College graduates were left speechless after officials at New York City's Pace University deployed an AI model to read out their names during a commencement event this month.
A <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ-KWX_TzsH/">video</a> that has since gone viral on social media shows students having a QR on their smartphone scanned, only to have an AI read their name out loud — an irritating use of the tech that turned what should've otherwise been a proud moment in their academic career into what commenters <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurism/comments/1kssntu/comment/mto7cgn/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">likened</a> to using the self-checkout counter at the supermarket.
It's especially galling for an institution that charges <a href="https://www.pace.edu/admission-and-aid/undergraduate-admission/tuition-and-cost/cost-of-attendance">north of $50,000</a> a year in tuition alone.
"So even public event speakers are getting replaced," one Reddit user wrote.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Pace University Used AI to Announce Graduate Names at Commencement #ainews #graduation2025 #voiceai" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yZE46SGlF0M?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>
As the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/05/23/tech/college-grads-shocked-as-names-are-read-at-commencement-by-ai-what-a-beautiful-personal-touch/">New York Post points out</a>, Pace University ostensibly performed the stunt for the sake of accuracy. Well ahead of the event, officials directed students to visit a website where they could phonetically spell their names and confirm how they were pronounced.
"To ensure your name is pronounced correctly, you must register to attend Commencement through Tassel by Wednesday, April 23," reads an FAQ on the university's website.
Tassel is a private company that claims to have helped more than 600 schools "deliver the perfect moment for millions of students over 20+ years."
The company offers "live ceremony stage-crossing software" designed to streamline convocation events and ensure "accurate pronunciation" of graduate names.
"With AI and our proprietary multilingual models — powered by a growing database of over 2 million names, phonemes, and linguistic patterns across multiple languages — our platform allows students to hear exactly how their names will be pronounced as they cross the stage," Tassel <a href="https://www.tassel.com/product/name-announcements">boasts on its website</a>.
If the AI butchers their name even after it was coached by the student, graduates can "submit an audio recording of their name" instead.
The software raises some thorny questions about when it's truly appropriate to deploy an AI, particularly concerning jobs that could've easily been taken care of by a human.
"When I graduated, the person reading out the names had done a run through, just to check they were getting it right," one user wrote in a <a href="https://www.threads.com/@thedeveloperstory/post/DJ_N8KNTSxL/video-pace-university-used-ai-to-read-out-student-names-at-graduationbecause-nothing-s">post on Threads</a>. "It didn't take that long, and was less weird than showing your phone for them to scan."
Worst of all, despite all those technical bells and whistles, Tassel reportedly still managed to butcher some names.
"They told us to write our names phonetically so it's said correctly, and they still said my name wrong, which is forever documented in videos," one user <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ-KWX_TzsH/">commented</a> on Instagram.
The use of AI to read student names has been met with significant blowback from college grads across the country.
Student journalists at Northeastern University, which also deployed Tassel, <a href="https://huntnewsnu.com/87085/editorial/op-ed-read-our-names-at-graduation-its-the-least-you-can-do/">published an op-ed</a> arguing that the institution should "read our names at graduation, it’s the least you can do."
"To many students like myself, a small switch from an AI voice bot to a physical person would mean the world," reads the op-ed, penned by student Henry Bova and published in The Huntington News. "A human can reciprocate our sense of joy and can understand the gravity of the moment and the academic rigor that we endured to get to this point."
"All the AI voice does is reduce the recognition of our accomplishments as a menial task to push through with brute computations," Bova wrote.
An <a href="https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-university-of-north-georgia-from-using-an-ai-speaker-for-graduation">online petition</a> by students at the University of North Georgia called on the university to stop "using an AI speaker for graduation," garnering over 2,000 signatures.
The backlash was so fierce in some parts of the country that West Chester University in Pennsylvania ditched the AI altogether, as <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/philadelphia/2025/05/08/west-chester-university-graduation-ai-backlash">Axios reported</a> earlier this month.
Other onlookers pointed out the irony of AI <a href="https://futurism.com/signs-ai-bite-job-market">coming for the jobs</a> of recent college graduates in particular.
"A whole lifetime of studies and 100k in debt just to have your name announced by the very entity that's going to make your studies useless," one Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ky9kx5/comment/muvhcc5/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">joked</a>.
However, not everybody was opposed to the use of the tech.
"I appreciate that everyone had the chance to hear their name pronounced correctly," one Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ky9kx5/comment/muw9cur/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">argued</a>. "Imagine being an international student and worried that someone will butcher your name. I'm ok with the solution the university gave here."
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/rfk-jr-make-america-healthy-again-report-studies-ai">RFK Jr's "Make America Healthy Again" Report Cites Studies That Don't Exist, in Clear Sign of AI Generated Slop</a>

Wrath of the Grads

"All the AI voice does is reduce the recognition of our accomplishments as a menial task to push through with brute computations."

College Grads Furious After an AI Butchers Their Names During Commencement

Content warning for discussions of sexual violence and harassment.
Usually asteroids are distant features of the cosmos, occasionally <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/experts-confirm-rock-punched-house-meteorite">crashing down to Earth</a> or <a href="https://futurism.com/chances-asteroid-hitting-earth-doubled">threatening the planet</a>.
Not so for former Texas solicitor general Judd Stone, who's been accused of making the distant space rocks a focal point in violent and bizarre fantasies about a coworker that he regaled to other people.
Needless to say, that's wildly inappropriate and unacceptable. As <a href="https://www.404media.co/texas-solicitor-general-judd-stone-resigned/">404 Media reports</a><a href="https://archive.is/zd9pk">,</a> Stone has now resigned from his position after a damning letter aired the allegations, which involved — apologies in advance — a phallic asteroid used as a sexual implement, like some sort of grotesque riff on a <a href="https://futurism.com/chuck-tingle-jersey-drones">Chuck Tingle book</a>.
According to a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25955595-1-5/?ref=404media.co&amp;mode=document">letter</a> sent by Texas' first assistant attorney general Brent Webster, Stone — who had at the time taken a leave of absence to <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/19/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-judd-stone-chris-hilton/?ref=404media.co">defend Texas attorney general Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial</a> — joked during a 2023 lunching with other government employees about a "disturbing sexual fantasy" that involved a "cylindrical asteroid." During the debacle, Stone described using said asteroid to sexually assault Webster while his wife and children watched.
That letter, which is five pages long and full of additional allegations of sexual harassment and lies Stone allegedly told, is replete with gory details about this case that we won't regale you with.
What's striking to us at Futurism, however, is the "cylindrical asteroid" of it all. Where did Texas's now-former solicitor general get such an idea, and what could it mean about who he is as a person — and, more importantly, how did it affect the people he worked with?
While we don't have answers to those first two, it's quite clear from the letter how Stone's gruesome asteroid "joke" affected him and his colleagues. Along with Webster's own concerns about Stone's violent state of mind and his fear that his family could be in danger, the assistant AG added that a female employee who had been present for that stomach-turning lunch discussion had been so upset by the topic that she excused herself — only to return to japes from others at the table who said she "couldn't handle people talking about dicks."
That same woman "exhibited emotional distress" when recounting the anecdote to Webster, and also told him, through tears, that she had been sexually harassed on other occasions by Stone and was concerned about the way he treated women.
When confronted with the sexual harassment allegations against him, Stone admitted to them all immediately, including the bizarre asteroid fantasy. He was, as 404 notes, given the grace to quit or be fired, and chose the former.
More on Texas-based misogyny: <a href="https://futurism.com/leaked-text-elon-musk-woman-many-babies">In Leaked Text, Elon Musk Harangued Woman to Have as Many of His Babies as Possible</a>

Boldly Going There

This is bad, even for Texas politics.

Texas Solicitor General Resigns After Sharing Bizarre Fantasy About An Asteroid

Generally speaking, drug testing in the workplace is supposed to be conductd at random intervals — but according to insider sources, that's not the case for the sometimes-world's richest man.
A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html">New York Times exposé</a> about Elon Musk's fear and loathing on the campaign trail found that the billionaire not only has been on boatloads of risky and illegal drugs during his turn into hard-right politics, but was also being tipped off about when he'd be tested for them.
As we've <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-drugs-spacex">long known</a>, SpaceX's federal contractor status requires that all its employees — including its mercurial CEO — pass drug tests. Given Musk's admitted penchant for mind-altering substances, and for <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-ketamine-don-lemon">ketamine in particular</a>, his <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-use-government-security-clearance">ability to pass those tests</a> has long been a concern.
If the NYT's sources are to be believed, we may now know how the 53-year-old keeps passing: because he's been warned in advance when the "random" tests are going to occur, and been able to plan accordingly.
(Though those sources didn't get into it, anyone who's ever had to pass a drug test themselves knows that there are typicaly two options: drink so much water that you pee all the drugs out of your system, or get urine or hair from someone else and pass it off as your own.)
As those same sources allege, Musk's substance use increased significantly as he helped propel Donald Trump to the White House for a second time. He purportedly told people that his <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-ketamine-bladder">bladder had been affected</a> by his frequent ketamine use, and had been taking ecstasy and psilocybin mushrooms too.
The multi-hyphenate businessman and politico also <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-traveling-box-drugs">carried around a daily medication box</a> with at least 20 pills in it — including ones with markings that resemble the ADHD drug Adderall, according to people who saw photos of it and regaled it back to the NYT. (He's also been linked to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1">cocaine and a cornucopia of other substances</a>.)
When it comes to stimulants like Adderall and anything else in Musk's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-pill-boxes/">daily pill box</a> — which, despite how the article makes it sound, is not that abnormal a thing for a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db347.htm">man in his 50s</a> to be carrying around — there's a good chance that the billionaire has prescriptions that could excuse at least some abuse. He also has claimed that he was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/elon-musk-ketamine-use-don-lemon-interview/index.html">prescribed ketamine for depression</a>, though to be fair, taking so much that it makes it hard to pee would suggest he's far surpassed his recommended dosage.
As <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-drug-testing-bill">Futurism has noted before</a>, Musk's drugs of choice described here are not often screened for on standard drug panels. Though we don't know <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/01/could-ketamine-use-cause-problems-your-security-clearance-eligibility/393065/">how in-depth federal drug tests are</a>, standard tests <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/substance-use/drug-free-workplace/drug-testing-resources">primarily screen for</a> cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines, opiates, and PCP, though some include ecstasy/MDMA as well. Testing for ketamine is, on the other hand, <a href="https://helloinnerwell.com/reflections/will-ketamine-show-up-on-my-drug-test">pretty rare</a>.
If Musk is being tipped off about his drug tests — and is either flushing his system or taking a sober underling's urine or hair — none of that would matter. But given that the worst of his purported substance abuse revolves around ketamine, there's always a chance that he's in a recurring K-hole and getting off scot-free, unlike his employees, who are held to a much higher standard.
More on Musk's drug use: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-drug-target-russian-agents">Ex-FBI Agent: Elon Musk's Drug Habit Made Him an Easy Target for Russian Spies</a>

Testing 123

Rx/Medicines

So THAT'S how he keeps passing those tests. 

SpaceX Is Reportedly Giving Elon Musk Advance Warning of Drug Tests

It came to light this week that a new government report from the "Make America Healthy Again" Commission led by Robert F Kennedy Jr. <a href="https://futurism.com/rfk-jr-make-america-healthy-again-report-studies-ai">contained botched citations for scientific papers that didn't exist</a>. This is almost certainly a sign that some form of generative AI was involved to draft a very consequential piece of medical agenda-setting, coming out of the US's top health agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.
Now, some additional reporting suggests that the paper's flaws go even deeper — yes, even deeper than allegedly relying on a technology known for making stuff up and then being surprised that it made stuff up.  
But first, let's highlight how the White House finally decided to respond to the criticism of the report, which has been "very poorly and not convincingly at all."
On Thursday, the White House said that it would fix the errors in the government report — and it did, releasing a new version with corrected citations. But press secretary Karoline Leavitt also took the opportunity to construe the affair as the press getting worked up about a few errant typos. 
"I understand there was some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated," Leavitt told reporters during a press briefing, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5417346/white-house-acknowledges-problems-in-rfk-jr-s-make-america-healthy-again-report">as quoted by the Associated Press</a>. "But it does not negate the substance of the report."
"Minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected," HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the AP in a statement.
Led by noted anti-vaxxer and <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/health-secretary-rfk-jr-medical-advice">all-around crackpot</a> RKF Jr., the "MAHA Report" purports to be a tell-all on why Americans, and especially children, are so unhealthy. Both Leavitt and Nixon described the report as "transformative."
That's a questionable claim. As NOTUS <a href="https://www.notus.org/health-science/make-america-healthy-again-report-citation-errors">first reported</a> on Thursday, several of the studies cited in the report do not exist at all, including one called "Overprescribing of Oral Corticosteroids for Children With Asthma," which was used to argue that doctors are giving kids too much medicine. This "study" has never been referenced anywhere outside the MAHA report. Lawyers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-lawyers-sanctioned-using-fake-chatgpt-cases-legal-brief-2023-06-22/">have been sanctioned</a> for similar behavior in court.
It gets dumber. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/05/29/maha-rfk-jr-ai-garble/">Washington Post found</a> that 37 of the paper's 522 footnotes are inexplicably repeated multiple times. Some of the citations also include an "oaicite" appended to the URLs, which refers to OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. This is a "definitive sign" that the research was gathered using an AI, WaPo concluded.
And the flaws go beyond bogus citations, or "minor" perils of "formatting," in Leavitt's parlance. As experts told the NYT, some of the papers that were correctly cited were still inaccurately summarized — if in fact they weren't being deliberately misconstrued. The report argued, in one case, that a 40-fold increase in bipolar disorder and ADHD diagnoses in children between 1994 to 2003 was propelled by loosened criteria in a fifth edition of a guide used by psychiatrists, per the NYT. But that fifth edition, it turns out, didn't come out until 2013. And that "40-fold increase" the report touted appears to come from a 2007 study which makes zero mention of an uptick in ADHD.
Even if you could somehow excuse using an AI chatbot to help speed up composing what's supposed to be the cynosure of the US's public health policy going forward, the sheer levels of sloppiness on display can only leave you to conclude that either RFK and his lackeys have no idea what they're doing and have no business writing a serious scientific document, or that they're trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public, cynical enough to ask an AI model to conjure up studies to fit whatever narrative they're peddling.
"This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point," Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told WaPo. "It cannot be used for any policymaking. It cannot even be used for any serious discussion, because you can't believe what's in it."
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/medvi-ai-ozempic">This Sleazy GLP-1 Prescription Site Is Using Deepfaked "Before-and-After" Photos of Fake Patients, and Running Ads Showing AI-Generated Ozempic Boxes</a>

Brou-MAHA

"It should be junked at this point."

The AI Slop Scandal Around the MAHA Report Is Getting Worse

<h2>What Year Is It?</h2>
Talk about cutting-edge tech. Google's more-than-frequently-wrong AI Overviews search feature still thinks it's 2024.
The annoying AI box, which has remained error-riddled since its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ceo-google-ai-hallucinations">inception</a> just over a year ago, has confidently been telling users that it's still 2024, as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-overviews-says-its-still-2024/">Wired reports</a>.
Simply asking AI Overviews if it's 2025 resulted in a head-scratching answer.
"No, it is not 2025," the AI responded, leading to widespread mockery on social media.
"Wait did Google announce a time machine at I/O?" one user <a href="https://x.com/dmitry140/status/1927957900514754788">quipped</a>, referring to the tech company's conference earlier this month.
But it didn't take long for Google to interfere and squash the bug, as <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/30/google-fixes-bug-that-led-ai-overviews-to-say-its-now-2024/">TechCrunch found</a>, with AI Overviews now providing a correct answer to the query.
The humiliating instance highlights a persistent and glaring problem plaguing some of the most advanced large language models: frequent hallucinations <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-new-ai-problem-hallucinate-more">remain</a> an enormous — and <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">growing</a> — issue, leading to copious confusion online and significantly undercutting the tech's usefulness.
<h2>Rocks and Glue</h2>
Google's AI Overviews, in particular, has garnered a reputation for consistently leading users astray. The feature made headlines last year for outrageous missteps like telling home chefs to <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-glue-pizza">put glue on their pizza</a> or instructing parents to <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-fecal-matter-balloon">smear fecal matter</a> on a balloon to potty train children.
The tech giant has largely resorted to playing an enormous game of whack-a-mole, addressing each embarrassment in turn.
As such, Google didn't reveal what caused its AI Overviews to think it was still 2024.
"As with all Search features, we rigorously make improvements and use examples like this to update our systems," a spokesperson told TechCrunch. "The vast majority of AI Overviews provide helpful, factual information, and we’re actively working on an update to address this type of issue."
But there's arguably an immense gulf between being good enough and still spouting utter nonsense. Given the baffling consistency of AI Overviews' errors, Google has its work cut out to stop it from telling users to <a href="https://x.com/icreatelife/status/1793781850923823144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1793781850923823144%7Ctwgr%5E98263ce5ef0eb3a90f9bfe7b109e0bb2a3202877%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F05%2F24%2Ftechnology%2Fgoogle-ai-overview-search.html">eat rocks</a> or make up <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-overviews-fake-idioms">bizarre explanations of idioms that don't exist</a>.
More on AI Overviews: <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-overviews-fake-idioms">"You Can’t Lick a Badger Twice": Google's AI Is Making Up Explanations for Nonexistent Folksy Sayings</a>

 Bumbling AI

"Wait did Google announce a time machine?"

Google Humiliated as Its Idiot AI Overviews Caught Telling Users It's Still 2024

In the past few months, Amazon has been caught selling <a href="https://www.packtpub.com/zh-my/learning/tech-news/we-can-sell-dangerous-surveillance-systems-to-police-or-we-can-stand-up-for-whats-right-we-cant-do-both-says-a-protesting-amazon-employee">facial recognition tech</a> to police departments, AI-generated books on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/04/dangerous-nonsense-ai-authored-books-about-adhd-for-sale-on-amazon">managing ADHD</a>, rice contaminated with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/amazoncom-is-sued-over-alleged-sale-contaminated-rice-2025-05-23/">arsenic and other "heavy metals,"</a> and <a href="https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/04/07/washington-restricts-lethal-chemical-previously-sold-on-amazon/">concentrated sodium nitrate</a> that led to the death of a 15-year-old boy.
Now, the mega retailer has been caught merchandising untold thousands of kitchen faucets lined with lead, an enormously dangerous heavy metal.
Three separate recalls posted by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) advise customers who bought faucets from Amazon sellers <a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/VFAUOSIT-Brand-Kitchen-Faucets-Recalled-Due-to-Dangerous-Lead-Exposure-for-Young-Children-Sold-on-Amazon-com-by-Whisper08">Whisper08</a>, <a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/KICIMPRO-Brand-Kitchen-Faucets-Recalled-Due-to-Dangerous-Lead-Exposure-for-Young-Children-Sold-on-Amazon-com-by-Kicimpro">Kicimpro</a>, and <a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/BASDEHEN-Brand-Kitchen-Faucets-Recalled-Due-to-Dangerous-Lead-Exposure-for-Young-Children-Sold-on-Amazon-com-by-Chenfeng-Store">ChenFeng</a> to stop using the products and seek a refund immediately.
The faucets seem to trace back to a <a href="https://testmarket.io/deals/amazon/bar-sink-faucets/kicimpro-kitchen-faucet-with-pull-down-sprayer-brushed-nickel-high-arc-single-handle-sink-faucet-with-water-lines-commercial-modern-rv-stainless-steel-grifos-de-cocina-brushed-nickel-standard-faucet/1189747">home goods manufacturer</a> in Guangdong Province, China, according to information given by the CPSC. Altogether, the recall effects over 100,000 faucets sold between January 2024 and May 2025.
Lead is a toxic metal that can have horrific impacts on human health. It's especially dangerous in children and pregnant or soon-to-be-pregnant women. The <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health">World Health Organization</a> notes that there is "no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects," and that exposure is "entirely preventable."
In the past, Amazon was legally allowed to skirt responsibility for selling dangerous items through its site, even ones listed by third-party retailers via the company's "Fulfilled by Amazon" (FBA) service.
That all changed last year, when the CPSC issued a <a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2024/CPSC-Finds-Amazon-Responsible-Under-Federal-Safety-Law-for-Hazardous-Products-Sold-by-Third-Party-Sellers-on-Amazon-com">unanimous decision</a> holding Amazon responsible for product recalls and notices. Even if Amazon doesn't technically make or sell the product, the CPSC ruled that FBA nonetheless makes the sale possible, ultimately placing liability on Amazon.
That decision retroactively made Amazon <a href="https://www.legalexaminer.com/legal/defective-products/amazon-held-accountable-for-dangerous-products/">legally responsible</a> for over 40,000 incredibly dangerous items it profited off over the years.
According to the CPSC, these include disturbing products like flammable children's pajamas, hairdryers lacking electrocution safeguards, and busted carbon monoxide detectors.
Presumably, it also includes items like the infamous male-to-male extension cord — also known as a suicide cord — which became a minor internet sensation when <a href="https://gizmodo.com/cspc-amazon-warns-stop-buying-male-extension-cords-1849543775">netizens discovered them listed</a> on Amazon back in 2022.
The suicide cord hysteria eventually became so bad that the CPSC <a href="https://www.cpsc.gov/Warnings/2022/CPSC-Warns-Consumers-to-Immediately-Stop-Using-Male-to-Male-Extension-Cords-Sold-on-Amazon-com-Due-to-Electrocution-Fire-and-Carbon-Monoxide-Poisoning-Hazards">issued a statement</a> clarifying that you should seriously never, ever, buy one for any reason. Ever.
Still, it's important to note that these measures are reactive, and don't address products prior to being listed. Amazon is still not required to test FBA products for lead or other hazards — only take them down after the dangers are reported.
Basically, when it comes to home improvement, you're better off buying your stuff from virtually anywhere else.
More on Amazon: <a href="https://futurism.com/ice-director-deportations-amazon">Director of ICE Says Deportations Should Operate More Like Amazon Prime</a>

Lead Foot

Well, that's not good.

Amazon Caught Selling Kitchen Faucets That Leach Lead Directly Into Your Water

David Attenborough has become the voice we associate with all things beautiful in nature, but he's never shied away from showing the harrowing destruction that humans visit upon our planet.
This, however, might be the biggest gut-punch he's delivered yet. In his latest documentary "OCEAN," Attenborough presents us with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkD8itD9mbo">unique footage</a> showing the devastating effects of bottom trawling on the seafloor, right where the action is happening. The filmmakers placed a camera underwater, showing us the actual view of the trawl net as it sweeps up countless poor sea creatures, who desperately try to out-swim their doom.
It's an unprecedented look — but it doesn't make for easy viewing.
"I have seen the bycatch on the deck of trawlers, but like everybody else, I had never seen what the trawl does underwater," Enric Sala, a marine ecologist who served as executive producer and scientific advisor on Ocean, <a href="https://www.iflscience.com/devastating-impact-of-trawling-revealed-in-world-first-footage-of-marine-animals-fleeing-nets-79370">told IFLScience</a> in a recent interview. "Being at the level of the net and seeing all these poor creatures trying to escape the net, that's something that nobody else had seen."
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Bottom trawling is a widely used method of fishing that involves dragging an enormous net across the seafloor, ensnaring hundreds if not thousands of aquatic creatures in a single sweep. It's a blunt approach that doesn't discriminate between species. Most of the fish that get caught aren't even what the fishermen are looking for, but they perish anyway.
"Over three-quarters of a trawler's catch may be thrown away," Attenborough narrates in the documentary. "It's hard to imagine a more wasteful way to catch fish."
Trawling also ravages the seafloor itself, as the heavy chain or beam that keeps the net open smashes into any rock or aquatic fauna in its path, while dredging up literal tons of sediment. 
"The trawlers tear the seabed with such force, that their trails of destruction can be seen from space," Attenborough says.
It gets worse. As the seabed is thrown up, so are the vast stores of carbon it harbored. A massive 2024 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/18/carbon-released-by-bottom-trawling-too-big-to-ignore-says-study">study</a> estimated that some 370 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is released by bottom trawling every single year. That puts it "on the scale of global aviation," Sala said, which produces nearly a billion tons annually. 
In terms of both the greenhouse impact and the sweeping scale of the damage wreaked to local habitats, it's the ocean's equivalent to deforestation. One study <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/climate/climate-change-oceans.html">estimated</a> that bottom trawlers scrape 1.9 million square miles of seafloor per year, roughly equivalent to 1.3 percent of the entire ocean.
"It's happening everywhere around the ocean, including in many of our protected areas," Toby Nowlan, the director and producer on OCEAN, told IFLScience. "The difference being that this is as destructive as bulldozing your local ancient woodland, or the Amazon rainforest." 
"If my local ancient woodland, Leigh Woods, was just bulldozed, the entire city would be up in arms, but this is what's happening underwater," Nowlan added. "The whole reason [people aren't up in arms about trawling] is that it's remained hidden from view."
Not anymore.
More on the ocean: <a href="https://futurism.com/orca-pod-adopts-baby-pilot-whale">Benevolent Orca Pods Are Adopting Baby Pilot Whales in an Apparent Effort to Clean Up the Species' Image</a>

Bottom Feeding

"That's something that nobody else had seen." 

Heartbreaking Video Shows Fish Fleeing Huge Nets

Elon Musk's urinary prowess was once the stuff of legend.
"Everything he does is fast," former SpaceX engineer Brogan BamBrogan <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7043722-everything-he-does-is-fast-brogan-said-he-pees-fast">told Musk biographer Ashlee Vance</a> for his 2015 biography of the entrepreneur. "He pees fast. It’s like a fire hose — three seconds and out. He’s authentically in a hurry."
But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html">according to the New York Times</a>, his indulgences in the powerful tranquilizer ketamine reached such new heights during his chaotic tenure as the de facto head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that it's started affecting his bladder, a known side effect of heavy use of the anaesthetic.
Musk's ketamine habit was reportedly causing already bladder issues around the time he publicly endorsed Trump in July, though he'd been dabbling for some time, previously saying that he uses the drug to treat depression.
"If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of work," he <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/3/19/elon-musk-defends-using-prescribed-ketamine-for-negative-frame-of-mind">told journalist Don Lemon</a> last year.
But what the billionaire deems as "too much" appears to be murky at best. According to the NYT, he has taken a lot of ketamine as of late, sometimes daily, and even mixing it with other substances (ecstasy, Adderall, and hallucinogenic mushrooms were name-checked in the NYT's most recent reporting, though Musk has also been linked to other substances <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1">including cocaine</a>.)
In other words, the line between medical and recreational use of ketamine and other drugs has become extremely blurry, especially with a haze of dubious science surrounding therapeutic use of the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02127-9">horse tranquilizer</a>.
The known side effects of chronic ketamine use certainly line up with Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/weird-elon-musk-trump-dinner">bizarre behavior</a>, from short- and long-term memory issues to becoming "distinctly dissociated in their day-to-day existence," as psychopharmacology researcher Celia Morgan <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/ketamine-effects-elon-musk/681911/">told The Atlantic</a> earlier this year.
The drug can also lead to delusional thinking and becoming convinced that users are receiving secret messages.
On a physical level, long-term use can lead to some degree of tolerance, physical dependence, and withdrawal when use suddenly stops, <a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/ketamine-abuse/ketamine-side-effects">according to the American Addiction Centers</a>.
While studies have yet to establish any definitive causal links, scientists have previously linked prolonged use to declines in executive functioning and emotional swings, as well as changes in the structure and function of the brain.
And then there are the plumbing issues. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4544340/">2012 study</a> found that recreational use of ketamine can lead to "ketamine bladder syndrome," which "includes a small, very painful bladder, frequency, incontinence, [blood in urine], upper tract obstruction," and papillary necrosis, a kidney disorder.
As the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-68826392">BBC reported</a> last year, health practitioners observed an alarming increase in bladder issues among young people in the UK due to the chronic use of the drug, with people in their 20s unable to walk prolonged distances without having to go to the toilet.
"Do you feel like you ever abuse it?" Lemon asked Musk last year.
"I don’t think so," Musk replied.
"How often do you take it?" Lemon probed.
"It’d be like a small amount once every other week or something like that," Musk said.
More on Musk and ketamine: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-drug-target-russian-agents">Ex-FBI Agent: Elon Musk's Drug Habit Made Him an Easy Target for Russian Spies</a>

Bathroom Break

Treatments

Elon Musk's urinary prowess was once the stuff of legend.

Elon Musk Has Reportedly Been Telling People He's Doing So Much Ketamine That It's Causing Bladder Issues

As Elon Musk took to throwing government agencies into chaos, his well-documented drug use ramped up significantly.
As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html">New York Times reports</a>, Musk's drug consumption "went well beyond occasional use" as he opted to travel with a daily medication box that held roughly 20 pills. One of the drugs identified in photos of the box includes Adderall, a prescription medication that's commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but can easily be abused for a rush of manic energy — effects that call to mind Musk's bizarre behavior as he's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCd3xu7OiHc">jumped around on stage</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-interviewer-npc">acted strange in interviews</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-ghosted-huge-company-meeting">ghosted important meetings</a>, and given a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musks-grok-salute">series of Nazi salutes</a>.
He's long been said to indulge in other drugs, from ketamine, which he has previously claimed to use as an antidepressant, to ecstasy, and magic mushrooms.
It's not unusual for somebody going through extensive treatments, such as chemotherapy or dealing with a severe illness like an autoimmune disease, to walk around with a daily box of pills. According to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, some cancer patients <a href="https://www.mdanderson.org/patients-family/diagnosis-treatment/emotional-physical-effects/managing-medications.html#:~:text=Cancer%20treatment%20usually%20involves%20taking,to%2020%20pills%20a%20day.">may take up to 20 pills a day</a>.
But it's certainly an eyebrow-raising habit for Musk, who isn't suffering from anything even remotely as severe, at least as far as we know.
The reporting lines up with Musk's extremely unusual behavior during his turbulent tenure at the White House.
During an early February appearance in the Oval Office, for instance, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-oval-office-appearance">stammered and stumbled</a> his way through a rambling monologue. In the moments leading up to him performing two separate Nazi salutes during Trump's inauguration celebrations, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-before-inauguration-salute">was spotted</a> craning his neck, twitching his eyes, and staring at the ceiling.
While we don't know the full extent of Musk's drug use over the last six months, or ever, there's plenty of reason to believe that all of that stress may be getting to him.
Sources told the NYT that they had become worried about his <a href="https://futurism.com/leaked-text-elon-musk-woman-many-babies">hyperfixation on having as many children</a> as possible, his frequent drug use, and mood swings.
Musk's recreational use of party drugs isn't anything particularly new. Musk has a long history of <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-explanation">indulging in drugs like ketamine</a> for both <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-ketamine">recreational</a> use and as an <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-explanation#:~:text=using%20the%20drug%20to%20treat%20depression">antidepressant treatment</a>.
According to the NYT, sources, Musk has been using the drug, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs. He has also been known to take other party drugs, including ecstasy — street slang for MDMA, though pills are frequently adulterated with more dangerous substances — and psychedelic mushrooms, at events.
Instead of seeking help that doesn't involve popping a bunch of pills, the billionaire has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-therapy-gravestone-mental-health-2024-2">criticized psychologists</a>, accusing them of being profit- and politically-motivated without giving any evidence.
"Friends are far better than therapy," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1680886467134881792">tweeted</a> in July 2023. "The incentive structure is to keep you hooked, never 'cured.'"
"Be especially wary of therapists in expensive neighborhoods — their true loyalty is to their landlord, not you," he added.
According to a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1">bombshell investigation</a> by the Wall Street Journal last year, people close to Musk became so concerned that some of them <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-rehab">asked him to go to rehab</a> in late 2022.
Meanwhile, Musk's paranoia has seemingly reached new heights, telling his close confidantes that his life is in danger at all times.
In texts to Ashley St. Clair, the latest publicly known mother of his growing horde of children, the billionaire said that "only the paranoid survive" and that he's "#2 after Trump for assassination," as <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dms-women-have-his-babies">quoted by the Wall Street Journal</a>.
Now that Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/errol-musk-elon-politics">claims to have left</a> his role as a "special government employee" this week, it's possible some of the stresses that have plagued him so far this year could be ebbing.
But how that new daily rhythm will affect his rampant drug use, if at all, remains to be seen.
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/errol-musk-elon-politics">Elon Musk’s Dad Slams His Son's Whimpering Failure at Politics</a>

Pill Popper

This could explain a lot.

Elon Musk Has Reportedly Been Traveling With a Box Full of Drugs

As <a href="https://futurism.com/ceos-return-ai-investments">CEOs trip over themselves</a> to invest in artificial intelligence, there's a massive and growing elephant in the room: that any models trained on web data from after the advent of ChatGPT in 2022 are ingesting AI-generated data — an act of low-key cannibalism that may well be causing increasing technical issues that could come to threaten the entire industry.
In a <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/27/opinion_column_ai_model_collapse/">new essay for The Register</a>, veteran tech columnist Steven Vaughn-Nichols warns that even attempts to head off so-called "model collapse" — which occurs when large language models (LLMs) are fed <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/what-is-synthetic-data">synthetic, AI-generated data</a> and consequently <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-trained-with-ai-generated-data-gibberish">go off the rails</a> — are another kind of nightmare.
As <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-dumber">Futurism</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/m00274wj">countless</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/26/upshot/ai-synthetic-data.html">other</a> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-training-data-running-out-9676145bac0d30ecce1513c20561b87d">outlets</a> have reported over the <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-trained-ai-generated-data-interview">last few years</a>, the AI industry has continuously barreled toward the moment at which all available authentic training data — that is, information that was produced by humans and not AI — <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-training-data-shortage">will be exhausted</a>. Some pundits, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/08/elon-musk-agrees-that-weve-exhausted-ai-training-data/">including Elon Musk</a>, believe we're already there.
To circumvent this "<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/07/24/1095263/ai-that-feeds-on-a-diet-of-ai-garbage-ends-up-spitting-out-nonsense/">Garbage In/Garbage Out</a>" conundrum, industry titans including Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have engaged in what's known as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which essentially involves plugging LLMs up to the internet so they can look things up if they're presented with prompts that don't have answers in their training data.
That concept seems pretty intuitive on its face, especially when presented with the specter of rapidly-approaching model collapse. There's only one problem: the internet is now full of lazy content that uses AI to drum up answers to common questions, often with hilariously bad and inaccurate results.
In a recent study from the research arm of Michael Bloomberg's media empire that was <a href="https://aclanthology.org/2025.naacl-long.281/">presented at a computational linguistics conference</a> in April, 11 of the latest LLMs, including OpenAI's GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude-3.5-Sonnet, and Google's Gemma-7B, produced far more "unsafe" responses than their non-RAG counterparts. As the paper put it, those safety concerns can include "harmful, illegal, offensive, and unethical content, such as spreading misinformation and jeopardizing personal safety and privacy."
"This counterintuitive finding has far-reaching implications given how ubiquitously RAG is used in [generative AI] applications such as customer support agents and question-answering systems," explained Amanda Stent, Bloomberg's head of AI research and strategy, in another interview with Vaughn-Nichols <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/rag-can-make-ai-models-riskier-and-less-reliable-new-research-shows/">published in ZDNet</a> earlier this month. "The average internet user interacts with RAG-based systems daily. AI practitioners need to be thoughtful about how to use RAG responsibly."
So if AI is going to run out of training data — or it has already — and plugging it up to the internet doesn't work because the internet is now full of AI slop, where do we go from here? Vaughn-Nichols notes that <a href="https://venturebeat.com/ai/synthetic-data-has-its-limits-why-human-sourced-data-can-help-prevent-ai-model-collapse/">some folks</a> have <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.01413">suggested mixing authentic and synthetic</a> to produce a heady cocktail of good AI training data — but that would require humans to keep creating real content for training data, and the AI industry is actively undermining the incentive structures fo them to continue — while <a href="https://futurism.com/nick-clegg-scoffs-ai-copyright">pilfering their work without permission</a>, of course.
A third option, Vaughn-Nichols predicts, appears to already be in motion.
"We're going to invest more and more in AI, right up to the point that model collapse hits hard and AI answers are so bad even a brain-dead CEO can't ignore it," he wrote.
More on AI in crisis: <a href="https://futurism.com/nick-clegg-scoffs-ai-copyright">Legendary Facebook Exec Scoffs, Says AI Could Never Be Profitable If Tech Companies Had to Ask for Artists' Consent to Ingest Their Work</a>