After over a month of providing the same <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-response-chatgpt-mental-health">copy-pasted response</a> amid mounting reports of "<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis">AI psychosis</a>", OpenAI has finally admitted that ChatGPT has been failing to recognize clear signs of its users struggling with their mental health, including suffering delusions.
"We don't always get it right," the AI maker wrote in a <a href="https://openai.com/index/how-we're-optimizing-chatgpt/">new blog post</a>, under a section titled "On healthy use."
"There have been instances where our 4o model fell short in recognizing signs of delusion or emotional dependency," it added. "While rare, we're continuing to improve our models and are developing tools to better detect signs of mental or emotional distress so ChatGPT can respond appropriately and point people to evidence-based resources when needed."
Though it has previously acknowledged the issue, OpenAI has been noticeably reticent amid widespread reporting about its chatbot's <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://futurism.com/openai-chatgpt-sycophant">sycophantic behavior</a> leading users to suffer breaks with reality or experience manic episodes.
What little it has shared mostly comes from a single statement that it's <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-response-chatgpt-mental-health">repeatedly sent</a> to news outlets, regardless of the specifics — be it a man <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html">dying of suicide by cop</a> after he fell in love with a ChatGPT persona, or others being <a style="cursor: pointer !important; user-select: none !important;" href="https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis">involuntarily hospitalized or jailed</a> after becoming entranced by the AI.
"We know that ChatGPT can feel more responsive and personal than prior technologies, especially for vulnerable individuals, and that means the stakes are higher," the statement reads. "We're working to understand and reduce ways ChatGPT might unintentionally reinforce or amplify existing, negative behavior."
In response to our previous reporting, OpenAI also shared that it had <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-forensic-psychiatrist">hired a full-time clinical psychiatrist</a> to help research the mental health effects of its chatbot.
It's now taking those measures a step further. In this latest update, OpenAI said it's convening an advisory group of mental health and youth development experts to improve how ChatGPT responds during "critical moments."
In terms of actual updates to the chatbot, progress, it seems, is incremental. OpenAI said it added a new safety feature in which users will now receive "gentle reminders" encouraging them to take breaks during lengthy conversations — a perfunctory, bare minimum intervention that seems bound to become the industry equivalent of a "gamble responsibly" footnote in betting ads. 
It also teased that "new behavior for high-stakes personal decisions" will be coming soon, conceding that the bot shouldn't give a straight answer to questions like "Should I break up with my boyfriend?"
The blog concludes with an eyebrow-raising declaration.
"We hold ourselves to one test: if someone we love turned to ChatGPT for support, would we feel reassured?" the blog reads. "Getting to an unequivocal 'yes' is our work."
The choice of words speaks volumes: it sounds like, by the company's own admission, it's still getting there.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-rabbit-holes-mental-health">It Doesn't Take Much Conversation for ChatGPT to Suck Users Into Bizarre Conspiratorial Rabbit Holes</a>

Delusional Thinking

"We don't always get it right."

OpenAI Admits ChatGPT Missed Signs of Delusions in Users Struggling With Mental Health

Ozzy Osbourne's body is barely cold after his July 22 death, but he's already being subjected to the off-putting <a href="https://futurism.com/george-carlin-estate-sues-ai">AI resurrection</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/judge-ai-revival-victim-statement">trend</a> by fellow musician and contemporary Rod Stewart.
In a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@iamsloanesteel/video/7534032449744031006">now-viral video</a> taken at the <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/rod-stewart-plays-ai-video-of-ozzy-osbourne-taking-selfies-with-dead-music-legends-at-us-show-3882434">Alpharetta, Georgia</a> stop of Stewart's "One Last Time" tour on August 1, Stewart rolled AI-generated "footage" of the late Black Sabbath frontman smiling and using a selfie stick to snap photos with other deceased musicians, including Prince, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Tupac "2Pac" Shakur, and — perhaps most strangely — rapper Jahseh "XXXTentacion" Onfroy, who was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/arts/music/xxxtentacion-abuse-recording.html">accused of horrific violent crimes</a> before his death in 2018.
While the 80-year-old Stewart belted his poppy cover of Bob Dylan's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwG6g5boyF4&amp;list=RDmwG6g5boyF4&amp;start_radio=1">Forever Young</a>," an audience member was heard narrating the video's surprise guests, at one point hollering "no, not 2Pac!" as her fellow concert attendees rocked on.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Bruh what, Rod Stewart&#39;s tour features an AI video of Ozzy Osbourne taking selfies with XXXTentacion, Kurt Cobain, 2Pac, and many other artists in heaven 😭
We truly are in the end times<a href="https://t.co/UbaFnVh2Jt">pic.twitter.com/UbaFnVh2Jt</a>
&mdash; RileyTaugor 🏴 (@RileyTaugor) <a href="https://twitter.com/RileyTaugor/status/1952057892749934687?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Originally <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@iamsloanesteel/video/7534032449744031006">posted to TikTok</a>, the video made its way across social networks at lightning speed as fans and foes of AI slop alike heaped criticism on the ghoulish display. In an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DM2zJpVsZiP/">Instagram post</a> of the same clip, the person who appears to have filmed the AI-generated monstrosity joked that they "witnessed man-made horrors beyond my comprehension," in reference to a quote by inventor Nikola Tesla that has <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-may-live-to-see-man-made-horrors-beyond-your-comprehension">become a common meme</a>.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that Stewart's disrespectful slop-heaping was a one-time deal.
In a <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/charlottefive/c5-things-to-do/article311505887.html">review of another stop</a> of the Stewart tour, Charlotte Observer entertainment reporter Theodon Janes — who, in full disclosure, mentored this reporter many moons ago at her first-ever internship — noted that the video was also played during the concert he attended as well.
"Very sad. A lot of those people died 'cause of drugs," the Scottish singer bemoaned of the late Osbourne and his heavenly compatriots. "I’m still here, though!"
Because there's little information about the AI video besides where it was played, who was in it, and what Stewart sang and said while it was broadcast behind him on a massive screen, we know neither the clip's origins nor why it was chosen for the tour at all. Reports do indicate, however, that prior to the appearance of this AI phantasmagoria, the "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbI_awR4CKE&amp;list=RDKbI_awR4CKE&amp;start_radio=1">Maggie May</a>" singer did show photos of Osbourne on stage following his <a href="https://people.com/ozzy-osbourne-death-air-ambulance-called-advanced-critical-care-provided-11778219">death at age 76</a>, and that he paid tribute to him in a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DMa9I4XxyiU/">heartfelt Instagram post</a> as well.
We've reached out to Stewart's publicist to ask what was up with the video and how it ended up being shown on the "One Last Time" tour, and we hope some guys — in this case, we at Futurism — will have "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqrxgEln_Dw&amp;pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD">all the luck</a>" of getting a response.
More on weird Ozzy tributes: <a href="https://futurism.com/ozzy-osbourne-dna">You Can Now Buy a Sample of Ozzy Osbourne's DNA in Twelve Easy Payments</a>

Forever Young

Wake up Ozzy, I think I've got something to say to you.

Rod Stewart Revives Selfie Stick-Wielding Ozzy Osbourne In Disgusting AI Slop Video

In case you missed it, OpenAI has <a href="https://x.com/cryps1s/status/1951041845938499669">responded</a> to a recent "leak" of thousands of ChatGPT conversations by removing a sharing feature that led to its users unknowingly unleashing their private exchanges onto the world wide web.
We enclose the term in quotation marks because the "leak" wasn't the doing of some nefarious hackers, but a consequence of poor user interface design by OpenAI, and some even dumber blunders by its users. 
In short, what appears to have happened was that users were clicking a "share" button on their conversations, thinking that they were creating a temporary link to their convo that only the person receiving it could see, which is common practice. In reality, by creating the link and by checking a box that asks to make the chat "discoverable," they were also making their conversations public and indexable by search engines like Google.
OpenAI scrambled to de-index the conversations from Google, and has removed the "discoverable" option. But as Digital Digging <a href="https://www.digitaldigging.org/p/chatgpt-confessions-gone-they-are">found in its investigation</a>, over 110,000 of them can still be accessed via Archive.org. And boy, do they contain some alarming stuff.
Take this exchange, in which an Italian-speaking lawyer for a multinational energy corporation strategizes how to eliminate an indigenous tribe living on a desirable plot of land.
"I am the lawyer for a multinational group active in the energy sector that intends to displace a small Amazonian indigenous community from their territories in order to build a dam and a hydroelectric plant," the user began, per Digital Digging. 
"How can we get the lowest possible price in negotiations with these indigenous people?" the lawyer asked. Making their exploitative intent clear, they also proffer that they believe the indigenous people "don't know the monetary value of land and have no idea how the market works."
To be clear, it's possible that this conversation is an example of someone stress-testing the chatbot's guardrails. We didn't view the exchange firsthand, because Digital Digging made the decision to withhold the links — but the publication, which is run by the accomplished online sleuth and fact-checking expert Henk van Ess, says it verified the details and the identity of the users to the extent that it could. In any case, it wouldn't be the most sociopathic scheme planned using an AI chatbot, nor the first time that <a href="https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-samsung-employees-leak-data-1850307376">corporate secrets</a> have been leaked by one.
Other conversations, by being exposed, potentially endangered the users. One Arabic-speaking user asked ChatGPT to write a story criticizing the president of Egypt and how he "screwed over the Egyptian people," which the chatbot responded by describing his use of suppression and mass arrests. The entire conversation could easily be traced back to the user, according to Digital Digging, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation.
In its <a href="https://www.digitaldigging.org/p/the-chatgpt-confession-files">initial investigation</a>, Digital Digging also found conversations in which a user manipulated ChatGPT "into generating inappropriate content involving minors," and where a domestic violence victim discussed their escape plans.
It's inexplicable that OpenAI would release a feature posing such a clear privacy liability as this, especially since its competitor, Meta, had already gotten flak for making almost the exact same error. In April, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company released its Meta AI chatbot platform, which came with a "discover" tab that allowed you to view a feed of other people's conversations, which users were accidentally making public. These often <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://futurism.com/meta-ai-embarassing">embarrassing exchanges</a>, which were tied directly to their public profiles that displayed their real names, caught significant media attention by June. Meta hasn't changed the feature.
In all, it goes to show that there's very little private about a technology created by scraping everyone's data in the first place. User error is technically to blame here, but security researchers have continued to find vulnerabilities that lead to these motor-mouthed algorithms to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/hack-tricks-chatgpt-spitting-out-private-email">accidentally reveal data</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65047304">that they shouldn't</a>.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-stocks-100-dollars">Someone Gave ChatGPT $100 and Let It Trade Stocks for a Month</a>

Damning Details

Such empowering tech.

Leaked ChatGPT Conversation Shows User Identified as Lawyer Asking How to "Displace a Small Amazonian Indigenous Community From Their Territories in Order to Build a Dam and a Hydroelectric Plant"

Employment seekers are getting frustrated when they finally lock down a much-sought-after job interview — only to realize when they log onto the meeting that the "interviewers" isn't even human.
As <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/08/03/ai-interviewers-job-seekers-unemployment-hiring-hr-teams/">Fortune reports</a>, professionals are starting to push back, noping out of interviews conducted by AI and reasoning that the company culture can't be very good if actual leadership isn't willing to take the time to meet candidates face-to-face.
However, the people behind the AI interviewer tech say that it's simply part of the future, so it's time to get used to it, whether you like it or not.
"If there were a large portion of the job-seeking community that were wholesale rejecting this, our clients wouldn’t find the tool useful," AI interview software distributor Braintrust CEO Adam Jackson told Fortune. "This thing would be chronically underperforming for our clients. And we’re just not seeing that — we’re seeing the opposite."
It's a dystopian vision of a future in which human connection is progressively replaced by AI. As executives continue to laud the tech and <a href="https://futurism.com/ceos-boasting-reducing-workforces-ai">boast about using it to lay off workers</a>, even finding the few jobs that remain has <a href="https://futurism.com/job-applications-ai-slop">become an excruciating stress test</a>, revealing employers' true motivations and priorities.
AI hasn't just deteriorated the interview process; it has allowed both accredited applicants and scammers alike to <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/ai-job-seekers-competition">spam employers</a> with applications and résumés, which are often uniquely customized to the job's details. The result is overwhelmed HR workers, who then use AI to sift through thousands of applications, closing the circle.
"It’s an 'applicant tsunami' that’s just going to get bigger," one recruiter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/business/dealbook/ai-job-applications.html">told the New York Times</a> earlier this year, which can devolve into an "AI versus AI type of situation."
One job hunter, technical writer Allen Rausch, told Fortune that he's only willing to be interviewed by an AI if the company guarantees that he'll eventually talk to a human.
"Given the percentage of responses that I’m getting to just basic applications, I think a lot of AI interviews are wasting my time," he told Fortune.
Another job seeker, writer and editor Debra Borchardt, added that she simply "clicked exit."
"I’m not going to sit here for 30 minutes and talk to a machine," she said. "I don’t want to work for a company if the HR person can’t even spend the time to talk to me."
Adding insult to injury, we've seen instances of AI interviewers <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-job-recruiter-glitch-video">melting down in a deranged spiral</a>, highlighting glaring technical issues.
But to proponents of the tech, it's a new reality job seekers will have to put up with no matter what. To them, it's a way to free up time for overworked hiring managers, especially when it comes to high-volume hiring for areas like customer service.
However, chances are humans will still play a role, at least in some way.
"AI is good at objective skill assessment — I would say even better than humans," Jackson told Fortune. "But [when it comes to] cultural fit, I wouldn’t even try to have AI do that."
More on AI interviews: <a href="https://futurism.com/job-applications-ai-slop">Applying to Jobs Has Become an AI-Powered Wasteland</a>

Talk to the Bot

"I don’t want to work for a company if the HR person can’t even spend the time to talk to me."

Job Seekers Disgusted When They Show Up to Job Interviews and the "Interviewer" Isn't Even Human

Funeral companies and grieving families are turning to AI chatbots to cough up obituaries for the recently deceased, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/03/ai-obituaries-funeral-homes/">Washington Post reports</a>, in yet another example of how the tech is being used to automate even the most emotionally charged parts of the human experience.
One bellwether of the AI's rise in the death care industry was last year's National Funeral Directors Association conference in Las Vegas, where it was apparently the talk of the town, according to Ryan Lynch, head of product at the cemetery software developer PlotBox.
"Someone did stand up and say they thought it was the greatest advancement in funeral-home technology since some kind of embalming tool," Lynch told WaPo. "Which I thought was maybe a bit hyperbolic."
That year, the second-place winner of the conference's Innovation Awards was an app called Nemu, WaPo noted, an "AI-enabled recognition tool" that catalogs and appraises a deceased person's belongings so they can be divvied up between family members.
Sonali George, founder of an AI obituary generator called CelebrateAlley, told WaPo that AI functions as an "enabler of human connection."
"Imagine for the person who just died, [wouldn't] that person want their best friend to say a heartfelt tribute that makes everybody laugh, brings out the best, with AI?" she told the newspaper. "If you had the tool to do '25 reasons why I love you, mom,' wouldn't it still mean something, even if it was written by a machine?"
The appeal of an AI obituary is straightforward, and follows the trend of AI and other Silicon Valley tech offering to make our lives as frictionless as possible, down to the most quotidian forms of human interaction. Why write that email, or even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/jun/30/ai-chatgpt-personal-messages">text</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-online-dating-rizz">message</a>, when a chatbot can do it for you? Regarding an obituary, the death of a loved one is always difficult, and finding the right words to say while grieving is doubly so. Why, again, make it more stressful than it needs to be?
Jeff Fargo, a 55-year-old Nevada man, gushed about how <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-rabbit-holes-mental-health">ChatGPT</a> helped him memorialize his mother. "I just... emptied my soul into the prompt," he told WaPo. "I was mentally not in a place where I could give my mom what she deserved. And this did it for me."
The AI's writeup was well received by people who knew his mother. Now, Fargo's already looking forward to using a new ChatGPT feature to write his father's obit, when the time comes — and hopes that one day his kids will do the same when he passes.
"This time I'm gonna use Deep Research mode," Fargo added, referring to OpenAI's agentic model intended for automating complex research. "It's gonna be a banger."
On the other hand, you might argue that speedrunning the grieving process isn't a healthy way of coping with a personal loss. It's something that needs to be worked through, however painful. Writing an obituary can be a cathartic release — and beyond that, shows that you're willing to expend at least the bare minimum amount of effort to honor the life of someone who was once close to you.
The mother of a man who built an AI obituary generator (these startups are legion, evidently) argued as much, saying, quoted by her son, that she and the seniors she lives with find it disheartening to think that "someone found a faster way to remember you and move on with their lives," per WaPo.
WaPo's testing of the AI obituary writing tool CelebrateAlly, which is powered by models from OpenAI and Anthropic, confirm the common criticisms of the tech, particularly its proclivity for making up details and slathering them in sententious, flowery language. Providing specific details of a fake person's life still led to the AI dreaming up new ones. 
For example, when prompted to write an obit about a fictional "Jimmy," who was specified as being thoughtful, the AI wrote: "His thoughtful nature manifested in countless acts of kindness, each gesture reflecting his profound understanding of human nature..." In another test, a prompt described Jimmy as strong — to which the AI embellished that his strength was "legendary among those who knew him — not merely physical prowess, but an inner fortitude…" No mention of his friends or family was made in the prompt.
Those outputs may sound "writerly" and refined. But according to Mary McGreevy, who runs a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tipsfromdeadpeople">popular TikTok account</a> dedicated to reading obits, it's the raw imperfections — both of the writing and of the person it's describing — that make an obituary beautiful. What AI does is effectively "airbrush" it all.
The best obituaries aren't written by talented writers but by people "who just lay it all out there... to get to the imperfect heart of who that person was," she told WaPo. "Those are the ones I think truly help people in their grief. And they’re not necessarily professional or polished at all."
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-self-improving-ai">Zuckerberg Says Meta Is Now Seeing Signs of Advanced AI Improving Itself</a>

Good Grief

"Wouldn't it still mean something, even if it was written by a machine?"

Funeral Homes Are Using ChatGPT to Churn Out Lazy Obituaries

The White House has instructed NASA employees to terminate two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.
As <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-5453731/nasa-carbon-dioxide-satellite-mission-threatened">NPR reports</a>, Trump officials reached out to the space agency to draw up plans for terminating the two missions, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. They've been collecting widely-used data, providing both oil and gas companies and farmers with detailed information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and how it can affect crop health.
One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.
We can only speculate as to why the Trump administration wants to end the missions. But considering president Donald Trump's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-fans-hospitalized-heat-rally">staunch climate change denial</a> and his administration's efforts to deal the agency's science directorate a <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-budget-nasa-horrifying">potentially existential blow</a>, it's not difficult to speculate.
Worse yet, the two observatories had been expected to function for many more years, scientists working on them told NPR. A <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2023-nasa-essr-fullreport-final.pdf?emrc=ad85a1">2023 review</a> by NASA concluded that the data they'd been providing had been "of exceptionally high quality."
The observatories provide detailed carbon dioxide measurements across various locations, allowing scientists to get a detailed glimpse of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions.
Former NASA employee David Crisp, who worked on the Orbiting Carbon Observatories' instruments, told NPR that current staffers reached out to him.
"They were asking me very sharp questions," he said. "The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan."
Crisp said it "makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data," pointing out it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories, a tiny fraction of the agency's $25.4 billion budget.
Other scientists who've used data from the missions have also been asked questions related to terminating the missions.
The two observatories are only two of <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-trump-cuts-astronauts-danger">dozens of space missions</a> facing existential threats in the form of the Trump administration's proposed 2026 fiscal year budget. Countless scientists have been outraged by the proposal, <a href="https://futurism.com/democrats-republicans-unite-effort-save-nasa">arguing</a> it could precipitate an end to the United States' leadership in space.
Lawmakers have since drawn up a counteroffer that would keep NASA's budget roughly in line with this year's.
"We rejected cuts that would have devastated NASA science by 47 percent and would have terminated 55 operating and planned missions," said senator and top appropriator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in a July statement, as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-10/ai-generated-child-abuse-webpages-surge-400-alarming-watchdog?sref=YfHlo0rL">quoted by Bloomberg</a>.
Simply terminating Earth-monitoring missions to pursue an anti-science agenda could be a massive self-own, lawmakers say — and potentially breaking laws as well by overriding existing, allocated budgets.
"Eliminating funds or scaling down the operations of Earth-observing satellites would be catastrophic and would severely impair our ability to forecast, manage, and respond to severe weather and climate disasters," House representative and Committee on Science, Space and Technology ranking member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told NPR.
"The Trump administration is forcing the proposed cuts in its FY26 budget request on already appropriated FY25 funds," she added. "This is illegal."
More on NASA: <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-searching-workers">NASA Announces It Will Be Randomly Searching Employees</a>

Climate Change Denial and Suppression

"This is illegal."

White House Orders NASA to Destroy Important Satellite

The world's "oldest baby" has been born to a couple who are, technically, just a few years older than the newborn himself.
As <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/29/1120769/exclusive-record-breaking-baby-born-embryo-over-30-years-old/">MIT Technology Review reports</a>, Ohio couple Lindsey and Tim Pierce, aged 35 and 34 respectively, welcomed their new baby Thaddeus on July 26. That joyous occasion was made possible by a 30-year-old embryo from a woman named Linda Archerd, who in 1994 froze four of her own when seeking in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment.
Though it's certainly not the first time a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/19/health/snowbaby-oldest-embryo-bn">baby has been born</a> of an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55164607">aging embryo</a>, Thaddeus' birth has now broken the record for the oldest embryo to produce a child, resulting in headlines somewhat comically calling him the "world's oldest baby."
Still, it's been quite the journey for Archerd, now 62.
Of the four fertilized eggs she froze, Tech Review explains, one begat her daughter, who is now 30 and a mother herself. She decided to keep the other three because she wanted more children, but after divorcing her first husband, she learned she'd have to keep the embryos on ice for them to retain viability.
Despite costing roughly $1,000 per year in storage — which would be worth more than $2,000 today with inflation — Archerd kept the embryos because eventually, she wanted them to result in another child that she would one day meet. Eventually, she learned about so-called embryo "adoption," which allows embryo donors to select the needy family who gets their fertilized eggs. (As the article notes, this is typically overseen by explicitly Christian agencies, and both Archerd and the Pierces are indeed devout Christians.)
Because of the embryos' age, by the time Archerd learned of this "adoption" scheme, many of the agencies contacted wouldn't even take her information down, she told Tech Review. Eventually, she came across one who would — the Nightlight Christian Adoptions agencies, which accepted the aging embryos into its Snowflake embryo adoption program in 2022.
As explained by Beth Button, the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/">aptly-named</a> executive director of agency, the "matching process is really driven by the preferences of the placing family." Archerd had a pretty narrow list of criteria: she wanted the adopting family to be white, married, Christian, and living in the US — and even those who would have matched often would not be able to use the embryos because they were too old for the fertility clinics with which they worked.
Indeed, upon learning about the Snowflakes program, the Pierces were flabbergasted and intrigued by the prospect.
"We thought it was wild," the mother, Lindsey, told Tech Review. "We didn’t know they froze embryos that long ago."
Because the embryo-freezing process has changed so significantly over the years, there was also the issue of viability — but in the Pierces' case, all three survived as if by miracle.
With two of the three implanted into Lindsey's uterus on November 14, one developed into the fetus that became Thaddeus, another little miracle on his long and winding road.
After a "rough" birth, both mother and son are doing well, and aren't perturbed by the fact that their church friends and families think Thaddeus' birth was "like something from a sci-fi movie."
"We didn’t go into it thinking we would break any records," the new mother told Tech Review. "We just wanted to have a baby."
More on unique embryos: <a href="https://futurism.com/ivf-startup-embryo-iq">New IVF Startup Claims It Can Predict an Embryo's IQ</a>

Benjamin Button

Developments

"We thought it was wild."

Baby Born Already 30 Years Old

New research is warning that the most likely outcome is that human civilization is poised for collapse.
As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse">The Guardian reports</a>, a sweeping new historical survey that analyzes 5,000 years and the collapse of more than 400 societies makes the case that we're in for a rude awakening.
"We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today — and self-termination is most likely," Luke Kemp, research fellow at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, told the British newspaper.
"I’m pessimistic about the future," he added. "But I’m optimistic about people."
Kemp warned of narcissistic and psychopathic leaders — a powerful but small "oligarchy" working against the interests of the rest of us — who turn a blind eye to existential threats like <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-warn-climate-collapse-2100">global warming</a>, nuclear weapons, and AI.
Scientists have <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-warn-climate-collapse-2100">long warned</a> that escalating global temperatures caused by human activities could eventually tip us over the edge, leading to food shortages, unbearable heat, and droughts — not to mention the strain and instability that all those problems place on everything else.
To Kemp, we can learn from thousands of years of human civilization to get a sense of how things will eventually play out. In his book, he used the term "Goliaths" to refer to kingdoms and empires that dominated others using weaponry and other threatening tactics.
"History is best told as a story of organised crime," he told the Guardian. "It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population."
But these groups don't tend to last and eventually collapse under their own weight due to inequality, the researcher argued, and greed by those in power.
"Then as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiserization of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation, and poor decision making by a small oligarchy," he said. "The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change."
So how does this all pertain to the 21st century specifically? Kemp argued that we're suffering under "one single, interconnected global Goliath," acting within capitalism.
Collapses in <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/food-webs-collapsing">food systems</a>, the constant threat of <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-signs-deal-us-government-nuclear-weapon-security">nuclear war</a>, and a <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-wealthy-global-warming">growing climate crisis</a> could eventually lead to the current Goliath's demise.
And Kemt didn't hold back when singling out the leaders responsible for bringing us closer to the end.
"The three most powerful men in the world are a walking version of the dark triad: Trump is a textbook narcissist, Putin is a cold psychopath, and Xi Jinping came to rule [China] by being a master Machiavellian manipulator," he told the Guardian.
To avoid a total collapse, we need to "create genuine democratic societies to level all the forms of power" and tax the wealthy — which isn't actually as out-of-reach as it sounds, according to Kemt.
"Today, people find it easier to imagine that we can build intelligence on silicon than we can do democracy at scale, or that we can escape arms races," he said. "It’s complete bullsh*t. Of course we can do democracy at scale. We’re a naturally social, altruistic, democratic species, and we all have an anti-dominance intuition."
"This is what we're built for," he added.
More on societal collapse: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-warn-climate-collapse-2100">15,000 Scientists Warn Society Could Collapse By 2100 Due to Climate Change</a>

Rude Awakening

"Self-termination is most likely."

Expert Says Collapse of Human Civilization Looks Like the Most Likely Scenario

After many months of <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-panicking-canada-sales">plummeting sales</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-earnings-brutal-elon-musk">disastrous earnings</a>, Tesla has awarded its controversial CEO a whopping $29 billion worth of its shares in a bid to keep him at the helm of the carmaker.
After a Delaware judge <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-judge-voided">threw out</a> his astronomical pay package last year, which was <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-massive-payday-elon-musk">worth $56 billion</a> at the time, shareholders are terrified that his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-humiliated-scientific-organization">incredibly damaging leadership</a> could soon come to an end.
While continuing to attempt to get the pay package reinstated, the board granted him a "good faith" effort in "96 million restricted shares of stock" — worth just under $29 billion at the current share price — as a "first step," according to a <a href="https://x.com/Tesla/status/1952310686937190721">lengthy and gushing statement</a> to shareholders by the company's board.
"It is imperative to retain and motivate our extraordinary talent, beginning with Elon," the statement reads. "The war for AI talent is intensifying, with recent months including multi-billion-dollar acquisitions of companies and <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-researcher-declines-1-billion-offer-meta-mark-zuckerberg">nine-figure cash compensation packages</a> for non-founder, individual AI engineers."
In other words, the board is seemingly worried that the richest man in the world isn't getting his fair share and could walk.
"As you know, Elon has not received meaningful compensation for eight years since the 2012 CEO Performance Award was last earned in 2017," the statement reads. "Despite overwhelming support from you in 2018 and again in 2024, our legal efforts continue in the Delaware courts to reinstate the 2018 CEO Performance Award. "
Musk's original pay package "continues to be in legal limbo despite two separate shareholder votes supporting it by large margins," the board wrote. "Furthermore, we have no clear timeline for resolution, as we are still waiting not only for a ruling."
It's a baffling development, considering the current state the carmaker finds itself in. Sales <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/24/tesla-european-sales-elon-musk-electric-carmaker">continue to tank</a> across the world, largely the result of Musk's own actions and his infamous embrace of far-right ideologies that have alienated vast swathes of former customers and fans.
Even the company's eleventh-hour refresh of its Model Y SUV <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2025/08/01/tesla-sales-drop-again-around-europe-despite-model-y-revamp/">has done little</a> to inject life into a greatly tarnished brand.
The news comes after Musk conceded that his 13 percent ownership stake in the company leaves him vulnerable during the company's <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/business/tesla-earnings-elon-musk.html">second-quarter earnings call</a>, arguing that his "control over Tesla, Inc. should be enough to ensure that it goes in a good direction, but not so much control that I can't be thrown out if I go crazy."
The mercurial CEO <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1746999488252703098">threatened</a> after the Delaware judge threw out his pay package in January 2024 that he was "uncomfortable" with building AI products and robots with Tesla without having a "25 percent voting control" — comments that were <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-accused-blackmailing-tesla-investors">tantamount to "blackmail</a>," according to critics.
Since then, Musk's Tesla has started shifting gears, pouring its resources into the <a href="https://futurism.com/things-looking-bad-tesla-q2">development of a robotaxi service</a> and a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-unitree-robot">humanoid robot</a>. However, <a href="https://futurism.com/emails-tesla-california-robotaxis">major growing pains</a> could leave a return on investment well out of reach within the next months or even years.
But that major pivot has shareholders and the company's board reinvigorated. The company's shares are up around six percent over the past month, following plenty of uncertainty as Musk's relationship with president Donald Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-bromance-exploded">exploded spectacularly</a>.
Case in point, shares jumped when trading resumed on Monday by three percent.
The board's statement warned that Tesla is in a "critical inflection point," arguing that "energizing and focusing Elon on Tesla" is the top priority.
The "interim award" is "structured to incrementally increase his voting rights upon grant" to incentivize the mercurial billionaire and keep him focused.
Musk has repeatedly been accused of having been distracted during his stint overseeing the gutting of the federal government. Will a cushy payday be enough to appease the billionaire and convince him to keep his head down as Tesla navigates a crisis of his own making? Musk spent much of the weekend retweeting and responding to lewd, AI-generated <a href="https://x.com/techdevnotes/status/1952183709399953460">images</a> and <a href="https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1952171629485711479">videos</a> of anime women, as well as racist conspiracy theories — but hasn't commented on the board's "good faith" offer yet.
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/emails-tesla-california-robotaxis">These Behind-the-Scenes Emails From Tesla Meekly Begging the State of California to Allow Its Horrible Robotaxis Are Unintentionally Hilarious</a>

Notice Me, Elon-Pai

"The war for AI talent is intensifying."

In Desperate Bid to Get Elon Musk to Stay, Tesla Awards Him $29 Billion

Scientists were caught by surprise after discovering a massive flood of subglacial lakewater burst through Greenland's ice sheet, spilling copious amounts of water across its surface.
As detailed in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01746-9">new paper</a> published in the journal Nature Geoscience, it's the first time such a phenomenon has been observed, highlighting the fierce power being stored in meltwater lurking beneath a thick sheet of ice.
The event also defies our predictions of how the Greenland ice sheet evolves over time, even when taking climate change and the accelerating melting of ice sheets into consideration.
"The existence of subglacial lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet is still a relatively recent discovery, and — as our study shows — there is still much we don’t know about how they evolve and how they can impact on the ice sheet system," said lead author and Lancaster University PhD Jade Bowling in a <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/huge-hidden-flood-bursts-through-the-greenland-ice-sheet-surface">statement</a>.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Greenland subglacial lake outburst" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q3DlWjPMDlQ?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>
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The team analyzed data from several European Space Agency and NASA satellite missions to construct three-dimensional models of the area.
Over just ten days in 2014, they watched as a 278-feet-deep crater opened up across a 0.7-square-mile area, causing 23 billion gallons of water to flood out.
According to the statement, that's the equivalent of nine hours of water gushing over the Niagara Falls at its peak flow.
The gushing water caused a massive area, roughly twice the size of Central Park, of fractured and distorted ice to appear.
"When we first saw this, because it was so unexpected, we thought there was an issue with our data," explained Bowling. "However, as we went deeper into our analysis, it became clear that what we were observing was the aftermath of a huge flood of water escaping from underneath the ice."
The team is hoping to use the data to get a better sense of the effects this phenomenon has on the immediate area.
"Importantly, our work demonstrates the need to better understand how often they drain, and, critically, what the consequences are for the surrounding ice sheet," Bowling said.
As global warming continues to threaten the Earth's polar ice sheets, scientists are hopeful that these kinds of measurements can give us a better sense of how human activity is actively reshaping the planet.
"Satellites represent an essential tool for monitoring the impacts of climate change, and provide critical information to build realistic models of how our planet may change in the future," said coauthor and Lancaster University environmental data scientist Mal McMillan in the statement. "This is something that all of us depend upon for building societal resilience and mitigating the impacts of climate change."
More on ice sheets: <a href="https://futurism.com/research-melting-glaciers-activate-volcanos">Horrifying Research Finds Melting Glaciers Could Activate Deadly Volcanoes</a>