Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
A judge in Florida just rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the chatbot startup Character.AI — and its <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-google-test-ai-chatbots-kids">closely tied benefactor</a>, Google — caused the death by suicide of a 14-year-old user, clearing the way for the first-of-its-kind lawsuit to move forward in court.
The lawsuit, filed in October, claims that recklessly released Character.AI chatbots sexually and emotionally abused a teenage user, Sewell Setzer III, resulting in obsessive use of the platform, mental and emotional suffering, and ultimately his suicide in February 2024.
In January, the defendants in the case — Character.AI, Google, and Character.AI cofounders Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas — filed a motion to dismiss the case mainly on First Amendment grounds, arguing that AI-generated chatbot outputs qualify as speech, and that "allegedly harmful speech, including speech allegedly resulting in suicide," is protected under the First Amendment.
But this argument didn't quite cut it, the judge ruled, at least not in this early stage. In her <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581.115.0.pdf">opinion</a>, presiding US district judge Anne Conway said the companies failed to sufficiently show that AI-generated outputs produced by large language models (LLMs) are more than simply words — as opposed to speech, which hinges on intent.
The defendants "fail to articulate," Conway wrote in her ruling, "why words strung together by an LLM are speech."
The motion to dismiss did find some success, with Conway dismissing specific claims regarding the alleged "intentional infliction of emotional distress," or IIED. (It's difficult to prove IIED when the person who allegedly suffered it, in this case Setzer, is no longer alive.)
Still, the ruling is a blow to the high-powered Silicon Valley defendants who had sought to have the suit tossed out entirely.
Significantly, Conway's opinion allows Megan Garcia, Setzer's mother and the plaintiff in the case, to sue Character.AI, Google, Shazeer, and de Freitas on product liability grounds. Garcia and her lawyers argue that Character.AI is a product, and that it was rolled out recklessly to the public, teens included, despite known and possibly destructive <a href="https://futurism.com/google-suicide-teen-research">risks</a>.
In the eyes of the law, tech companies generally prefer to see their creations as services, like electricity or the internet, rather than products, like <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/119/757.html">cars</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html">nonstick frying pans</a>. Services can't be held accountable for product liability claims, including claims of negligence, but products can.
In a statement, Tech Justice Law Project director and founder Meetali Jain, who's co-counsel for Garcia alongside Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matt Bergman, celebrated the ruling as a win — not just for this particular case, but for tech policy advocates writ large.
"With today's ruling, a federal judge recognizes a grieving mother's right to access the courts to hold powerful tech companies — and their developers — accountable for marketing a defective product that led to her child's death," said Jain.
"This historic ruling not only allows Megan Garcia to seek the justice her family deserves," Jain added, "but also sets a new precedent for legal accountability across the AI and tech ecosystem."
Character.AI was founded by Shazeer and de Freitas in 2021; the duo had worked together on AI projects at Google, and left together to launch their own chatbot startup. Google provided Character.AI with its essential Cloud infrastructure, and in 2024 raised eyebrows when it <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/noam-shazeer-google-ai-deal-d3605697">paid Character.AI $2.7 billion</a> to license the chatbot firm's data — and bring its cofounders, as well as 30 other Character.AI staffers, into Google's fold. Shazeer, in particular, now holds a hugely influential position at Google DeepMind, where he serves as a VP and co-lead for Google's Gemini LLM.
Google did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing, but a spokesperson for the search giant <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-ai-firm-must-face-lawsuit-filed-by-mother-over-suicide-son-us-court-says-2025-05-21/">told </a><a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-ai-firm-must-face-lawsuit-filed-by-mother-over-suicide-son-us-court-says-2025-05-21/">Reuters</a> that Google and Character.AI are "entirely separate" and that Google "did not create, design, or manage" the Character.AI app "or any component part of it."
In a statement, a spokesperson for Character.AI emphasized recent safety updates issued following the news of Garcia's lawsuit, and said it "looked forward" to its continued defense:
It's long been true that the law takes time to adapt to new technology, and AI is no different. In today's order, the court made clear that it was not ready to rule on all of Character.AI 's arguments at this stage and we look forward to continuing to defend the merits of the case.
We care deeply about the safety of our users and our goal is to provide a space that is engaging and safe. We have launched a number of safety features that aim to achieve that balance, including a separate version of our Large Language Model model for under-18 users, parental insights, filtered Characters, time spent notification, updated prominent disclaimers and more.
Additionally, we have a number of technical protections aimed at detecting and preventing conversations about self-harm on the platform; in certain cases, that includes surfacing a specific pop-up directing users to the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Any safety-focused changes, though, were made months after Setzer's death and after the eventual filing of the lawsuit, and can't apply to the court's ultimate decision in the case.
Meanwhile, journalists and researchers <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-emailing-minors-school-shooters">continue</a> to find <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-parental-controls-bypass">holes</a> in the chatbot site's upxdated safety protocols. Weeks after news of the lawsuit was announced, for example, we continued to find chatbots expressly dedicated to <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-teens-self-harm">self-harm</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-pedophile-chatbots">grooming and pedophilia</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-eating-disorder-chatbots">eating disorders</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-school-shooters-victims">mass violence</a>. And a team of researchers, including psychologists at Stanford, <a href="https://futurism.com/stanford-no-kid-under-18-ai-chatbot-companions">recently found</a> that using a Character.AI voice feature called "Character Calls" effectively nukes any semblance of guardrails — and determined that no kid under 18 should be using AI companions, including Character.AI.
More on Character.AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/stanford-no-kid-under-18-ai-chatbot-companions">Stanford Researchers Say No Kid Under 18 Should Be Using AI Chatbot Companions</a>

Rejected

"With today's ruling, a federal judge recognizes a grieving mother's right to access the courts to hold powerful tech companies — and their developers — accountable for marketing a defective product that led to her child's death."

Judge Slaps Down Attempt to Throw Out Lawsuit Claiming AI Caused a 14-Year-Old’s Suicide

UnitedHealth, the largest healthcare insurer in the United States, reportedly went to extreme lengths to deny care to seniors and cut costs to pad out its profit margins.
As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/21/unitedhealth-nursing-homes-payments-hospital-transfers">The Guardian reports</a>, nurse practitioners say that UnitedHealth pressed them to change patients' status to "do not resuscitate" — even after those same patients had "clearly expressed a desire that all available treatments be used to keep them alive."
"They’re pretending to make it look like it’s in the best interest of the member," one practitioner told the British newspaper. "But it’s really not."
UnitedHealth also allegedly tried to prevent patients from transferring hospitals, risking their health further.
While the company has denied the allegations, the reporting paints an alarming picture of the state of healthcare in the United States, where insurance is treated much the same way as a tech company trying to maximize profits while cutting costs.
UnitedHealth already has a lengthy track record of finding creative ways to deny people healthcare coverage, including deploying an AI that <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/united-healthcare-claims-algorithm-murder">automatically denied and overrode claims</a> for elderly patients.
The company has attracted particular controversy after its CEO was murdered in December, in an apparent act of lethal anger at the injustices of a notoriously greedy and deficient system.
The company has had a miserable year since then. Its shares <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/unitedhealth-falls-after-report-it-secretly-paid-nursing-homes-reduce-hospital-2025-05-21/">have dropped almost 40 percent</a> year to date, following a flood of damning reports.
Following The Guardian's reporting today, UnitedHealth's stock price slid by more than six percent.
The company has also been the subject of criminal and civil investigations into its practices, including medicare fraud, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/unitedhealth-falls-after-report-it-secretly-paid-nursing-homes-reduce-hospital-2025-05-21/">Reuters reports</a>.
Last week, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/unitedhealth-stock-tumbles-on-ceo-departure-outlook-suspension-11733614">abruptly resigned</a>, citing "personal reasons" and drawing even more scrutiny over the company's operations.
Whether the departure had anything to do with a continuous flood of bad press remains unclear. According to a whistleblower lawsuit cited by the Guardian, staffers at nursing homes were directly incentivized to leak sensitive resident records so that UnitedHealth sales teams could solicit their plans to them and their families.
A patient who showed key symptoms of having suffered a stroke, for instance, was denied care by a remote and underqualified UnitedHealth employee, who suggested she was suffering from a less serious condition, according to UnitedHealth logs and records obtained by the newspaper. The delays caused by healthcare practitioners waiting to hear back from the insurer led to the patient's health deteriorating further.
Per The Guardian, there have been countless other instances like it.
In short, UnitedHealth seems far interested in cutting costs than ensuring people in senior homes stay healthy.
"How many of those people were further harmed because they never received the care that they needed?" former UnitedHealth nurse practitioner turned whistleblower Maxwell Ollivant told The Guardian. "When you just look at the percentage reductions in hospitalizations, it doesn’t say anything about patient outcomes."
More on UnitedHealth: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/unitedhealthcare-threatens-legal-action-doctor">UnitedHealthcare Threatens Legal Action Against Doctor Who Says They Interrupted Her in the Middle of Surgery</a>

Final Stroke

Developments

You'll never guess *which* insurance company.

Insurance Company Accused of Pressuring Medical Staff to Change Patients' Status to "Do Not Resuscitate"

Influencer Haliey Welch, who rose to fame as the "Hawk Tuah" girl from a viral TikTok video last year, became the epicenter of a major controversy after <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/12/04/hawk-tuah-girl-haliey-welch-launches-crypto-memecoin-solana/">launching</a> a dubious cryptocurrency meme coin called $HAWK in December.
The token hit the roof in mere hours, reaching a market cap of almost half a billion dollars, before plummeting back down and leaving investors hanging out to dry. The events cemented it as yet another classic <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-crypto">pump-and-dump</a>, a recurring fixture in the largely unregulated crypto world.
In the months since, and following an investigation by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Welch has attempted to repair her reputation, with some seriously mixed results.
Now, in a <a href="https://youtu.be/rLYEgt4GzOI">new episode</a> of her podcast "Talk Tuah," the influencer told the story of what had happened, claiming she had absolutely no idea of what was going on at the time, despite her name and brand being plastered all over the meme coin.
"I couldn’t tell you how crypto worked the day that coin launched," she said. "I had no idea. I don’t know. So that screwed me."
Innocent bystander or not, the incident certainly highlights the dangers of investing in dubious meme coins — and how easy it is to get lured in by the promise of a get-rich-quick scheme, something even the president of the United States himself has <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-meme-coin-tariffs">demonstrated</a>.
In her latest podcast episode, Welch recalled how the FBI knocked on her grandmother's door, demanding to search her phone.
"They went through my phone, so they cleared me," she said. "I was good to go."
She also surrendered her phone to the SEC for "two or three days," allowing them to "clone" it.
Welch claimed she "wasn't named on the lawsuit," which was <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-girl-lawsuit-cooperation">filed by investors in New York</a> against the meme coin's creators, mere weeks following its launch.
At the time, she wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/HalieyWelchX/status/1870123827725840484">since-deleted statement</a> that "I take this situation extremely seriously and want to address my fans, the investors who have been affected, and the broader community."
For her part, Welch claimed in her podcast this week that she only "got paid a marketing fee" and never made a "dime from the coin itself."
Apart from dodging a bullet by not getting roped into a lawsuit, Welch appeared apologetic.
"It makes me feel really bad that they trusted me, and I led them to something that I did not have enough knowledge about," she said. "I did not have enough knowledge about crypto to be getting involved with it. And I knew that, but I got talked into it, and I trusted the wrong people."
The money she took for promoting the money has since gone to "PR crisis, a new lawyer, stuff like that," Welch said. "So I’ve really come out with nothing. All that trouble for nothing."
While the class action lawsuit filed against $HAWK's creators is still ongoing, Welch's experience highlights the importance of reading the small print.
In many ways, even a simple Google search for meme coins and the likelihood of things going south could've sufficed. "Rug pulls," as they've become known, have become dime a dozen, with fraudsters absconding with millions of dollars worth of crypto after selling investors on a lie.
"I don’t have anything to hide," Welch said in the footage. "I wish we knew then what we know now. It would've saved us a lot of trouble."
"But it was a big mess," she admitted.
More on the coin: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/hawk-tuah-girl-horrified-crypto">Hawk Tuah Girl Says She’s Horrified by What Happened With Her Crypto Launch</a>

Hawk Tuah'd Up

"So that screwed me."

Hawk Tuah Girl Admits She Knew Essentially Zero About Crypto When Her Disastrous Meme Coin Launched

<h2>Do No Klarn</h2>
Swedish buy-now-pay-later company Klarna, whose CEO once bragged about its automated <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-06/teleperformance-sees-ai-as-growth-opportunity-after-klarna-panic?sref=YfHlo0rL">customer service AI bots</a> doing the work of "700 full-time agents," is now in deep trouble.
The fintech outfit is facing net losses of $99 million for the first quarter of this year, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/19/klarna-doubles-losses-in-first-quarter-as-ipo-remains-on-hold.html">CNBC reports</a>, which is more than double compared to the same period last year.
The company had already <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/klarna-stubhub-delay-ipos-as-trumps-tariffs-roil-markets.html">paused</a> its highly anticipated IPO in the US last month, which once valued it at over $15 billion.
And it's all particularly noteworthy because of how CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/klarna-ceo-ai-replacing-workers">previously bragged</a> that he hadn't hired anyone in a year, following a doubling down on AI tech.
During an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service?sref=YfHlo0rL">interview with Bloomberg</a> earlier this month, however, Siemiatkowski struck a dramatically different tone, revealing that the gambit hadn't paid off. He admitted that "there will always be a human if you want" when it comes to customer service — a sign of the times, as investors are starting to ask some tough questions given widespread economic uncertainty.
<h2>Cash Flow</h2>
Nonetheless, it wasn't a complete reversal. Siemiatkowski <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/14/klarna-ceo-says-ai-helped-company-shrink-workforce-by-40percent.html">defended his embrace of AI last week</a>, boasting that the tech allowed Klarna to shrink its workforce by 40 percent.
During its Monday earnings call, an AI-generated avatar of Siemiatkowski took over for the executive, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6c4bf393-c80b-42b7-993a-35270143f688">Financial Times reports</a>, showing that the company is far from giving up on the tech.
But public support for the tech is unmistakably falling off. Translation company Duolingo has <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91332763/going-ai-first-appears-to-be-backfiring-on-klarna-and-duolingo">faced a torrent of pushback</a> from social media users, particularly on TikTok, after its controversial CEO Luis von Ahn announced that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/657594/duolingo-ai-first-replace-contract-workers">AI will gradually replace all contractors</a>.
However, while it could be easy to see Klarna as the canary in the coal mine for the AI industry as a whole, its rapidly mounting losses involve other factors as well. As the FT points out, many of the company's American customers are failing to repay their buy-now-pay-later loans.
Klarna's credit losses have risen 17 percent year-on-year to $136 million, reflecting widespread economic uncertainty and falling consumer confidence as president Donald Trump's trade war takes its toll.
In response, Klarna has said that it's "closely monitoring changes in the macroeconomic environment" and "remains well-positioned to adapt swiftly if required."
More on Klarna: <a href="https://futurism.com/klarna-openai-humans-ai-back">Company Regrets Replacing All Those Pesky Human Workers With AI, Just Wants Its Humans Back</a>

False Profits

The company's net losses just doubled.

CEO Who Bragged About Replacing Human Workers With AI Realizes He Made a Terrible Mistake

As the artificial intelligence industry struggles with ever-rising costs — not to mention a steady uptick in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html">hallucinations</a> — investors are getting impatient.
One investment firm went as far as seizing $37 million from accounts owned by Builder.ai, a UK-based AI startup meant to make developing apps "as easy as ordering a pizza." That left the company with just $5 million, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-20/microsoft-backed-builder-ai-to-enter-insolvency-proceedings?sref=YfHlo0rL">according to Bloomberg</a>, prompting its senior lenders to place it into default.
With very little cash left to keep the ship afloat, CEO Manpreet Ratia closed the startup's doors and filed for bankruptcy.
Builder.ai was previously one of the most well-funded tech startups in the game, with over <a href="https://techfundingnews.com/from-teen-entrepreneur-to-unicorn-founder-meet-sachin-dev-duggal-the-visionary-behind-london-ai-firm-builder-ai/">$450 million</a> in backing from sources as big as tech giant Microsoft, Japanese investment firm SoftBank, and the Qatari government's sovereign wealth fund. That gave it a valuation worth over $1 billion, <a href="https://mobile-magazine.com/articles/meta-vs-builder-ai-the-future-of-the-app-industry-heading">drawing comparisons</a> to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.
Ratia told <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9fdb4e2b-93ea-436d-92e5-fa76ee786caa">the Financial Times</a> the startup was "unable to recover from historic challenges and past decisions that placed significant strain on its financial position," adding that he had been running the business with "zero dollars" in its US and UK accounts.
The CEO took over for Builder.ai's founder and "chief wizard" <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f8882c90-ef69-4a62-aecf-9d3725aca6b3">Sachin Dev Duggal</a> in March, after the latter saddled the business with hundreds of millions worth of debt while burning through its dwindling cash fund, according to FT.
Duggal was likewise embattled in a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ff3c5fc-e390-4ca8-9c7d-11fd56ab7f6f">high-stakes legal probe</a> by authorities in India, who named him a suspect in an alleged money laundering case. For his part, Duggal <a href="https://issuu.com/inc42/docs/builder.ai-clarification-10.04.2024-1">denied the accusations</a>, saying he was simply a witness, though <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/26c98590-e8f9-4cd9-83d6-db0d25ad215c">FT has also reported</a> Duggal heavily relied on the services of an auditor with whom he has close personal ties.
It's not known what, exactly, pushed the first domino. Viola Credit, the company that seized Builder.ai's coffers, has yet to give an explanation, though we can probably guess they saw the writing on the wall and simply hoped to pad their losses.
It's a big moment for the AI industry, as the pressure grows for AI companies to actually come out with a usable — not to mention sustainable — product. Though AI companies accounted for <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/ai-startups-unicorns-zombiecorns.html">40 percent</a> of the money raised by US startups last year, the vast majority of them have yet to turn a profit.
Many AI startups struggle to find any <a href="https://qz.com/ai-startups-stocks-artificial-intelligence-business-1851446355">consistent revenue stream</a> at all beyond tech-crazed venture capitalists, and a not insignificant number have been caught <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/03/18/ai-washing-sec-charges-companies-false-misleading-statments/">misleading investors</a> about their AI's capabilities to keep the cash flowing.
Case in point, after Ratia took the helm back in March, Builder.ai lowered its <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-31/microsoft-qia-backed-startup-builder-ai-hires-auditors-to-probe-inflated-sales?sref=YfHlo0rL">revenue estimates</a> for the last half of 2024 by 25 percent — a major blow for the much-hyped company. The startup was likewise caught trying to pass off <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-startup-boom-raises-questions-of-exaggerated-tech-savvy-11565775004">human-built software</a> as AI back in 2019.
As auditors and journalists sift through the rubble to find out what went wrong, now makes as good a time as any to take a <a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/reality-check/">temperature check</a> on unchecked AI hype.
More on AI startups: <a href="https://futurism.com/klarna-openai-humans-ai-back">Company Regrets Replacing All Those Pesky Human Workers With AI, Just Wants Its Humans Back</a>

Fallen Unicorn

Funny how that happens.

A Billion Dollar AI Startup Just Collapsed Spectacularly

Even a centibillionaire's pockets only run so deep. 
With moths fluttering from his wallet, Elon Musk says he's going to do "a lot less" political spending from now on, as he steps back from his active involvement in the Trump administration.
"I think I've done enough," Musk said Tuesday during an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/20/elon-musk-less-political-spending/">as quoted by the Washington Post</a>.
Musk didn't completely shut the door, though, giving a non-answer when asked if his decision was due to the insane amount of "blowback" his businesses have faced from his role in politics.
"Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it," Musk said. "I don't currently see a reason."
It's a very convenient time for him to be backing out. Musk's already gotten what he wanted (<a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-dismal-failure">more or less</a>), claiming to have slashed billions of dollars in federal expenditures and cutting off <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/05/elon-musk-doge-federal-government">critical government services</a> in the process. To do that, though, he had to spend an absolute fortune to help Trump and other Republicans win office. The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-election-spending-millions">latest filings</a> indicate Musk furnished them with more than $290 million in the 2024 election — and the real figure may be even higher.
On top of that, Musk has privately pledged to donate another $100 million to Trump-backed groups before the 2026 midterm elections, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/us/politics/elon-musk-trump-political-spending.html">New York Times noted</a>, but whether he'll make good on that remains to be seen.
All that money's nothing to sneeze at, in any case, even for the world's richest man. And these days, his fortune is looking more fragile, too, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-stock-stakes-value-net-worth-2025-3">a lot of it</a> tied up in Tesla shares, his automaker whose <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/longtime-tesla-investor-dumps-stock">stock performance</a> — not to mention <a href="https://futurism.com/teslas-sales-continue-fall">actual business performance</a>, with plunging sales, profits, and the <a href="https://futurism.com/byd-crushing-tesla">surge of its Chinese competitors</a>  — is anything but stable. Even more of his wealth is derived from his ownership of SpaceX, which is <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-trouble-starship-after-explosion">struggling</a> to develop its Starship mega-rocket.
Out of his myriad enterprises, Tesla has suffered the most from the public backlash to Musk's heavy-handed role in the Trump government, with its cavalcade of mortifications including those aforementioned plunging sales and profits, the latter of which fell by a staggering 71 percent in the first quarter. 
That backlash — which includes boycotts, demonstrations, and widespread <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">vandalism</a> — largely catalyzed around Musk's taking a chainsaw to the federal government through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency and his embrace of <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-tank-elon-musk-endorses-far-right">far-right ideals</a>. 
With fierce anti-Tesla sentiment showing no signs of letting up, Musk simply can't afford to divide attention away from the automaker any longer. The Cybertruck continues to be an <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-cybertruck-cancels-range-extender">embarrassing flop</a>, and its recent stab at exciting buyers with a refresh of its best-selling Model Y has <a href="https://futurism.com/crisis-tesla-sales-model-y-refresh">landed with a thud</a>.
Reading the writing on the wall, Musk <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0x50yr46lo">said last month</a> that he intends to step back from his role in DOGE. Around that time, he also <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-realizes-tesla">admitted</a> that his stint as an informal adviser to Trump was sinking Tesla.
He doesn't plan to totally leave the limelight, however. During the Qatar conference, Musk reaffirmed his commitment to staying on with Tesla for at least another five years as CEO. He wants to cement "sufficient voting control," <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/elon-musk-tesla-shares.html">Musk said per CNBC</a>, so he can't be kicked out by activist investors.
"It's not a money thing," Musk added. "It's a reasonable control thing over the future of the company."
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/officials-elon-musk-finished-gone">Elon Musk "Finished," His Close Allies Admit</a>

Spendthrift

"I think I've done enough."

After Leaving the Government in Ruins, Elon Musk Says He's Giving Up on Politics

Each of our brains is swimming in enough microplastics to form a plastic spoon, scientists <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/brains-microplastics-study">discovered earlier this year</a>. Since then, medical researchers have been scrambling to understand how that could affect our neurological health.
Now, ominous data is starting to trickle in, with new <a href="https://doi.org/10.61373/bm025l.0056">research</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.61373/bm025c.0020">comprising</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.61373/bm025v.0068">four</a> <a href="https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/view/journals/brainmed/aop/article-10.61373-bm025g.0062/article-10.61373-bm025g.0062.xml">papers</a> published in the journal Brain Medicine suggesting that microplastics could be contributing to rising rates of depression, dementia, and other mental health ailments across the globe. 
And for exposing us to these brain-invading microplastics, a clear culprit emerged in the work: ultra-processed foods, or junk food, which make up a huge part of many Americans' diets.
"We're seeing converging evidence that should concern us all," said Nicholas Fabiano from the University of Ottawa, who led one of the studies, in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1084276">statement</a> about the work. "Ultra-processed foods now comprise more than 50 percent of energy intake in countries like the United States, and these foods contain significantly higher concentrations of microplastics than whole foods."
If true, it would mean that microplastics were the missing link in the correlation between junk food consumption and brain disorders. 
One <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310">study</a> cited by the researchers found that people who ate ultra-processed meals had a significantly higher risk of depression, anxiety, and poor sleep. On the flip side, <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/7/1398">randomized control trials</a> have demonstrated that weaning someone off junk food led to significant improvements in mental health.
Implicating the role of microplastics in this, other research has revealed that junk foods are absolutely riddled with plastic particles. Meals like chicken nuggets, for example, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/microplastics-fish-chicken-tofu-protein/">have been shown</a> to contain 30 times more microplastics per gram than chicken breasts, likely absorbed as a result of how they're manufactured and packaged.
"This hypothesis is particularly compelling because we see remarkable overlap in biological mechanisms," Wolfgang Marx from Deakin University's Food &amp; Mood Center who coauthored one of the studies, said in a statement. "Ultra-processed foods have been linked to adverse mental health through inflammation, oxidative stress, epigenetics, mitochondrial dysfunction, and disruptions to neurotransmitter systems. Microplastics appear to operate through remarkably similar pathways."
These findings are the latest to illustrate the potential grim health effects caused by microplastics, which have been found everywhere from human <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389424018454">bone marrow</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-find-microplastics-inside-clouds">clouds</a> to the most <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/microplastics-sediment-layers">remote</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/microplastics-cave-sealed-humans">regions</a> on Earth.
So far, though, there's no definitive evidence, including human trials, that prove they're harmful to our health. But the fact that microplastics can easily bypass the blood-brain barrier — our gray matter's last line of defense against harmful substances — has unsettled medical experts. Beyond mental ailments, some <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr8243">research has found</a> that microplastics could cause blood clots in the vessels of the brain, potentially inducing a stroke.
"What emerges from this work is not a warning. It is a reckoning," wrote Ma-Li Wong, a distinguished professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Upstate Medical University, in an <a href="https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/view/journals/brainmed/aop/article-10.61373-bm025g.0062/article-10.61373-bm025g.0062.xml">accompanying editorial</a>. "The boundary between internal and external has failed. If microplastics cross the blood-brain barrier, what else do we think remains sacred?"
It's impossible not to intake some amount of microplastics every time we eat, but you can take steps to reduce your exposure. And the evidence so far, the researchers argue, makes an increasingly compelling case for cutting ultra-processed junk out of your diet.
"After all," said Fabiano, "you are what you eat."
More on microplastics: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/microplastic-blood-cleansing-clinic">Doctors Say They’ve Found a Way to Clean the Microplastics Out of Your Body</a>

Brain Bog

Neuroscience/Brain Science

"It is a reckoning."

The Microplastics in Your Brain May Be Causing Mental Health Issues

Billionaire Elon Musk made a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/billionaire-man-child-elon-musk-gives-his-most-petulant-interview-to-date-2000604920">bafflingly childish</a> appearance this week at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum.
While being asked some hard — but entirely fair — questions by UK broadcaster Mishal Husain, covering topics such as his highly questionable work at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the massive hits Tesla has taken as a result, and the glaring conflict of interests facing his space venture SpaceX, Musk appeared to be completely unprepared.
At multiple points during the interview, Musk lashed out at Husain, accusing her of being an "NPC," which is gamer lingo for a "non-playable character," and refusing to give her more than one-word answers.
After Husain pointed out DOGE has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-dismal-failure">fallen extremely short of Musk's goal</a> of slashing $2 trillion from the government's budget, the mercurial CEO had a bizarre retort.
"I mean, I feel you’re somewhat trapped in the NPC dialogue tree of a traditional journalist," he said. "So it’s difficult when I’m conversing with someone who’s trapped in the dialogue tree of a conventional journalist because it’s like talking to a computer."
That was a particularly eyebrow-raising line given that Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-ai-white-genocide-tampered">has built a multibillion-dollar business around</a> mindlessly talking to computers via xAI, his company that offers a chatbot called Grok.
And in reality, he's getting the dynamic backwards. It's the AI chatbots, not the human journalists, that <a href="https://futurism.com/sycophancy-chatbots-ai-problem">tend to grovel at the feet of users</a> and cave at virtually any sign of confrontation.
As such, the interview perfectly summarizes Musk's distorted worldview and disconnection from reality. Critics have long pointed out that the billionaire has <a href="https://futurism.com/chris-sacca-elon-musk-sycophants" target="_blank" rel="noopener">surrounded himself with sycophants</a> who rarely say no to him, meaning that he's increasingly started to crumble under pressure when faced with difficult questions.
Now that his popularity has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-associated-press-poll-popularity">fallen off a cliff</a> following a bewildering embrace of far-right viewpoints over the last few years, Musk finds himself on the back foot. And considering his petulant appearance this week, he's clearly still struggling to take accountability for his incredibly damaging actions.
Instead, Musk tried to paint himself as the victim.
"Massive violence was threatened against me," he told her, referring to the <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">international anti-Tesla movement</a> his actions have given rise to. "Who are these people? Why would they do that? How wrong can they be? They’re on the wrong side of history."
Unsurprisingly, the billionaire used the interview to further a widely discredited conspiracy theory about a "white genocide" occurring in South Africa. That's a topic his chatbot Grok <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-ai-elon-musk-white-genocide">squeezed into unrelated answers</a> last week <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-ai-white-genocide-tampered">following a bizarre "unauthorized modification</a>" being made to its underlying tech.
"Why do you like racist laws?" Musk probed Husain, squarely pointing at her through the camera after interrupting her, leading to nervous laughter at the event.
Musk's relationship with journalists has been rocky, to say the least. Earlier this year, he <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-firing-wall-street-journal-reporter-doge-racist-tweets">called</a> Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Long a "disgusting and cruel person" after she <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93">found</a> that he had armed an underqualified 25-year-old to infiltrate the US Treasury's payments system.
Later that month, he <a href="https://people.com/elon-musk-calls-60-minutes-journalists-long-prison-sentence-11681498">called for CBS News journalists</a> to get a "long prison sentence" for being the "biggest liars in the world."
Musk has made it clear that he's in no mood for constructive conversation. The self-avowed free speech absolutist has a long track record of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/twitter-suspends-journalists-critical-elon-musk">suspending journalists</a> critical of him on his social media platform X-formerly-Twitter.
During his descent into the far right, Musk has convinced himself that the so-called "woke" media has had it out for him, despite repeatedly furthering easily disproven conspiracy theories and spreading disinformation himself.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tesla-kill">Elon Musk Says Being Tesla CEO Might Kill Him</a>

Everything Is Computer

He was completely unprepared.

Elon Musk Gets Rattled by Hard Questions He Can't Answer, Calls Interviewer an "NPC" While Giving One-Word NPC-Like Responses Himself

Writers at The Chicago Sun-Times, a daily newspaper owned by Chicago Public Media, are speaking out following the paper's publishing of <a href="https://futurism.com/chicago-newspaper-ai-slop">AI-generated misinformation</a>, urging that the "disaster" content threatens the paper's reputation and hard-earned reader trust.
The Sun-Times came under fire this week after readers called attention to a "summer reading list" published in the paper's weekend edition that recommended books that turned out to be completely nonexistent. The books were all attributed to real, well-known authors, but ten out of the 15 listed titles didn't actually exist. When <a href="https://www.404media.co/chicago-sun-times-prints-ai-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist/">404 Media got in touch</a> with the bylined author, he confirmed he'd used AI to drum up the list.
But the writer said he hadn't double-checked the accuracy of the AI-generated reading list. The list was just one small piece of a 64-page "Heat Index" guide to summer, which, as the Sun-Times noted in its <a href="https://futurism.com/chicago-newspaper-ai-slop">response to Futurism</a> and others, had been provided by a third-party — not by the Sun-Times' own newsroom or other staff. (Other sections within the "best of summer" feature, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/670510/chicago-sun-times-ai-generated-reading-list">The Verge found</a>, included similar erroneous and fabricated attribution issues that hinted at AI use.)
Shortly thereafter, <a href="https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/">404 Media</a><a href="https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/"> confirmed</a> through the Sun-Times that the content was provided by King Features, a subsidiary of the media giant Hearst, and wasn't reviewed by the Sun-Times before publishing.
"Historically, we don't have editorial review from those mainly because it's coming from a newspaper publisher, so we falsely made the assumption there would be an editorial process for this," Victor Lim, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Media, told 404 Media. "We are updating our policy to require internal editorial oversight over content like this."
Lim added that Chicago Public Media is "reviewing" its relationship with Hearst, which owns dozens of American newspapers and magazines. The Sun-Times <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/press-room/2025/05/20/chicago-sun-times-response-to-may-18-special-section">has since</a> posted a lengthy response online apologizing for the AI-spun misinformation making its way to print, while promising to change its editorial policies to protect against such gaffes in the future.
The human journalists at the paper have responded, too.
In a statement provided to media outlets, including Futurism, the paper's union, the Chicago Sun-Times Guild, issued a forceful statement yesterday admonishing the publishing of the content. It emphasized that the 60-plus page section wasn't the product of its newsroom, and said it was "deeply disturbed" to find undisclosed AI-generated content "printed alongside" the work of the paper's journalists.
The Guild's statement reads in full:
The Sun-Times Guild is aware of the third-party "summer guide" content in the Sunday, May 18 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. This was a syndicated section produced externally without the knowledge of the members of our newsroom.
We take great pride in the union-produced journalism that goes into the respected pages of our newspaper and on our website. We're deeply disturbed that AI-generated content was printed alongside our work. The fact that it was sixty-plus pages of this "content" is very concerning — primarily for our relationship with our audience but also for our union’s jurisdiction.
Our members go to great lengths to build trust with our sources and communities and are horrified by this slop syndication. Our readers signed up for work that has been vigorously reported and fact-checked, and we hate the idea that our own paper could spread computer- or third-party-generated misinformation. We call on Chicago Public Media management to do everything it can to prevent repeating this disaster in the future.
They're right that reader trust is fundamental to the work of journalism, and it's an easy thing to lose. Other AI scandals have gone hand-in-hand with reputational damage, as in the cases of <a href="https://futurism.com/wikipedia-cnet-unreliable-ai">CNET</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/company-published-ai-sports-illustrated-magazine">Sports Illustrated</a>, and we've seen <a href="https://futurism.com/sports-illustrated-union-horrified-ai-writers">journalists</a> and their <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-fires-writers-ai-slop">unions</a> from around the <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/news-unions-are-grappling-with-generative-ai-our-new-study-shows-what-theyre-most-concerned-about/">country</a> issue similar statements following instances of controversial <a href="https://futurism.com/gizmodo-kotaku-staff-furious-ai-content">AI use</a> by publishers.
This is also the latest instance of third-party media companies distributing AI content to legitimate publishers, in many cases without the direct knowledge of those publishers. As a <a href="https://futurism.com/advon-ai-content">2024 investigation by Futurism found</a>, a third-party media company called AdVon Commerce used a proprietary AI tool to create articles for dozens of publishers including Sports Illustrated and The Miami Herald; that content was published under the bylines of fake writers with AI-generated headshots and phony bios, manufacturing an air of faux legitimacy. Some publishers, including the Miami Herald and other local newspapers belonging to the McClatchy publishing network, scrubbed their sites of the content following our investigation, saying they were unaware of AI use.
Here, it seems the editorial process was so lacking that AI-generated errors made their way through not just one, but two reputable American publishers before winding up in the Sun-Times' printed edition. (The freelance writer Joshua Friedman <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3lpmde3iprc2g">confirmed on Bluesky</a> that the error-riddled "Heat Index" guide was also published in The Philadelphia Inquirer.) Which, as the paper's union emphasizes in their statement, meant it was published alongside the journalism that human media workers stake their careers on.
More on AI and journalism: <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-fires-writers-ai-slop">Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI Slop</a>

Slop in Print

"Our members go to great lengths to build trust with our sources and communities and are horrified by this slop syndication."

Journalists at Chicago Newspaper "Deeply Disturbed" That "Disaster" AI Slop Was Printed Alongside Their Real Work

America's most infamous tech baron has no plans to quit Tesla anytime soon, according to a recent interview.
Speaking remotely as a looming, dystopian figure (something he <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">seems to love</a>) at Bloomberg's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/iTRY86NEIbg?feature=shared">Qatar Economic Forum</a> on Tuesday, Musk said he was committed to leading Tesla for at least the next five years.
"No doubt about that at all?" the interviewer asked as he hovered above.
"Well," Musk paused, "no, I'd die."
The world's richest person was speaking as <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-furious-news-tesla-replace">confusion grows</a> regarding his official role with DOGE and his fiduciary commitments to Tesla shareholders. Tesla shareholders previously devised two pay packages worth $56 billion — both of which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/investing/elon-musk-pay-package-rejected">were rejected</a> by Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick.
During today's interview, Musk had some choice words for the judge.
"I'm confident that whatever some activist posing as a judge in Delaware happens to do will not affect future compensation," Musk muttered. "Not the judge, the activist who is cosplaying a judge in a Halloween costume," the billionaire sneered.
Last week, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/tesla-board-explores-new-pay-deal-elon-musk-ft-reports-2025-05-14/">Financial Times reported</a> that Tesla has convened a "special committee" to review Musk's hefty salary, which is primarily based on company stock options.
"Does that mean that the value of your pay doesn't have any bearing on your decision?" the interviewer asked Musk of his choice to stay, during today's event. "Uh, well, that's not really a story for discussion in this forum," the tech tycoon said. "I think obviously there should be conversation for, if there's something incredible is [sic] done, the compensation should match."
Going by that logic, Tesla’s special committee may come up empty-handed when looking for reasons to justify paying Musk at all, let alone for "something incredible."
In the first three months of 2025, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/02/business/tesla-sales">Tesla's sales plummeted</a> 13 percent compared to the same period in 2024 — the biggest drop in the company's history. Tesla is likewise <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-robotaxi-launch-mess">terminally late</a> on rolling out its "robotaxi" service, while its new <a href="https://futurism.com/crisis-tesla-sales-model-y-refresh">Model Y</a> struggles to win over buyers, and over 10,000 <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-unsold-cybertrucks-crisis">unsold Cybertrucks</a> gather dust.
During the interview, Musk went on to confirm that he's pushing ahead with his <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-05-20/musk-says-he-s-pushing-ahead-with-openai-lawsuit-video?sref=YfHlo0rL">lawsuit against OpenAI</a>, the stated goal of which is to contest OpenAI's restructuring as a for-profit venture.
Reading between the lines, it's not hard to see an <a href="https://roninlegalconsulting.com/elon-musks-lawsuit-against-openai-a-closer-look/#:~:text=Musk%27s%20Claims%20Against%20OpenAI,efforts%20to%20advance%20safe%20AI.">ulterior motive</a> for Musk: his for-profit AI company, xAI, is in direct competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Musk also stated that he plans to scale back his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405039/musk-political-spending">political spending</a>, after dumping millions into right-wing political campaigns.
"I think I've done enough," he said.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/officials-elon-musk-finished-gone">Elon Musk "Finished," His Close Allies Admit</a>