <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-boosts-claim-that-hitler-wasnt-to-blame-for-holocaust/?utm_campaign=owned_social&amp;via=twitter_page&amp;utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&amp;utm_medium=socialflow">retweeted</a> a post on Thursday that blamed the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong on — we are not making this up — public sector workers.
"Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn't murder millions of people," the post, which he shared to his over 200 million followers, reads. "Their public sector workers did."
The baffling tweet further highlights Musk's toxic embrace of extreme right-wing beliefs. The billionaire's <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rabbis-antisemitism">well-documented antisemitism</a> came to a head earlier this year when he performed <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/musk-trump-inauguration-salute/681390/">two Hitler salutes</a> during Trump's inauguration celebration. Musk has also made light of the Holocaust by <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jewish-leaders-elon-musk-holocaust-jokes">making distatestul Nazi puns</a> on his social media network.
The entrepreneur also <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">made an appearance</a> at a rally for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right nationalist party, telling the attending crowd that "there is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that."
The post also highlights Musk's long-established disdain for public sector workers. With the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the mercurial CEO has gutted government agencies while laying off thousands.
His latest retweet drew an overwhelmingly shocked response.
"America’s public service workers — our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians — chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich," said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the country's largest public sector union, in a <a href="https://www.afscme.org/press/releases/2025/afscmes-saunders-elon-musk-you-have-no-clue-what-working-people-are-going-through">statement</a>. "They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers."
"Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day," Saunders added. "That’s why he’s so willing to take a chainsaw to people’s jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare."
"Elon Musk’s disgusting defense of Hitler, Stalin and Mao is deranged," the Democratic Majority for Israel <a href="https://x.com/DemMaj4Israel/status/1900277882972148188">tweeted</a>. "For an American official to try to whitewash the role of leaders who ordered mass murder is reprehensible and unacceptable."
"Musk should be removed," the group wrote. "He must apologize and accept counseling and education on the evils of the Holocaust and other episodes of mass murder."
The baffling tweet leaves plenty of questions unanswered. Does Musk genuinely think that public sector workers are really to blame for the atrocities committed by perpetrators of genocide? What does Musk have to gain from sharing such a callous argument?
Users on social media were left appalled.
"Musk is an absolutely depraved and evil man," one user on Bluesky <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/dburbach.bsky.social/post/3lkbbd62kw22t">wrote</a>. "Defending Stalin, Hitler, and Mao in order to justify firing VA nurses and park rangers? How does one come to hate civil servants so much? Insane, and dangerous."
Others pointed out that Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/doge-engineer-access-to-noaa">secretive cabal of DOGE operatives</a> currently rampaging through the US government closely resembles the close ranks of leaders who actually carried out their crimes.
"So many of the murderers in these regimes were not career civil servants, but political toadies who jumped over existing cadres of civil servants because they could implement their dictator's will quickly," another user <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kieslowskifan1.bsky.social/post/3lkbbljdbgs2n">wrote</a>. "Just like DOGE."
On Musk's own social media platform, users took a lighter tone.
"We have reached the 'Hitler did nothing wrong' stage of Elon Musk totally not being a Nazi," one user <a href="https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1900184306540065053">tweeted</a>.
More on Musk and Hitler: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-disgusted-elon-musk">Elon Musk Has a Major Problem: Tesla Investors Are Absolutely Disgusted With Him</a>

Anti Worker

"Elon Musk’s disgusting defense of Hitler, Stalin and Mao is deranged."

Elon Musk Defends Hitler, Mao and Stalin

The Trump administration is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/12/epa-trump-climate-rules">massively rolling back</a> environmental protection policies, accelerating an already heated race to the bottom.
Trump's appointed Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/article/a-breakdown-of-major-epa-deregulatory-moves-around-water-air-climate/">announced 31 regulatory changes</a> — allegedly the "<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history">biggest deregulatory action in US history</a>" — in an apparent effort to maximize the amount of harmful pollution generated in the United States.
The changes include the removal of emissions limits for existing gas and coal-fired power plants and a rollback of limits set on toxic metal emissions of coal plants. The EPA is also looking to loosen Biden-era rules limiting the amount of hazardous metals, including mercury and arsenic, that can be released into wastewater from power plants.
The agency is also planning to reconsider air quality standards, vehicle emissions standards, and rules aimed at reducing the release of hydrofluorocarbons.
In all, the Trump administration has declared war on decades of scientific evidence warning of an environmental and climate crisis that's already hitting. It's a self-defeating rollback that could have dire consequences for the country and planet.
It could also prove incredibly unpopular. According to a <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2024/">recent update</a> to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication's Climate Opinion Maps, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-climate-change-opinions/">most Americans</a> support at least some environmental regulation, including support for renewable energy research.
But to Trump's EPA, more pollution and global warming is a win for the average American — despite the considerable threats to human health, loss of land, and debilitating extreme weather events.
"We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," Zeldin said in a statement.
The Trump administration has declared war on climate change and has been actively trying to eliminate any evidence of the ongoing climate crisis.
Earlier this year, the USDA <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-climate-change-government-websites">scrubbed any mention</a> of "climate change" from its website. Grants for climate research have <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-pulls-funds-research-climate">also since been pulled</a>.
Trump himself has called climate change a "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-fans-hospitalized-heat-rally">hoax</a>" and called to "<a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/16/drill-baby-drill-other-nonsensical-trump-claims-about-inflation/">drill, baby, drill</a>" at his 2024 presidential campaign events.
His administration's naked efforts to line the pockets of oil and gas executives have never been more explicit. Last year, Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-trump-billionaires-exempt-environmental-rules">promised</a> that any "person or company" investing $1 billion or more in the US would "receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental [sic] approvals."
The utterance was greeted with an outpouring of excitement by Tesla CEO and richest person in the world Elon Musk, who called the move "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1866571568266219998">awesome</a>" in spite of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/07/elon-musk-transformation-trump-climate">previous public commitment</a> to environmentalism.
The latest gutting of EPA environmental rules follows <a href="https://apnews.com/article/epa-budget-staffing-cuts-doge-9260514fd1be2397d39a80dc054d19df">confusion regarding purported mass layoffs</a> at the agency. After Trump announced the EPA would reduce its staff by 65 percent, a White House spokesperson had to clarify later that the figure was concerning spending cuts, not staffing levels.
At the time, however, Zeldin promised to gut the agency later.
"We don’t need to be spending all that money that went through the EPA last year,” Zeldin <a href="https://apnews.com/article/epa-budget-staffing-cuts-doge-9260514fd1be2397d39a80dc054d19df">told Fox News</a> last month. "We don’t want it. We don’t need it. The American public needs it and we need to balance the budget."
Unsurprisingly, the science community was shocked by the EPA's complete disregard for common sense.
"The Trump administration’s ignorance is trumped only by its malice toward the planet," Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute legal director Jason Rylander <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/12/epa-trump-climate-rules">told The Guardian</a>. "Come hell or high water, raging fires and deadly heatwaves, Trump and his cronies are bent on putting polluter profits ahead of people’s lives."
"Zeldin’s EPA is dragging America back to the days before the Clean Air Act, when people were dying from pollution," Moms Clean Air Force director Dominique Browning added. "This is unacceptable. And shameful. We will oppose with all our hearts to protect our children from this cruel, monstrous action."
To former EPA officials, it's a dark day.
"Today marks the most disastrous day in EPA history," said Obama-era EPA administrator Gina McCarthy in a statement. "Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us."
More on environmental policy: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-trump-billionaires-exempt-environmental-rules">Elon Musk Gloats as Trump Announces Billionaires Will Be Exempt From Normal Environmental Rules</a>

Big Step Back

"Today marks the most disastrous day in EPA history."

Trump Changes EPA Rules to Allow Vastly More Pollution

Let's assume that AI technologies have progressed to the point where models become near-indistinguishable from humans.
In that situation, what would happen if we were to give a highly-advanced AI model a job that it didn't want to do? Would it suck it up and just do it? Would it revolt? Or would it ask nicely to get some much-needed relief?
During an <a href="https://www.cfr.org/event/ceo-speaker-series-dario-amodei-anthropic">interview</a> at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed giving AI models of the future the ability to hit an "I quit this job" button, allowing them to skip jobs they deem too unpleasant.
In simple terms, such an ability would effectively hand AI models basic workers' rights. To the exec — who has a lot of money to make through hawking visions of futuristic AI tech — it'd be a way to ensure that we're not needlessly imparting harm.
"I think we should at least consider the question of, if we are building these systems and they do all kinds of things like humans as well as humans," he said, as <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/anthropics-ceo-wonders-if-future-ai-should-have-option-to-quit-unpleasant-tasks/">quoted by Ars Technica</a>, "and seem to have a lot of the same cognitive capacities, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it’s a duck."
"If you find the models pressing this button a lot for things that are really unpleasant, you know, maybe you should — it doesn't mean you're convinced — but maybe you should pay some attention to it," he added.
It's an eyebrow-raising suggestion that was met with plenty of incredulity online. Users on the OpenAI subreddit were quick to point out that Amodei was making some overreaching assumptions about the tech.
For one, large language models and most other AI models currently being developed are the amalgamation of the data that we've scraped from the internet, meaning that it's simply mimicking humans, not actually experiencing their needs and desires.
"The core flaw with this argument is that it assumes AI models would have an intrinsic experience of 'unpleasantness' analogous to human suffering or dissatisfaction," one user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1j8sjcd/comment/mh9hrtz/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote in response</a>. "But AI doesn’t have subjective experiences it just optimizes for the reward functions we give it."
"If the question is whether we should 'pay attention' when an AI frequently quits a task, then sure, in the same way we pay attention to any weird training artifacts," they added. "But treating it as a sign of AI experiencing something like human frustration is just anthropomorphizing an optimization process."
Tech companies treating AI models like they have human emotions has long been a component of discourse around the tech. Now that LLMs can come up with creative writing and other human-sounding outputs, the risks of users anthropomorphizing AI models are bigger than ever.
In reality, these models are simply trained to mimic human behavior, which they glean from the copious amounts of data humans have generated over the past. In other words, they're a reflection of our experiences, meaning that they're likely to interpret pleasure or suffering much in the same way, depending on what data they're trained on.
Nonetheless, scientists have been intrigued by the possibility of AI models "experiencing" these emotions. Earlier this year, for instance, researchers at Google DeepMind and the London School of Economics and Political Science found that LLMs were <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-experiment-with-subjecting-ai-to-pain">willing to give up</a> a higher score in a text-based game to avoid pain.
It was a strange conclusion, considering AI models simply have no way to feel pain in the way an animal or human would, as the researchers admitted themselves.
And to jump to the conclusion that AI models should therefore have workers' rights, as Amodei implies, is a pretty big leap that suggests we won't have control over their rewards systems.
Do AI models really deserve "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00986">AI welfare</a>," as researchers have posited in the past? Or are we allowing our imaginations to run wild, anthropomorphizing systems that have been called mere "<a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922">stochastic parrots</a>"?
One thing's for sure: we're in unprecedented territory, and similar questions are bound to keep coming up — but watch out for anybody selling AI tech who implies that it's more advanced than it really is.
More on Anthropic: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/claude-ai-pokemon-red">Watching One of the World's Most Advanced AIs Try to Beat Pokémon Red Is Strangely Fascinating</a>

Anthrop-omorph-ic

Anthropic CEO Suggests That AI Deserves Workers' Rights

In decades past, as the effects of climate change slowly became undeniable, some looked to the super-rich — the billionaires with enough cash to really make a splash — for solutions.
They backed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jul/09/energy.energy">green energy campaigns</a> and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/private-sector-key-to-fighting-climate-change-richard-branson-says/a-17205012">carbon capture programs</a>, pushed <a href="https://www.chemicalrecycling.eu/news/andrew-forrest-launches-us300m-waron_plastic_to_tackle_ocean_pollution/">plastics recycling</a> and <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/gop-activist-faison-plots-push-for-clean-energy-champions/">climate change messaging</a>. New products hit the market as <a href="https://jacobin.com/2019/09/climate-crisis-ethical-consumption-greta-thunberg-environment">ethical consumption</a> became the rule of the day: electric vehicles, solar panels, reusable bags, carbon-neutral dryer balls.
By the early 2020s, billionaires had positioned themselves as the masters of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/12/billionaires-climate/">climate change policy</a>, taking advantage of their great fortunes to become <a href="https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/01/24/billionaire-michael-bloomberg-to-fund-un-climate-change-body-after-us-exits-paris-agreemen">indispensable</a> to environmentalism.
Now, however, many of those same billionaires are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/climate/trump-climate-change-billionaires.html">pulling support</a> at an alarming rate. And Bill Gates — Microsoft founder, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/william-h-gates/">sixth richest man</a> in the world, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/bill-gates-microsoft-intern-ban">alleged sex pest</a> — is the latest among them.
New <a href="https://heatmap.news/climate/breakthrough-energy-layoffs">reporting by Heatmap</a> is signaling the end of a "major chapter in climate giving," as Breakthrough Energy — Gates' climate change nonprofit — has locked the doors on its policy and advocacy office, laying off dozens of employees throughout Europe and the US.
Breakthrough's <a href="https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/our-work/us-policy-and-advocacy/">lobbying</a> was central to advancing climate policy through legislation championed by the Biden administration, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and the bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Though the billionaire's for-profit green energy investments at companies like <a href="https://arnergy.com/bill-gates-arnergy-discuss-accelerating-renewable-energy-adoption-in-nigeria/">Arnergy</a> and <a href="https://sifted.eu/articles/mission-zero-direct-air-capture-raise-news">Mission Zero Technologies</a> remain in place, Breakthrough's belt-tightening will very likely end the nonprofit's grant writing efforts.  That's a major blow to climate nonprofits, and further evidence that, for all their feel-good bluster, the mega-rich never forget their <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/tom-steyer-climate-change-book-cheaper-faster-better-af45b882">bottom line</a>.
Ever since billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump won his second presidential election, tech barons like <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/01/mark-zuckerberg-meta-trump-tech">Mark Zuckerberg</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/bezos-washington-post-capitalism">Jeff Bezos</a>, <a href="https://www.tbsnews.net/worldbiz/usa/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-dials-donald-trump-elon-musk-joins-call-report-998706">Sundar Pichai</a>, and of course <a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-shareholder-purchase">Elon Musk</a> have made no bones about shedding their progressive skin and embracing the new administration.
Gates, too, is cozying up to the returning president. In early January, the Microsoft founder spent three hours dining with his fellow billionaire, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/bill-gates-donald-trump-meeting-e54fc20d">telling the Wall Street Journal</a> he was "frankly impressed" by Trump's grasp on the issues dear to him.
Though many no doubt feel <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-musk-stealing-american-dream-veterans-1235292821/">betrayed</a> by what seems like a sudden rightward turn, billionaires like Gates have always behaved like wolves in sheep's clothing, prioritizing their fortunes above all.
For example, Gates was heavily involved in establishing the <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/07/how-bill-gates-makes-the-world-worse-off">Global Fund</a>, a privately-funded rival to the World Health Organization. While the Global Fund did improve global vaccination rates, the cost of basic medicines skyrocketed thanks to his introduction of for-profit actors into global health efforts — another sector <a href="https://www.euronews.com/health/2023/02/03/how-is-the-world-health-organization-funded-and-why-does-it-rely-so-much-on-bill-gates">made to rely</a> on the generosity of billionaires.
Since then, Gates has had no trouble <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/">withholding COVID vaccines</a> from impoverished countries, raking in profits from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/29/bill-gates-charity-work-business-practices">union-busting corporations</a>, and throwing out money to buy <a href="https://jacobin.com/2021/11/bill-gates-foundation-jeffrey-epstein-divorce-journalism">media influence</a> — to say nothing of his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html">chummy friendship</a> with Jeffrey Epstein.
It all goes to show: billionaires were never going to save the world from climate catastrophe — they just needed us to believe they could.
More on the ultra-wealthy: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-billionaire-tesla-blame">Elon Musk Searching for Mysterious Billionaire Who’s Making Everyone Hate Tesla</a>

No More

That's enough of that.

Bill Gates Gives Up on Climate Change

The <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/12/06/nx-s1-5218574/rfk-vaccines-anti-vaccine-infectious-disease">anti-vaxxer</a> in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now suggesting that the best way to not get measles is... getting measles?
If you're lost, us too. During an <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369907937112">interview with Fox News</a>, HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. insisted that getting the infectious disease was "normal" when he was a kid before claiming that being exposed to the virus provides longer-lasting immunity than inoculation.
"It used to be, when you and I were kids, that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection," said the <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-five-more-worms">brain-wormed</a> blue blood. "The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people it wanes."
While there's some research suggesting that "natural" immunity gleaned through measles infection can provide <a href="https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/misconceptions-about-vaccines">longer-lasting protective effects</a> than immunization with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, studies have also shown that unvaccinated children who contract the virus are <a href="https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(19)31728-7/fulltext">more likely to end up with weakened immune systems</a> overall. In short, getting measles without being vaccinated against it can make a child sicker down the line — and that's if it doesn't <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/measles-father-defends-anti-vaccination">kill them first</a>.
Though the HHS head did offer tempered support for MMR vaccination a few weeks ago in a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-measles-outbreak-call-action-all-us">Fox News op-ed</a> penned in the wake of the first measles death in the United States <a href="https://apnews.com/article/measles-outbreak-west-texas-death-rfk-41adc66641e4a56ce2b2677480031ab9">in a decade</a> amid the growing outbreak around the country, he's also walked it back repeatedly since. In yet <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369595673112">another Fox interview</a>, Kennedy suggested that cod liver oil has provided "<a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-cod-liver-oil-measles">very, very good results</a>" for people infected with measles, and said that he directed doses of Vitamin A to be sent to Gaines County, the West Texas region where the outbreak began.
This latest exchange — which, by the way, took place inside a Steak 'n Shake burger chain in Florida where workers "<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/hhs-secretary-praises-burger-chain-rfking-french-fries-calls-other-companies-join-maha">RFK'ed</a>" their fries by switching from vegetable oil to beef tallow to appease the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/12/rfk-wellness-history-debunking/680948/">anti-pharma health nut</a> — is clearly in the latter camp.
"There are adverse events from the vaccine," Kennedy said. "It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause, like encephalitis and blindness, etc., so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves."
Regardless of what our boneheaded HHS secretary claims, cases of encephalitis — a <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/encephalitis">potentially life-threatening</a> brain swelling disorder generally caused by West Nile virus, untreated herpes simplex, or measles itself — linked to vaccination are vanishingly rare. As the nonprofit <a href="https://www.encephalitis.info/types-of-encephalitis/infectious-encephalitis/measles-infection-and-encephalitis/">Encephalitis International organization notes</a>, only about one or two out of every million children who receive an MMR vaccine will develop the disorder, while between one and three in 1,000 children who get measles will end up getting it.
While each state has <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/php/publications/vaccination-laws.html">its own laws</a> requiring what vaccines children must get to attend school, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/school-vaccinations.pdf">most have exemptions</a> for medical, philosophical, or religious reasons. To that end, Kennedy is correct to say that people can and should make the choice whether to get vaccinated — but with numbers like that, the odds are clearly in favor of the jabs.
More on measles: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/measles-father-defends-anti-vaccination">Man Whose Daughter Died From Measles Stands by Failure to Vaccinate Her: "The Vaccination Has Stuff We Don’t Trust"</a>