We love microlending, don't we, folks? Unlike old-school credit cards, with their days-long approval processes and prior credit minimums, buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) apps — companies like Klarna and Afterpay — offer hard-up customers instant financing options to buy the junk they crave the instant they see it.
In the United States, purchases made with these apps currently don't even affect your FICO credit score — or at least, they never used to.
That's all about to change this fall, when Fair Isaac Corp, one of the largest credit scoring bureaus, is slated to begin factoring BNPL data into individual credit scores, as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/credit/fico-buy-now-pay-later-credit-score-36d60ed5?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAgvouR9hiNe9ySJGopcZBGyaULY1u--aPyGrMyr8c-c-8_QEpFOy51Q&amp;gaa_ts=685c265e&amp;gaa_sig=nFctWkh0-m97VduBz0frfib0OCVATqm1akHcfCn4YImvkI_bbk0mui5LvUewDxboSMcOtPRYPE3vvenfa6xZCw%3D%3D">first reported by the Wall Street Journal</a>.
The move is a huge deal for the financial sector and US consumers, marking the first time FICO has ever specifically reckoned with a particular type of loan — as opposed to treating all loans equally — FICO vice president of scores and predictive analytics Ethan Dornhelm told the WSJ.
Up until now, lenders have mostly been kept in the dark regarding how much debt individual consumers have taken on. Though companies like <a href="https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/credit/affirm-buy-now-pay-later-credit-report-ce5f1bd0?mod=article_inline">Affirm</a> have recently begun sharing BNPL data with credit bureaus, the industry <a href="https://www.klarna.com/international/press/why-klarna-does-not-report-bnpl-payments-to-us-credit-bureaus/">hasn't agreed</a> on how to use it.
<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/bnpl-booms-as-economic-pressures-mount/">Per Wired</a>, BNPL has become an essential part of the economy in developed countries, with <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/h/data/studies-and-data-analysis">over half</a> of all Americans using it to finance stuff like <a href="https://futurism.com/doordash-klarna-loan-partnership">lunch deliveries</a> and <a href="https://newsroom.transunion.com/more-than-one-in-three-consumers--using-buy-now-pay-later-loans-for-back-to-school-shopping/">school supplies</a>. The cumulative effect is significant: as early as 2022, BNPL apps had already caused a "<a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30508/w30508.pdf">permanent increase</a>" in household retail spending.
Behind that growth are companies like the aforementioned Klarna, which have <a href="https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/05/10/unregulated-boom-afterpay-buy-now-pay-later-market">grown BNPL</a> from a relatively niche financial market in 2020 to a $94 billion pit-o-money in 2024. By this year, the WSJ notes, the BNPL market is expected to reach $108 billion in value.
As some economists have noted, the model could have upsides for borrowers who pay their debt on time. But there will also be huge consequences for the credit scores of those who've fallen behind on payments, or who've chained multiple microloans on top of each other. Unfortunately, those borrowers likely make up a huge piece of the BNPL pie.
As the US Federal Reserve outlined in a <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2024-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202505.pdf">May survey</a>, low-income households bringing in less than $50,000 a year make up the biggest users of BNPL services. And as the BNPL market grows — taking advantage of cash-poor workers — so too does the number of borrowers using it to finance <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/26/americans-groceries-buy-now-pay-later-loans.html">basic necessities</a>, like groceries.
And unsurprisingly, when more and more <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-research-reveals-heavy-buy-now-pay-later-use-among-borrowers-with-high-credit-balances-and-multiple-pay-in-four-loans/">desperate people</a> turn to BNPL as a last-minute payday loan, the number of late payments skyrocket.
Between 2024 and 2025, the rate of late payments in the US <a href="https://www.lendingtree.com/personal/buy-now-pay-later-loan-statistics/">grew by 7 percent</a>, as the amount of regular BNPL users financing groceries jumped from 14 to 25 percent. Meanwhile, 40 percent of BNPL borrowers reported stacking multiple loans together at a time.
"I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term," Matt Schulz, a consumer financial analyst <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/26/americans-groceries-buy-now-pay-later-loans.html">told CNBC</a>. "I don't know that there's a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term."
As BNPL debt grows, so too can <a href="https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/inflationary-risks-rising-federal-deficits-and-debt#:~:text=Key%20Takeaways,burden%20consumers%20and%20benefit%20savers.">inflation</a> and the risk of a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/navigating-the-long-shadow-of-high-household-debt/">systemic banking crisis</a>. The resulting loss of credit scores that might stem from FICO's decision can have huge impacts on the economy, affecting the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/student-loan-payment-pause-resumes-credit-score-498763af?utm_source=chatgpt.com">housing</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/poor-credit-scores-affect-more-than-just-getting-a-loan-or-credit-card.html#:~:text=There%20are%20also%20long%2Dterm,accurate%20reflection%20of%20their%20creditworthiness.">labor markets</a> while dramatically increasing <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wealthier-borrowers-are-getting-behind-on-their-debts-a-warning-shot-for-the-economy-e018f812?utm_source=chatgpt.com">consumer debt</a>.
Whether the data hidden within the BNPL market causes a widespread debt crisis is largely up to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/23/economy/fico-scores-buy-now-pay-later-bnpl">credit models</a> used, and the consumers themselves. One thing's for sure: with BNPL regulation a long way off, consumer debt isn't going anywhere but up.
More on FinTech: <a href="https://futurism.com/doordash-klarna-loan-partnership">Dystopia Intensifies as Startup Lets You Take Out a Micro-Loan to Get Fast Food</a>

Recession Indicator

"It’s going to get worse, at least in the short term."

Microloan Apps May Be Poised to Destroy the Economy

<h2>Funky Dino</h2>
Deep in the heart of Texas, a goofy-looking dinosaur skeleton has been unearthed — and it's got a funny head that makes it look like a dead wringer for Barney, the purple lizard of 90s television fame with the annoyingly cheery voice.
As the <a href="https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/texas-fossil-skull-20389488.php">Houston </a><a href="https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/texas-fossil-skull-20389488.php">Chron</a><a href="https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/texas-fossil-skull-20389488.php">icle reports</a>, the dinosaur in question — called Eryops megacephalus — has a wide, grinning smile on a large flat skull that sits on four squat legs. Paleontologist Andre LuJan told the newspaper that he found the skeleton of the semiaquatic ancient amphibian recently in Archer County, in a quarry that dates back to the Permian era, about over 280 million years ago.
"This is an exciting discovery," LuJan told Chron. "It's a well-known animal and not considered rare, but this discovery is significant because even though it's damaged, it is nearly complete, and that is far more uncommon or even rare than finding fragments."
As for its resemblance to certain dinosaurs from the realm of children's fiction... well, come on, just look at the guy, especially with that particular placement of the nose and eye holes:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A skull that resembles Rex from Toy Story has been found in North Central Texas. The nearly complete skull of an over 280 million-year-old amphibian will eventually be displayed at the Texas Through Time Fossil Museum.
For more info: <a href="https://t.co/YNfEV0f3jw">https://t.co/YNfEV0f3jw</a> <a href="https://t.co/UQlUpJTR85">pic.twitter.com/UQlUpJTR85</a>
&mdash; IGN (@IGN) <a href="https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1937647195773108596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>Texas Size</h2>
Rains had uncovered the top of its ridged skull, said LuJan, who <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLC7am-MACN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">showed off a video of the find on Instagram</a> when he first found it in the ground.
What's cool about the dinosaur is that its skull shape suggests that it swallowed up its prey like an alligator or crocodile. Its future home will be the Texas Through Time Fossil Museum, where LuJan is the director and which contains a treasure trove of specimens from long ago, such as more dinosaurs and petrified wood.
LuJan is in the catbird seat when it comes to dinosaurs. Texas isn't just known for its <a href="https://www.rrc.texas.gov/oil-and-gas/major-oil-and-gas-formations/">rich deposit of oil and gas</a>, but as a state lousy with the fossilized bones of ancient monsters — with more than 20 types of dinos found across the state, including the <a href="https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/dinosaur-valley">imprint of dinosaur tracks in Dinosaur Valley State Park</a>.
Another park in Texas boasts <a href="https://www.nps.gov/waco/learn/historyculture/index.htm">more than 20 mammoth remains</a> from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Pleistocene-Epoch">Pleistocene Epoch</a>, the last ice age, which lasted from about 2.8 million to 11,700 years ago.
And the state is still revealing traces of its ancient past; earlier this year, college students were <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-04-huge-fossil-largest-dinosaurs-texas.html">helping unearth</a> the fragments of an Alamosaurus in Texas's Big Bend National Park.
Considered <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/state/2025/04/23/dinosaur-fossil-bone-big-bend-national-park-texas-giant-alamosaurus-vertebra-found-discovered/83209618007/">one of the the largest dinosaurs</a> to have roamed North America, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/bibe/learn/nature/alamosaurus.htm">long-necked Alamosaurus</a> could be as long as 100 feet and weigh in at a hefty 50 tons — proving once and for all that everything in Texas is indeed huge.
More on dinosaurs: <a href="https://futurism.com/dinosaur-skin-t-rex-leather">Project Says It's Recreating Dinosaur Skin to Make T-Rex Leather, But Is It Really?</a>

Hey Barney

We're a happy fa-m-ily!

Paleontologists Find Skeleton That Weirdly Looks Exactly Like Barney the Purple Dinosaur

<h2>World's First</h2>
Scientists harnessing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope took what appears to be the first-ever direct picture of an exoplanet resulting in its discovery, in yet another accomplishment for the mighty space observatory.
An international team of astronomers published a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09150-4">paper on the historic finding</a> in the prestigious journal Nature.
"If confirmed, this would represent Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet," they <a href="https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-126.html">wrote</a> of the finding, "and the lightest planet ever seen with this technique outside the solar system."
The planet, dubbed TWA 7 b, orbits a young star and appears to be about the size of Neptune. Though the James Webb has <a href="https://futurism.com/james-webb-planets-star-system">directly imaged other exoplanets</a> previously, they were previously known to exist; in this case, in an apparent first-ever accomplishment, the act of capturing the picture also established the existence of the distant world.
<h2>Fantastic Planets</h2>
Since <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/">its launch in 2021</a>, the James Webb has been at the forefront of many exciting space discoveries, from <a href="https://webbtelescope.org/contents/articles/how-can-webb-study-the-early-universe">plumbing the depths of the early universe </a>to <a href="https://webbtelescope.org/contents/articles/exploring-our-solar-system-with-webb">investigating how our solar system was formed</a>. It's able to do all this because it's the largest space telescope ever built, even bigger than <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/">Hubble Space Telescope</a>, with a primary mirror measuring over 21 feet in diameter.
TWA 7 b was difficult to detect due to the glare of the orbiting star, so the team developed a clever mechanism that mimics an eclipse in order to pick out any bodies that are lurking in the blinding light.
The exoplanet orbits the star TWA 7, a relatively young red dwarf at 6.4 million years of age that sports a sizable debris field.
"Here we’re looking at a system that is about 6 [million] years old, so we are really witnessing the youth of the planetary system," Anne-Marie Lagrange, astrophysicist and first author of the paper, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jun/25/james-webb-space-telescope-first-direct-images-exoplanet">told The Guardian</a>.
More on exoplanets: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-finds-planets-potential-life">An AI Identifies Where All Those Planets That Could Host Life Are Hiding</a>

Space Rocks

Okay, that's pretty cool.

James Webb Discovers First-Ever Exoplanet by Taking a Picture of It

Hundreds of families shelled out to pay an out-of-this-world tribute to their lost loved ones — but tragically, their mortal remains ended up floating in the Pacific thanks to an error with the capsule they were riding in.
As the <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/06/23/chicago-man-honors-late-dad-with-starman-style-tribute">Chicago Sun-Times reports</a>, a capsule containing the ashes and DNA of some 166 departed souls was slated to orbit Earth for three hours this week before being splashing down safely into the Pacific Ocean and being returned to the families of the deceased loved ones.
After orbiting Earth twice, the capsule operated by the so-called "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/magazine/space-burial.html">space burial</a>" company Celestis re-entered Earth's atmosphere normally, but failed to launch the parachutes that would have given it a softer landing in the ocean. As a result, the capsule impacted the water and, as Celestis CEO Charles Chafer noted in a statement to the Sun-Times, "[dispersed] its contents at sea."
"As a result of this unforeseen event, we believe that we will not be able to recover or return the flight capsules aboard," Chafer continued. "We share in the disappointment of our families, and we offer our sincerest gratitude for their trust."
One such family member, the son of the late Curtis Lau, had been very exhilarated by the prospect of sending his dad's ashes into space with Celestis, which has conducted similar memorial spaceflights for nearly 30 years.
"It’s obviously a unique thing we are able to do," 28-year-old Griffin Lau told the Sun-Times ahead of the launch earlier this week. "This was a wish for my father, so I also appreciate the ability to share his story and memorialize him."
The elder Lau had been, as his son explained, a lifelong space enthusiast who would travel from his home in Wisconsin down to Cape Canaveral, Florida to watch rocket launches at the Kennedy Space Center. After he passed away last summer, his family decided to shell out nearly $3,500 to give his ashes a posthumous joyride in low-Earth orbit.
In the aftermath of the "anomaly" that caused his dad's ashes to meet a watery grave, however, the son was less stoked.
"It’s a bummer," Lau said, "but admittedly, they take only a small part of the remains."
More on space mishaps: <a href="https://futurism.com/nobel-prize-warns-astronomers-using-ai">Nobel Prize Winner Warns About Astronomers Using AI to Make Discoveries</a>

Sink or Flail

"It’s a bummer."

Families Get Unpleasant Surprise After Trying to Shoot Their Loved Ones' Ashes Into Space

<h2>Vomit Comet</h2>
Astronomers have detected a gigantic comet — possibly the largest ever discovered — and it's spewing gases from its nucleus as it shoots through our cosmic neighborhood.
Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is 85 miles in diameter, <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/earth/deep-impact-and-the-mass-extinction-of-species-65-million-years-ago/">far bigger than the six-mile asteroid</a> that ended the age of the dinosaurs, according to a <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/add526">new study</a> in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. But thankfully, it's pretty far away — in the vicinity of Neptune, specifically — so astronomers can admire the spectacle from a safe distance.
"These measurements give us a look at how this enormous, icy world works," said Nathan Roth, lead author and NASA research associate, said in <a href="https://public.nrao.edu/news/largest-oort-cloud-comet-ever-observed-reveals-its-secrets-with-almas-powerful-gaze/">a statement</a>. "We’re seeing explosive outgassing patterns that raise new questions about how this comet will evolve as it continues its journey toward the inner solar system."
In addition to the comet's extraordinary size, its jets of carbon monoxide are the first ever observed on a comet.
<h2>Seeding the Universe</h2>
The comet came from the mysterious <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/">Oort Cloud</a>, which surrounds our entire Solar System and harbors more icy denizens.
To astronomers, comets are particularly intriguing because they carry tantalizing clues about the past of the universe and our solar system.
Comets are dirty snowballs <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/">made up of ice, dust, debris</a>, and often come from the <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/">Kuiper Belt</a>, an area beyond Neptune that contains Pluto and other icy space objects, as well as the Oort Cloud.
A special feature of comets is that <a href="https://www.astronomy.com/science/organic-molecules-make-up-half-of-comet-67p/">they hold organic matter</a> and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/life-on-earth-may-have-been-seeded-by-comets">likely bombarded our planet</a> during its early years with essential molecules that eventually gave rise to life on Earth.
That's another reason this finding is huge: the fact that scientists were able to detect matter spewing out of the comet is notable, and as it gets closer to the Sun, parts of the comet may melt away, revealing more of its tantalizing internal makeup.
More on comets: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/earth-dark-comets">Earth Surrounded by Dark Comets, Astronomers Claim</a>

Shooting Star

What can a comet tell us about the Universe?

Scientists Intrigued by Comet With Jets Blasting From Its Interior

As artificial intelligence <a href="https://www.winssolutions.org/ai-break-economy-andreessen-altman-explain/">ruins the economy</a> and takes over the world, Google is quietly working to change the advertising game in a mind-bending way.
As <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/06/25/2025/why-ai-powered-search-is-going-to-dominate-the-future-of-the-ad-tech-industry">Semafor reports</a>, AI has so utterly altered the way search engine advertising works that Google is now being forced to rewrite the script it forged itself.
Chief among its new directives: creating a new ecosystem where advertisers compete for the attention of AI agents rather than humans — a shift predicted at the <a href="https://ppc.land/a-new-model-for-ai-advertising-emerges-as-agents-could-replace-human-attention/">very beginning of this year</a> by Aravind Srinivas, the founder of the so-called "AI search" company Perplexity.
Google, as the world's biggest search company, thinks it needs to build this new ecosystem to remain relevant, and it's already started pushing out new protocols to retain its position.
In its new <a href="https://developers.googleblog.com/en/a2a-a-new-era-of-agent-interoperability/">protocol called Agent2Agent</a>, Google is essentially training bots to communicate with each other and execute tasks, including financial transactions. As Semafor notes, that protocol will likely be the first step in building a brave new ad industry where AI agents become the consumer, since humans have delegated such menial tasks like "buying stuff" to them.
If you're confused by how such an arrangement is superior to the admittedly broken advertising model we have now, we are too — but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone involved in the creation of this new search advertising ecosystem from powering ahead.
Underlying this confusing new paradigm, of course, is the massive economic elephant in the room: that we're hurtling headlong into a recession exacerbated by greedy <a href="https://futurism.com/signs-ai-bite-job-market">CEOs firing human workers</a> in favor of AI (some of whom end up being <a href="https://futurism.com/klarna-openai-humans-ai-back">rehired as contract workers</a> when the tech proves too shoddy to do comparable work.)
To try to claw back some of the <a href="https://simonowens.substack.com/p/the-advertising-recession-is-definitely">revenue inevitably lost</a> from an economic downturn, advertisers seem willing to <a href="https://www.aaaa.org/blog/is-agentic-ai-advertisings-next-big-disruption/">throw anything at the wall</a> and see what sticks — even if it means participating in a lose-lose scheme that will likely earn them pennies on the dollars they used to make.
Google's <a href="https://digiday.com/media/publishers-remain-unsure-of-what-comes-next-even-as-googles-ad-tech-is-ruled-a-monopoly/">vice grip on advertising</a> has, to be clear, been a problem since long before AI began infiltrating every aspect of our digital lives. Now, it appears that Google may start reaping what it so aggressively sowed — but we humans will, unfortunately, be trapped in the middle of the upcoming upheaval.
More on AI and the economy: <a href="https://futurism.com/job-applications-ai-slop">Applying to Jobs Has Become an AI-Powered Wasteland</a>

Ad Age

Who wins in this scenario? 

The Economy Is So Off the Rails That They’re Trying to Figure Out How to Make Ads Specifically Targeted at AI Bots

<h2>Fields of Data</h2>
Indiana's newest cash crop isn't soybeans or corn; it's AI data centers — lots and lots of AI data centers.
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/technology/amazon-ai-data-centers.html">New York Times reports</a> that Amazon is building a vast complex of AI infrastructure facilities on top of 1,200 acres of former cropland, all meant for startup Anthropic's project to build an AI model that is as powerful, complex — and, just possibly, as intelligent — as the human brain.
To that end, Amazon has constructed seven data centers on site, with around 30 slated to be built in total, according to the newspaper. It's such an outrageously ambitious project, with untold billions in investment, that Amazon has tapped four separate construction firms to get the complex finished as soon as possible.
"I don’t know if they’re competing for cash or steak dinner or what, but it’s crazy how much they’re getting up," Bill Schalliol, a local economic development official, told the NYT. "Steel starts to go up here, the next day steel’s going up over there."
And the big tech behemoth is not stopping there; Amazon is planning to construct similar AI data center complexes in Mississippi, all to compete with other tech companies, such as Meta and OpenAI, which are racing to build next-generation facilities of their own to feed ever more advanced AI models.
<h2>Boom and Bust</h2>
But AI data centers come with a whole host of issues. They're energy hogs, and are very thirsty water drinkers.
Amazon is using less advanced chips compared to its competitors, hoping it won't need to deploy complex cooling equipment to lower the temperature in its facilities, relying instead on just large air handlers and municipal water to cool them down.
Still, the complex will eat up 2.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to light up millions of residences, and will divert immense quantities of water for cooling.
Already, the NYT reports, local residents have protested against a piece of wetland being bulldozed over for the data centers, while contending with local wells coming up dry. It seems that Amazon pumped so much water from the ground during construction that local water sources became stressed.
Expect more debates over water usage and technology in the future, as other communities in America and around the world are <a href="https://futurism.com/small-towns-ai-data-centers">struggling with water issues</a> due to this explosive sector.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/ceo-ai-scare-labor">CEOs Using AI to Terrorize Their Employees</a>

Silicon Brain

But to what end?

Amazon Is Building a Gigantic Computing Facility to Match the Human Brain

Mind Games

“I don't know what's wrong with me, but something is very bad — I'm very scared, and I need to go to the hospital.”

People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis"

As AI conquers every human-driven endeavor at a breathless pace, from <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2025/05/ai-helping-pentagon-go-finding-targets-predicting-threats/405279/">bombing military targets</a> to <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/06/26/ai-in-the-classroom-takes-off-with-no-guardrails-00427147">teaching kids</a>, we gotta ask ourselves a scary question: what is it doing to the workplace right now, and in the future?
Sure, we have Dario Amodei, CEO of hotshot AI company Anthropic, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic">saying</a> he foresees AI models erasing 50 percent of entry-level white collar positions throughout the entire job market, but that could be all marketing hype.
To get to the bottom of it all, tech journalist Brian Merchant solicited responses from tech workers <a href="https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/did-ai-kill-your-job">for his acclaimed newsletter Blood in the Machine</a> — and the answers will probably depress you.
A Google software engineer was dismayed that young programmers were relying too much on AI to code, while more experienced workers were inadvertently propagating bad code by not thinking deeply about what they're building.
"'Anyone can write code' sounds good on paper, but when bad code is massively produced, it hurts everyone including those who did not ask for it and have been trusting the software industry," they wrote.
Dropbox eliminated another respondent's job last year after the company decided to allocate resources to Dash, the company's new AI helper.
"The industry is absolutely toxic right now as cost-cutting is dominating everything but the most recently funded startups," they said, while opining they may stop looking for work altogether because they're not getting any interest.
A tech worker at a marketing department shared the story of how one of their company's leaders claimed a ChatGPT model was their new chief marketing officer, which came as an omen for the rest of the marketing team.
"She claimed it was outperforming us," the person wrote. "It wasn’t — it was producing garbage. But the real harm was watching someone who’d given decades to his field get humiliated, not by a machine, but by a colleague weaponizing it."
Recently, due to AI, the company fired its human chief marketing officer and a bunch of other people.
And the stories keep on piling up.
The danger with pushing AI into everything this fast is that <a href="https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/googles-ai-overviews-are-often-so-confidently-wrong-that-ive-lost-all-trust-in-them">it's currently still unreliable</a>, and yet <a href="https://www.cio.com/article/4012162/ai-begins-to-reshape-the-it-job-landscape-as-layoffs-rise.html">employers are laying off scores of workers</a> — valuable people with institutional knowledge. It risks ruining the foundations of industries as we shirk the hard work of investing in the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/ai-risks-broken-career-ladder-college-graduates-experts/story?id=122527744">proper training of younger people</a>.
And if we do all end up getting replaced, it's hard to imagine something like <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/361749/universal-basic-income-sam-altman-open-ai-study">universal basic income</a> coming soon enough to avert economic catastrophe.
There's going to be a reckoning as we run headlong into this future — and it's almost certain to be messy.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/microsoft-copilot-ai-embarrassment">Microsoft Is Having an Incredibly Embarrassing Problem With Its AI</a>

McJob

"She claimed it was outperforming us."

Tech Workers Say They're Rapidly Being Replaced by AI

Who among us hasn't stumbled headfirst into a violent coup attempt involving millions of dollars of black market weaponry?
That's the argument Robert Granieri, multimillionaire cofounder of trading firm Jane Street, is invoking after being caught funneling hoards of cash to an opposition party in South Sudan. The funding allegedly included millions of dollars in backing to purchase rifles, Stinger missiles, bulletproof vests, and grenades meant to topple South Sudan’s government.
Granieri says he was "duped" into providing the funds by a man claiming to be an activist in the region. "Granieri is a longtime supporter of human rights causes," his lawyer <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-25/jane-street-s-rob-granieri-says-he-was-duped-into-funding-south-sudan-coup-plot">told Bloomberg</a>. "In this case, the person Rob thought was a human rights activist defrauded Rob and lied about his intentions."
Jane Street is notably the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-job-sam-bankman-fried-103217906.html">launchpad</a> of financial fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried before he launched his now-cratered cryptocurrency platform, FTX. Granieri, meanwhile, has a record of donations to NGOs like <a href="https://ideasbeyondborders.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IBB-2021-Annual-Report.pdf">Ideas Beyond Borders</a> in Afghanistan, which have been accused of treating third-world <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1158&amp;context=njihr">violence and suffering</a> as "ample photo opportunities" with which to attract donors.
The Wall Street hotshot's role in the plot was uncovered amidst the prosecution of Peter Ajak, a Sudanese political activist who was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-defendants-arrested-conspiring-illegally-export-weapons-south-sudan">indicted last year</a> for trying to smuggle the massive weapons cache from the US to the war-torn region. Though Ajak and his co-conspirator, Abraham Chol Keech, are alleged to be the masterminds behind the dramatic plot, it hadn't been fully explained who was funding the expensive venture.
Far from the Mr. Magoo scenario that Granieri's attorneys are claiming, Ajak's lawyers paint a picture of a Wall Street financier who was "vital to the plan."
In May, the Sudanese rebel's lawyers claimed that "without the significant financing that Mr. Granieri could and agreed to provide, the alleged conspiracy would have been impossible."
Perhaps the most bizarre twist is the alleged involvement of Soviet chessmaster Garry Kasparov, who came to know both Granieri and Ajak through his work as chair of the Human Rights Foundation, according to Bloomberg. For his part, Kasparov denies involvement, saying that his "record and values are clear, and they remain unchanged."
South Sudan officially <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/09/south-sudan-crossroads">separated from Sudan</a> in 2011, following years of upheaval amidst a broader struggle by the United States and China for <a href="https://ipa-aip.org/notes/war-in-sudan-imperialism-fuels-the-refugee-crisis/">control over resources</a> in the region. In 2021, a military coup toppled the transitional Sudanese government, leading to <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/10/25/millions-take-to-the-streets-against-coup-by-sudans-military/">mass unrest</a> and a resurgence of state violence.
In the few short years since, over 10 million Sudanese residents have been displaced by war, while nearly 17 million people are considered food insecure.
If Granieri is found guilty of knowingly funding the coup, he'll be the latest in a long list of American moguls caught meddling in the affairs of foreign lands — and unleashing <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/06/27/us-imperialism-is-driving-millions-of-people-to-flee-their-homes-across-the-world/">devastating consequences</a> on sovereign people in the process.
More on Wall Street: <a href="https://futurism.com/global-warming-banks">This May Be the Most Terrifying Sign of Global Warming Yet</a>