The world's largest manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPUs) is facing allegations of review manipulation — and the claims being made are pretty egregious.
According to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiekGcwaIho">GamersNexus blog</a> and others <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsy9FE4swtY">within the PC gaming</a> <a href="https://www.androidheadlines.com/2025/05/from-melted-cables-to-melted-ethics-nvidia-pressures-media-to-manipulate-reviews.html">review industry</a>, Nvidia has allegedly been trading access to its new GeForce RTX 5060 GPU for friendly reviews. Those who haven't promised such positive coverage for the <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/50-series/rtx-5060-family/">$300 gaming gadget</a>, meanwhile, claim they've been left in the dust.
"NVIDIA has offered certain unqualified media outlets access to drivers which actual qualified reviewers do not have access to, but allegedly only under the premise of publishing 'preview' of the RTX 5060 in advance of its launch," GamersNexus claimed in a recent vlog. "Some outlets were given access to drivers specifically to publish what we believe are puff pieces and marketing while reviewers were blocked."
Another site, <a href="https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-grants-rtx-5060-drivers-access-to-media-willing-to-publish-previews">Videocardz.com</a>, went on to report that the German website <a href="https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/geforce-rtx-5060-preview-benchmarks,3433080.html">GamerStar Tech disclosed</a> such an arrangement with Nvidia, detailing that the chip company allowed them to publish a preview of the 5060 but still "dictated" all the settings the reviewer used.
We reached out to Nvidia to ask about these allegations, but a representative declined to comment.
To add insult to injury, Nvidia chose to launch the new graphics card — which, <a href="https://boingboing.net/2025/05/23/nvidia-puts-squeeze-on-reviewers-of-its-mediocre-midrange-gpu.html">as Boing Boing notes</a>, has less RAM than previous generations — in the middle of Taipei's Computex conference last weekend, which many would-be reviewers attended.
"Even if reviewers already had a GPU in hand before then, Nvidia cut off most reviewers’ ability to test the RTX 5060 before May 19th by refusing to provide drivers until the card went on sale," <a href="https://www.theverge.com/pc-gaming/672637/nvidia-rtx-5060-review-meddling-gamersnexus-wake-up-call">The Verge's Sean Hollister wrote</a> of the debacle. "Gaming GPUs don’t really work without them."
Once more reviewers got their hands on the new mid-range chip, all bets were off.
"In our opinion, Nvidia had a clear opportunity to deliver a meaningful upgrade here," <a href="https://www.techspot.com/review/2992-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5060/">TechSpot wrote</a> in its no-holds-barred review. "Instead, they've recycled the same class of GPU for five years, offering incremental discounts with each release."
It's especially interesting at a moment when Nvidia's red-hot commodity is no longer graphics cards at all, but <a href="https://futurism.com/nvidia-ai-gold-rush">instead powerful chips aimed at powering AI</a> infrastructure, <a href="https://www.xda-developers.com/why-nvidia-doesnt-care-about-gaming-anymore/">prompting accusations</a> that the company is now snubbing the gamers who kept it going for all these years so far.
One thing's for sure: for a corporation that was, in 2024, listed as the most ethical companies to invest in by the <a href="https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/7-best-ethical-companies-to-invest-in-according-to-reddit-1340960/5/">Insider Monkey finance blog</a>, Nvidia sure seems to be acting sketchily at the exact moment that it's gaining significant global power.
More on internet ethics: <a href="https://futurism.com/reddit-sue-researchers-dead-internet-ai-chatbot-experiment">Reddit Threatens to Sue Researchers Who Ran "Dead Internet" AI Experiment on Its Site</a>

Quid Pro Quo

"NVIDIA has offered certain unqualified media outlets access to drivers which actual qualified reviewers do not have access to."

Nvidia Is Facing Nasty Allegations

Elon Musk is having a mini-meltdown on his website after The Atlantic published a <a style="cursor: pointer !important; user-select: none !important;" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/05/elon-musk-doge-opponents-dc/682866/">damning dive</a> into his time at the White House, leading with a mortifying description of how he was humiliated by one of his superiors.
Responding Wednesday to a tweet dissing the magazine, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925404812738261294">wrote</a>, under his newly re-adopted display name "Kekius Maximus" and accompanying AI-generated profile pic of himself as a Roman centurion: "They are the past, the legacy media fading into obscurity."
Illustrating how definitely not-mad he was, Musk just kept posting through it.
"The Atlantic is a zombie publication kept on life support by Laurene," Musk wrote, referring to its billionaire owner Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. "Steve would be very disappointed."
Riffing with a user nicknamed "gork," who joked about Steve Jobs haunting Laurene from the grave, Musk posted a ghost emoji and a crying-laughing emoji.
Later, he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925292887857570070">stamped</a> his seal of approval — a bullseye emoji paired with a crying laughing emoji, take note — on a joke made by "gork" about The Atlantic's "ghosted" readership. (The magazine surpassed 1 million subscriptions <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2024/03/atlantic-tops-1-million-subscriptions-and-profitability/677905/">last year</a>. X's userbase has been in a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/65961fec-a5ab-4c71-b1c8-265be3583a93">steady decline</a> since Musk's takeover in 2022, losing nearly one-fifth of its daily active users in the US.)
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😢 <a href="https://t.co/Z59PQ7OKIS">pic.twitter.com/Z59PQ7OKIS</a>
&mdash; Kekius Maximus (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1925315302591442996?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
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So what has him so incensed? According to The Atlantic's reporting, Musk, once gleeful in his role of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/musk-chainsaw-trump-doge-6568e9e0cfc42ad6cdcfd58a409eb312">taking a chainsaw</a> to the federal government, became an <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-administration-elon-musk-views">increasingly isolated figure</a> in the West Wing during his time there, with fewer friends and an ever-growing list of powerful enemies.
On one occasion, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent exploded at Musk for choosing the acting IRS commissioner behind Bessent's back.
"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" Bessent shouted, loud enough for president Donald Trump to hear, and pretty much anyone else in the halls of the West Wing.
Bessent soon got his way and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-replacing-acting-irs-commissioner-rcna201907">booted</a> Musk's pick for IRS commissioner. The Atlantic summarized the significance of the shout-matching: "The power struggle has become a symbol of Musk's inability to build support for his approach."
Musk, even by his standards, has been awfully testy with the media lately. In an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday, he <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-interviewer-npc">repeatedly lashed out</a> at the interviewer Mishal Husain for asking standard questions about his businesses, including Tesla. At one point, he called Husain a "NPC" — a video game term which means "non-playable character," in an unsubtle way of saying they're a brainless idiot that doesn't think for themselves.
Musk, in an NPC-like lack of self-awareness, had something to tweet about the conversation afterwards. "The interviewer was incredibly belligerent," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925314102106132600">wrote</a>.
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-giving-up-politics">After Leaving the Government in Ruins, Elon Musk Says He's Giving Up on Politics</a>

Mad World

The thinnest skin in the game.

Elon Musk Responds to News of How He Was Humiliated

Johan Helberg is a retired museum director living out his days on the idyllic shores of Trondheim Fjord in Central Norway.
That relaxation was interrupted early Thursday morning, when he awoke to discover the bow of a 9,990-ton cargo ship had rammed through his backyard garden.
The vessel, registered as the NCL Salten out of Cyprus — a <a href="https://www.chambers.law/why-register-a-ship-in-cyprus/">common legal tactic</a> for shipping companies — was passing through the Trondheim when its helmsman allegedly fell asleep on the job, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/world/europe/norway-ship-crash-backyard.html">according to The New York Times</a>.
Helberg slept soundly as the 135-meter ship ran aground, missing the cabin he calls home by mere meters. He didn't even realize what had happened until a neighbor woke him up.
"I was sleeping soundly, deeply," Helberg told local press, "and then I heard a dinging sound, which I wondered might be my doorbell. I thought, who in the world rings the doorbell at 5:45 in the morning? I looked out the window, and he said: 'Haven’t you seen the ship?'"
"It's completely surreal," the retiree reflected.
Luckily, the ship was at a crawl when it ran aground. No one was hurt on land, and the ship's crew — a complement of 16 Russian and Ukrainian sailors, along with one Norwegian captain — were no worse for the wear.
"There [was] some commotion, but a slow rumble and not a bang," Halberg <a href="https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/nrk-erfarer_-skal-ha-sovna-pa-brua-da-snl-salten-trefte-land-pa-byneset-i-trondheim-1.17429119">told Norsk rikskringkasting AS </a>(NRK), a Norwegian state media company.
The Salten is what's known as a Baltic "<a href="https://www.container-xchange.com/blog/feeder-vessels/">feeder</a>," a short-range cargo vessel meant to navigate narrow waterways that larger ships can't.
Of course, even feeders tend to stick to the deeper portions of the fjord, according to Helberg. "We don't usually see ships right outside our living room window, so this is especially strange," he said.
The ship's second mate, a Ukrainian man, has been charged with negligence, <a href="https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/sov-da-skipet-pa-byneset-traff-land-_-mann-siktet-1.17430097">according to NRK</a>. The ship's captain is also being questioned as a criminal suspect.
The Salten remains grounded at the time of writing, and maritime authorities say they're working with <a href="https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/planlegger-berging-av-containerskip-som-gikk-pa-land-pa-byneset-i-trondheim-1.17428537">geological engineers</a> to assess the prospects of freeing it from the muddy shore. An <a href="https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/hus-evakueres-etter-leirras-like-ved-containerskip-pa-byneset-i-trondheim-1.17428146">evacuation notice</a> was issued to three residents nearby, as the ships crash triggered landslides.
As the grounding happened at high tide, refloating the Salten will be easier said than done. A <a href="https://www.newsinenglish.no/2025/05/22/large-cargo-ship-grounds-near-a-home/">tugboat pull</a> has already failed to make a dent, and authorities are reportedly considering whether to offload the cargo for the beginning of a long-term operation.
"It's stood on the land quite emphatically, it went ashore at high tide, and it's not close to being lifted off. There will be no higher tide," Helberg told NRK of the situation. "So here it will stay."
Still, the retiree was in high spirits, all things considered.
"No irreparable damage has been done, so I can enjoy the absurdity of the situation," he said. "It's not often you see a ship stuck on the shore where you've been swimming your whole life."
More on Maritime Disasters: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-drives-into-harbor">After Elon Musk Promised Cybertrucks Could Function as Boats, One Fell Into a Harbor for a Perfect Test</a>

Garden Party

Now it's stuck.

Man Alarmed to Find Ten Thousand Ton Cargo Ship Crashed Into the Garden Next to His House

The Trump administration has slashed the US Space Force's workforce by almost 14 percent, a dramatic cut that could have an enormous impact on the smallest and youngest branch of the US Armed Forces.
As <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/05/space-force-losing-14-its-civilian-workers/405489/">Defense One reports</a>, early retirement and voluntary-resignation programs, both widely used tactics by the newly-minted Trump administration to slash government budgets, are having an "outsized impact" on the Space Force.
According to chief of space operations general Chance Saltzman, 14 percent, or roughly 780 civilians, are affected. That's considerably higher than the <a href="https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-space-force-civilian-reduction/">ten percent</a> that officials had warned would be cut earlier this month.
It's a troubling development that could directly undermine the Pentagon's mission to secure the United States' interests in space.
During a <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-posture-of-the-department-of-the-air-force-in-review-of-the-defense-authorization-request-for-fiscal-year-2026-and-the-future-years-defense-program">Senate Armed Services committee hearing this week</a>, Saltzman warned that the Space Force could leave the nation's efforts to protect its assets in orbit woefully behind schedule, allowing adversaries to gain the upper hand.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is also heavily affected and is <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/02/pentagon-fire-5400-workers-next-weekand-ultimately-8-civilian-workforce/403196/">expected to lose five to eight percent</a> of its civilian workforce.
"I'm worried about replacing that level of expertise in the near term as we try to resolve it and make sure we have a good workforce doing that acquisition," Saltzman said.
And even more Space Force staffers could soon walk, taking deferred-resignation offers.
"The DOD is really looking at what the size of the civilian workforce is, and so if those incentives to reshape the workforce affect the Space Force, I'm not sure exactly where we're going to end up, what our final size is going to be," Saltzman said. "As soon as I understand what that size is, then we will redistribute, and reallocate this for."
The cuts came at an extremely unfortunate time for the Space Force.
"We were in a period of managed growth, and so there was a deficit when we were trying to get to a larger civilian workforce, and we were asked to stop, and then asked to offer some to resign early," Saltzman said at the committee hearing.
Beyond early retirements and voluntary resignations, the Space Force was already planning to cut its workforce by as much as eight percent, according to an <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/article/4074278/dod-probationary-workforce-statement/">announcement</a> earlier this year.
Where the cuts leave the Space Force's efforts to gain the upper hand in the space domain remains to be seen. Officials have long warned of adversaries, including Russia and China, that are developing space-based weapons and potentially leaving the US behind.
"We are not adequately funded for the new missions that I've been given in space superiority," Saltzman said.
Despite all of these cuts, the White House announced that it would build an enormous, potentially <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/20/golden-dome-cost-trump-announcement-00359404">half-a-trillion-dollar "Golden Dome" missile and air defense shield</a>, indicating that its priorities may simply lie elsewhere.
More on the Space Force: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-force-aircraft-carrier-space">The Space Force Is Working on an Aircraft Carrier for Space</a>

Space Loss

RIP.

The Trump Administration Is Gutting the Space Force

<h2>Space Computer</h2>
China is launching a space-bound AI supercomputer — and the first batch of the satellites it's comprised of was just sent up.
As the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3310506/china-launches-satellites-start-building-worlds-first-supercomputer-orbit">South China Morning Post reports</a>, the so-called "Three-Body Computing Constellation" project launched the first 12 of its planned 2,800 satellites last week from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The orbital supercomputer network will, when complete, allow for rapid in-orbit data processing rather than relying on terrestrial computing facilities to relay information to Earth and then back up to space. It also doesn't require the copious amounts of water ground-based computers need to stay cool.
Each satellite, the SCMP notes, carries an eight-billion-parameter AI model that can process raw data in orbit. Paired with the satellites' massive computing power of one quintillion operations per second, the constellation is expected, when complete, to rival the world's most powerful terrestrial supercomputers.
<h2>Orbital Processing</h2>
Launched from northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, each satellite carries, <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/aYZXOxxT8d5nwfye-oiZmA">per a statement</a> from the ADA Space startup that helped launch the constellation, unique scientific payloads that can do everything from detect gamma ray bursts to create "digital twins" of Earth terrain for emergency services and other industries.
While the concept of orbital computing is nothing new, this project is, as Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell told SCMP, "the first substantial flight test" of the gambit.
As McDowell pointed out, theoretical space cloud computing projects are "very fashionable" right now, with private companies like <a href="https://www.axiomspace.com/release/axiom-space-to-launch-orbital-data-center-nodes-to-support-national-security-commercial-international-customers">Axiom Space</a> and <a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-origin-unveils-space-mobility-platform">Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin</a> planning their own orbital computing satellites.
Unlike terrestrial data centers, which, <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electricity-demand-from-data-centres-while-offering-the-potential-to-transform-how-the-energy-sector-works">according to the International Energy Agency</a> are on track to use as much energy as Japan by 2026, orbital data centers can "use solar power and radiate their heat to space, reducing the energy needs and carbon footprint," as McDowell told SCMP.
With the launch of the first of its 2,800 satellites, China's orbital supercomputer puts the country ahead of the United States in the rival countries' space race, though there's no telling which will actually cross the finish line first.
More on the space race: <a href="https://futurism.com/white-house-announces-manipulate-time-space">White House Announces It Can Now "Manipulate Time and Space"</a>

So Hot Right Now

They're all the rage right now.

China Is Building an AI-Powered Supercomputer Network in Space

A striking graph, which <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1kn5n7f/oc_chatgpt_now_has_more_monthly_users_than/">went viral on Reddit last week</a>, shows the purported percentage of internet users visiting OpenAI's blockbuster AI chatbot ChatGPT overtaking Wikipedia over the past two years.
The data, compiled by UK-based market research company GWI, shows a steady decline in the proportion of users visiting Wikipedia worldwide, excluding China. In less than a year following its launch in late 2022, ChatGPT appears to have surpassed the online encyclopedia, in a striking reversal of fortunes.
If the data — which is based on survey responses and not site visits — is to be believed, it's a good reason to be concerned about the reliability of information people are seeking out online. While Wikipedia has never been known to be an infallible source free of bias or inaccuracies, generative AI has proven to be far more unreliable, thanks to <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">widespread hallucinations</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-sora-racist-sexist">biases</a> present in its training data. And while Wikipedia is built on prominently displayed citations, AI systems like ChatGPT <a href="https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2023/03/09/chatgpt-and-fake-citations/">often struggle to explain</a> where their info is coming from, even cooking up <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/perplexity-citing-ai-generated-spam">fake references wholesale</a>.
There are also serious questions of ethics and fair use. Wikipedia has an army of over 49 million human editors who ensure accuracy across 64 million articles worldwide. In contrast, it remains infamously unknown what exactly the large language models supporting ChatGPT were trained on — but it more than likely contains data pulled straight from Wikipedia, which OpenAI is now profiting off.
ChatGPT has seen a "36 percent rise in users from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024, as other online platforms remain the same or see a slight percentage increase or decrease," GWI senior data journalist Chris Beer told Futurism in an email. "It’s reaching more of the internet, more quickly, than almost any other platform in history."
Beer also pointed out the "massive adoption among university students," with 49 percent using ChatGPT, "compared to 53 percent who use Amazon!"
ChatGPT, which has been named as the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/">fastest-growing app</a> in the history of computing, has quickly burgeoned into a global phenomenon.
"I will say that based on our research, ChatGPT is actually most popular in the Global South," Beer said. "The markets where we see the highest adoption of it include Kenya, India, the UAE, and Brazil."
China was excluded since "Chinese authorities ban" many online platforms, making the data "unrepresentative," Beer said.
However, in the absence of a more detailed breakdown of actual usage numbers, it's hard to draw any definitive conclusions.
In a statement to Futurism, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, said the organization hadn't noticed any "significant drops in traffic on Wikimedia websites since early 2021" in terms of "pageviews and readership traffic."
"Our analytics show that Wikipedia’s pageviews are approximately 15 billion (B) per month (these have consistently been in the 15B to 18B range since Oct 2020 including occasional rises and declines in traffic)," the spokesperson said.
In other words, Wikipedia's traffic is holding steady, the organization says — but data from GWI and others suggests that ChatGPT usage has rapidly outpaced it.
Web traffic estimator Similarweb appears to corroborate GWI's data. Wikipedia is currently ranked number ten globally in terms of traffic compared to all other sites, while ChatGPT is currently ranked number six with just over 4.5 billion monthly visits.
And if Wikipedia's traffic is experiencing any type of decline, that could also have to do with the rise of AI.
"I think the long-term downward trend for Wikipedia has largely come from search engines adding more 'zero-click' answers," Beer told Futurism. "Whereas before they might return a Wikipedia page as the top result, now you’re more likely to see a weather forecast, or a famous person’s height, or whatever it may be, within Google itself."
"Google’s AI features, along with ChatGPT, are likely compounding that pre-existing trend," he added.
The discussion highlights just how ubiquitous ChatGPT and related tech have become in just a few years. It's helping students write essays, <a href="https://futurism.com/teachers-ai-grade-students">teachers grade papers</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-summarizing-research">summarize data</a> for office workers, and <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-hikers-danger">sending clueless hikers astray</a>.
But at what cost are we ditching carefully reviewed Wikipedia articles in favor of often misleading or sycophantic chatbots? Considering the latest data, the problem of hallucinations is only getting worse as AI chatbots become more advanced. Companies' efforts to <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-chatgpt-sycophant">nudge their chatbots' outputs</a> in the right direction have also resulted in <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-ai-white-genocide-tampered">mayhem and confusion</a>.
The subject of carefully reviewed information and its reliability is more pertinent than ever in a world filled with disinformation and AI slop. Just last month, the Trump administration <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/trump-prosecutor-threatens-wikipedia">threatened Wikipedia's tax-exempt status</a>, accusing the Foundation of violating the law via baseless allegations about the encyclopedia spreading "propaganda."
To critics, it was pure grandstanding and an assault on the freedom of expression.
"Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles written to inform, not persuade," the Wikimedia Foundation <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/25/wikipedia-nonprofit-ed-martin-letter/">said in a statement</a> at the time. "Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
More on ChatGPT: <a href="https://futurism.com/fantasy-novel-ai-prompt-copy-style">Readers Annoyed When Fantasy Novel Accidentally Leaves AI Prompt in Published Version, Showing Request to Copy Another Writer's Style</a>

Just Ask ChatGPT

We're so cooked.

Terrifying Survey Claims ChatGPT Has Overtaken Wikipedia

Google's got a brand new AI video generator, and it's so sophisticated that we're starting to sweat around the collar a bit.
Google DeepMind <a href="https://deepmind.google/models/veo/">describes the new model</a>, Veo 3, as capable of delivering "best in class quality, excelling in physics, realism and prompt adherence" — and as videos posted to social media indicate, that marketing doesn't fall too far short.
The caliber of the video is indeed impressive. But the real quantum leap is that the system can produce audio that goes with the clip, ranging from sound effects to music to human speech and singing.
The internet was quick to riff on all those capabilities, sometimes in the very same clip.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Google Veo 3 Demo - Singing and Music Videos , Shows" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y9UX2qnJwPA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
They often got pretty meta. In one clip <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1krrv1o/cinema_stars_movies_tv_all_cooked_lol_veo3_is/">posted to the r/Singularity subreddit</a>, lifelike AI "actors" discuss the range of actions new model can generate.
"We can talk!" one of the non-people exclaims.
"No more silence!" another enthuses.
As users commented on the thread, commercials and other human creations could soon be "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1krrv1o/comment/mtfqek7/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">cooked</a>" thanks to the rapidly-accellerating technology.
"Netflix will be the first to roll this out," another prophesied. "I should buy some stock. People will watch this shit like crazy."
Over on Elon Musk's X, that mix of loathing and excitement was similarly palpable.
In a <a href="https://x.com/techhalla/status/1925206104679809432">lengthy thread</a>, the AI-boosting account TechHalla showcased Veo 3 videos ranging from the fantastical (a <a href="https://x.com/techhalla/status/1925206104679809432">giraffe riding a moped</a> through Manhattan) to the mundane (a man <a href="https://x.com/HonestBlogging/status/1925044948891549909">teaching a classroom</a> full of old people).
The video generator's artificial physics were on full display in TechHalla's roundup, with one showing a paper boat floating in a puddle before falling into a street hole looking more like the real thing and less like an <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-sora-pokimane-real-people">animated still life</a> than Veo 3's predecessors.
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Physics physics physics! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/veo3?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#veo3</a> <a href="https://t.co/6nYOoheZKK">pic.twitter.com/6nYOoheZKK</a>
&mdash; Medhini Narasimhan (@medhini_n) <a href="https://twitter.com/medhini_n/status/1924915630656168159?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The thread's standout, to our minds, was one <a href="https://x.com/venturetwins/status/1925046014689608146">showing a girl typing</a> on a custom keyboard in a simulacrum of autonomous sensory meridian response, which is better known as ASMR. On first blush, it seems nothing spectacular is going on — until one recalls that AI image and video generators often used to struggle to make <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-awful-generating-pictures-human-hands">lifelike hands and fingers</a>. And the online personalities who create ASMR content professionally? They'll be quaking in their whisper-quiet boots after this one.
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ASMR creators marked &quot;not safe&quot; from AI
I&#39;ve run dozens of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Veo3?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Veo3</a> prompts today, and this might be my most impressive output yet - the audio is insane. <a href="https://t.co/GzcEPc55WC">pic.twitter.com/GzcEPc55WC</a>
&mdash; Justine Moore (@venturetwins) <a href="https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1925046014689608146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Given its sophistication, it's no surprise that Google DeepMind's latest creation can also generate horrific content, too.
Posted <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1ksh3iy/all_these_videos_are_ai_generated_audio_included/">on Reddit</a>, one clip shows a dirty-looking man in a dimly-lit bar begging whoever generated him to, well, not.
"Please don't finish writing that prompt," the man implores. "I don't want to be in your AI movie!"
The video then switches to an apparent post-apocalyptic street scene where the man and a female companion are seen trudging through rubble. The woman runs up to the non-existent camera and begs the viewer to "write a prompt that will make us happy."
"Do it for once!" she shouts — and for just a second, we almost believed her.
Obviously, the "people" in that clip, like the others before it, are not real and were intentionally modeled via prompting to tug at our heartstrings — but these videos' ability to do so is pretty freaky.
More on AI video: <a href="https://futurism.com/new-smith-eating-spaghetti-video-sounds">The Newest "Will Smith Eating Spaghetti" Video Includes AI-Generated Squelching and Chomping Sounds That Just Might Make You Sick</a>

Generative Generation

"I don't want to be in your AI movie!"

Google's New Video-Generating AI May Be the End of Reality as We Know It

Across the American West, a massive glowing streak appeared in the skies last weekend — and an experimental rocket fuel seems to have been its source.
As <a href="https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/giant-white-streak-appears-over-multiple-us-states-as-chinese-rocket-dumps-experimental-fuel-in-space">Live Science reports,</a> the spectacular light show was almost certainly the result of spent fuel from ZhuQue-2E, a rocket from the Chinese startup Landspace that used a methane-based fuel known "<a href="https://engineering.uci.edu/news/2023/6/uci-students-launch-cutting-edge-methalox-rocket">methalox</a>" as its upper stage burned.
Launched on May 17, the rocket took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, a mega-bright streak was seen over at least seven American states — Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington — and skywatchers online began speculating about what could have caused it.
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This plume was not an aurora, and it was not STEVE. We believe it is related to a rocket launch in China. About an hour before the plume appeared (5:39 UTC), Chinese launch startup Landspace launched the ZhuQue-2E rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (4:12 UTC). It… <a href="https://t.co/FEcwhfxbZT">pic.twitter.com/FEcwhfxbZT</a>
&mdash; Oppenheimer Ranch Project (@Diamondthedave) <a href="https://twitter.com/Diamondthedave/status/1923850741078426011?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Around that same time, the <a href="https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&amp;day=18&amp;month=05&amp;year=2025">Space Weather blog noted</a> that the radiant tails were likely from the Chinese rocket. Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell later confirmed, per his own measurements, that the source of the "<a href="https://x.com/planet4589/status/1923814299673178117">unusual luminous cloud</a>" seen out west was from a ZhuQue-2E "<a href="https://x.com/planet4589/status/1923816086954180769">fuel dump at the upper stage</a>."
As <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ikewinski/54525470074/in/photostream/">footage from the incredible spectacle</a> shows, the massively bright streak lit up the entire night sky, which in some areas was already illuminated by auroras from a geomagnetic storm that just so happened to have occurred at the same time.
Soon after the rocket made it to space, skywatchers began <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ikewinski/54525470074/in/photostream/">posting amazing footage</a> of the mega-bright glowing streak — and as <a href="https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&amp;day=18&amp;month=05&amp;year=2025">SpaceWeather noted</a> at the time, those radiant streaks also took place during an aurora, which was caused by a geomagnetic storm that happened at the time same time.
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Sometimes human intervention can make something that is already beautiful a little more beautiful. The bright white light is not part of the aurora but from a rocket using Methalox fuel. <a href="https://t.co/i8QldIOYvY">pic.twitter.com/i8QldIOYvY</a>
&mdash; Christine Nogales (@Nogales_Fogales) <a href="https://twitter.com/Nogales_Fogales/status/1924109495715745818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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In the so-called "<a href="https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/07/zhuque-2-launch2/">Methane Race to Orbit</a>," Landspace scored a massive goal for its home country back in 2023, when it <a href="https://spacenews.com/chinas-landspace-reaches-orbit-with-methane-powered-zhuque-2-rocket/">became the first company</a> to successfully launch a rocket — another ZhuQue-2E, and its <a href="https://spacenews.com/historic-first-launch-of-chinese-private-methane-fueled-rocket-ends-in-failure/">second such attemp</a>t — using methalox.
In subsequent years, the American companies <a href="https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-first-launch-peregrine-celestis-moon-mission">United Launch Alliance</a> and <a href="https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/01/after-the-success-of-new-glenn-blue-origin-to-focus-on-launching-frequently/">Blue Origin</a> became the second and third to launch spacecraft into orbit using the methane-based fuel, which is lauded by experts as far cleaner than the standard RP-1 kerosene that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220713-how-to-make-rocket-launches-less-polluting">produces carbon dioxide</a> when burned.
In a <a href="https://www.space.com/rocket-launches-environmental-impact">prior interview with SpaceNews</a>, rocket propulsion expert Filippo Maggi explained that although methane is, like CO2, also a greenhouse gas, it burns cleaner than RP-1 — and provides more energy, too.
"If you produce a good propulsion unit, the efficiency of that unit can be as high as 99.5 percent," Maggi told the site back in 2021. "That means that the residues of methane would be basically zero. You might have some carbon monoxide released instead of carbon dioxide. But that would be very little."
More on China's space case: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/bacteria-china-space-station">Mysterious Bacteria Not Found on Earth Are Growing on China’s Space Station</a>

Methalox Man

This incredible bolt lit up the sky out west. 

Chinese Spacecraft Accused of Dumping Experimental Fuel in Streak Seen Across American Sky

Readers were annoyed to discover something galling: evidence that an author used AI, right in the middle of a novel.
The novel, titled "Darkhollow Academy : Year 2," penned by author Lena McDonald, falls under a romance subgenre called "reverse harem," which conventionally follows a female protagonist with multiple male partners.
But as eagle-eyed fans of the genre were irritated to discover, the author left glaringly obvious evidence of not only using an AI chatbot to write portions of the book — but also of a naked attempt to copy the style of a real fellow writer.
"I've rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree's style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements," a since-deleted passage in chapter three of the novel reads, as seen in <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseHarem/comments/1klzwcf/author_lena_mcdonald_is_blatantly_using_ai_to/">screenshots posted to the ReverseHarem subreddit</a> earlier this month.
J. Bree is the human author of an internationally bestselling series of romance and fantasy novels.
The instance is yet another illustration of how Amazon is being flooded with self-published AI slop, a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-flooded-books-written-by-ai">trend that has been going on</a> ever since the tech went mainstream a few years ago. It's a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/author-amazon-ai-books">real problem for human authors</a>, too, with AI-generated books drowning out their work in search results pages.
In one particularly egregious example, author Jane Friedman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/09/amazon-removes-books-generated-by-ai-for-sale-under-authors-name">discovered</a> back in 2023 that roughly a dozen books were being sold on Amazon with her name on them.
Understandably, the small ReverseHarem community on Reddit was outraged after McDonald was caught blatantly using AI to rip off the voice of a real author.
"I just about fell out of my chair when I read this!" <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseHarem/comments/1klzwcf/comment/ms6bltt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote</a> the user who shared the screenshots.
"I got the book to provide secondary confirmation that this is real," another user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseHarem/comments/1klzwcf/comment/ms6jwoq/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">chimed in</a>. "Which means everyone has now read part of the book, which qualifies for a Goodreads rating, and possibly even Amazon."
Readers tore into the book in a storm of one-star reviews.
"This was written with generative AI, as is clear by the prompt that was left in the book before uploading to Amazon," one disgruntled reviewer wrote. "I will support authors in many, many ways, but generative AI is theft and it’s not a replacement for actual writing."
"I would assume all of her other writing uses AI as well, as book 1 of this series released 1/24/25, book 2 on 3/13/25, and book 3 on 3/23/25," one GoodReads reviewer <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/229147010-darkhollow-academy">wrote</a>. "That's faster than Steven King."
A book reviewer account called Indie Book Spotlight put it a lot more bluntly in a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/bookspotlight.bsky.social/post/3lppnpt6hps2z">Bluesky post</a>.
"F**k you if you steal and copy authors’ works," the user wrote. "F**k you if you use gen ai and call yourself a writer. You’re an opportunist hack using a theft machine."
McDonald's blunder is just the tip of the iceberg. Two other purported authors identified by Indie Book Spotlight were caught dabbling with generative AI to churn out novels.
Earlier this year, a writer who goes by KC Crowne was also seemingly caught leaving ChatGPT prompts in the text of their work.
"Thought for 13 seconds," one passage of a book titled "Dark Obsession" on Amazon reads, as seen in <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/1i2nt9o/k_c_crowne_and_the_use_of_ai/">screenshots posted to the RomanceBooks subreddit</a> in January. "Certainly! Here's an enhanced version of your passage, making Elena more relatable and injecting additional humor while providing a brief, sexy description of Grigori."
Crowne's <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/stores/author/B07H4X4LN1">Amazon page</a> features a whopping 171 titles, each adorned with an AI-generated cover of topless, tattoo-covered men.
"International Bestselling Author and Amazon Top 8 US Bestseller," the author's bio reads.
A third writer, who goes by Rania Faris, was also caught using an AI chatbot.
"This is already quite strong, but it can be tightened for a sharper and more striking delivery while maintaining the intensity and sardonic edge you're aiming for," <a href="https://www.threads.com/@amilea.writes/post/DIkchW0gYov">reads a passage one Threads user discovered</a> in a printed copy of Faris' book.
Oddly enough, Crowne's novels are getting <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/list/18450070.K_C_Crowne.html">predominantly positive reviews</a> on GoodReads, indicating they have found their niche, and readers may either not care or not be aware of the use of AI.
Users on Bluesky were sharing theories as to why.
"Oh wow, I just caught up on the KC Crowne AI thing," award-winning Canadian author Krista Ball <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kristadb1.bsky.social/post/3lfue3i3id22w">wrote</a> in a post back in January. "So setting aside the AI prompt left in the book, I am amazed that this wasn't mentioned anywhere by the early readers, the street team, etc - which leads into my paranoid theory that a percentage of readers are just skim reading."
"Remember back in the day when writing fast was like a good reputation builder?" she <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/kristadb1.bsky.social/post/3lfuercries2w">added</a>. "Now it's sus as all hell."
Neither McDonald nor Faris has publicly listed contact information. Crowne, at least, is taking accountability for the situation.
"Earlier this year, I made an honest mistake," Crowne wrote in an email to Futurism. "I accidentally uploaded the wrong draft file, which included an AI prompt. That error was entirely my responsibility, and that's why I made the tough decision to address it publicly."
Crowne claimed that "while I occasionally use AI tools to brainstorm or get past writer’s block, every story I publish is fundamentally my own," saying that "I only use AI-assisted tools in ways that help me improve my craft while fully complying with the terms of service of publishing platforms, to the best of my ability."
AI or not, Crowne has somehow published 171 novels over the last <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Her-Mountain-Daddy-Bearded-Bros-ebook/dp/B07H4J1PMC?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.5jLGzAHGfIMRc1ztSD7dX5GmUNJNW-G9-a5TNYtcOzucYVorZHtRiunHkxPX2blNFJq-JEJ8rhFbr3yX0DdeSRVH-V4rta4JjVK_NlS7Yi3ilyzBmogQhF3GfSi05MRyImUSKeTTvKBSBuPKkxL74LwsRCvMv0rG3vrR_gBMqB9nxXuMvVfNvSdXu4A3F5XI3NZfNm4cKA9Hvj4Ibqcm_XYZvSlnFXQyMlB-DVz_-gk.V5VHPPb29tlPrOxzK7NfQCBaUjc_s4DlcKqhQHpL91I&amp;dib_tag=AUTHOR">seven years</a>.
Whether the use of generative AI in self-published books on Amazon breaks any rules remains somewhat unclear. An Amazon spokesperson pointed us to the <a href="https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200672390#aicontent">company's content guidelines</a>, which govern "which books can be listed for sale, regardless of how the content was created."
The guidelines have an entire subsection dedicated to the use of AI, which stipulates that "AI-assisted content" is permitted and sellers aren't even "required to disclose" its use. However, any "AI-generated images include cover and interior images and artwork" have to be labeled as such.
The internet at large is also facing an existential threat in the shape of an AI slop tsunami. Do we really need to extend that trend to 300-page fantasy novels to read on the subway to work?
Self-published authors who are trying to stand out in an already busy marketplace aren't hopeful.
"They bring down the reputation of those of us who don't touch AI to write our books," author Catherine Arthur <a href="https://x.com/CatArthurian/status/1925474141748027545">tweeted</a>. "Being tarred with the 'self-published = written by AI' label is not good, and if they don't stop, then that's what may happen."
More on AI slop: <a href="https://futurism.com/journalists-chicago-newspaper-ai-slop">Journalists at Chicago Newspaper "Deeply Disturbed" That "Disaster" AI Slop Was Printed Alongside Their Real Work</a>

Bot Romance

"I just about fell out of my chair when I read this!"

Readers Annoyed When Fantasy Novel Accidentally Leaves AI Prompt in Published Version, Showing Request to Copy Another Writer's Style

President Donald Trump's national security adviser <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-mike-waltz-alex-wong/">Mike Waltz has already been ousted</a> for using a bottom-shelf Signal clone for official messaging — but the fallout from that debacle is still getting worse and worse.
As <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hacker-who-breached-communications-app-used-by-trump-aide-stole-data-across-us-2025-05-21/">Reuters reports</a>, a hacker who <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-administration-signal-clone-hacked">accessed information from TeleMessage</a>, an Israeli messaging app that was sold to the government to archive messages from Signal and other services, obtained data from way more Trump officials than previously thought.
It's been an especially tough year for Waltz. After being caught <a href="https://futurism.com/signal-group-chat-passwords-leaked">accidentally adding Jeffrey Goldberg</a>, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, to a Signal group chat about Yemeni bombing plans, the Trump adviser was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/photo-appears-shows-mike-waltz-using-signal-app-can-archive-messages-rcna204434">photographed using TeleMessage</a>'s Signal clone during a Cabinet meeting just before news broke that <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-administration-signal-clone-hacked">it had been hacked</a>. Though <a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/mikewaltz-tech-israel-nationalsecurity-signal">Waltz was ultimately fired</a> , the hits have continued in his absence.
With the help of the nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which publishes hacked information of interest to the public, Reuters found more than 60 government officials whose information had been accessed from TeleMessage.
Those officials range from staffers with the State Department and the White House to disaster responders and Secret Service members, and although the messages the British wire reviewed were often fragmentary, its reporters were still able to see those federal employees' phone numbers.
Outsiders are also corroborating. People outside the government, whose numbers were in the breached message cache, including one person who'd been applying for disaster aid and another from a financial service company, confirmed to Reuters that they had indeed been messaging with Trump administration officials.
The White House, to its end, said in a statement that it was "aware of the cyber security incident" but didn't offer any additional details.
As <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tm-signal-telemessage-plaintext-message-archive">Wired reported</a> when the TeleMessage photo was first published, it appears that the app's archiving capabilities essentially nullified any security promises from the app, which was recently purchased by an Oregon-based company called Smarsh.
The person who hacked the government's Telemessage server <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-signal-knock-off-app-telemessage-got-hacked-in-20-minutes/">told Wired</a> in a followup story that breaching the app "wasn't much effort at all," and that it only took them about "15 or 20 minutes."
As that hacker explained, an issue with the the app's "hashing," which is supposed to obfuscate passwords, accidentally made it easy to figure them out.
Once they were in, the hacker was presented with a file literally titled "heapdump" that included the login credentials of people who used the app — and because is archiving effectively un-encrypted the messages sent, they partially accessed those too.
Though the extent of this breach and other details about the scandal remain unclear, it's abundantly obvious that the Trump administration has a security problem so bad that it makes <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/clintons-emails-dont-jeopardize-u-s-security/">Hillary Clinton's private email server</a> look like Fort Knox.
More on Telemessage: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-deportation-airline-hacked-anonymous">Trump’s Deportation Airline Just Got Hacked by Anonymous</a>