In his 1963 scifi story "The Invincible," the Polish writer Stanisław Lem imagined an artificial species of free-floating nanobots which roamed the atmosphere of a far-off planet. Like tiny bugs, the microscopic beings were powerless alone, but together they could form cooperative swarms to gather energy, reproduce, and ultimately defend their territory from predators with deadly force.
Unlike the story’s human protagonists, the "black cloud" of bots was incapable of reasoning beyond the simple logic of animal instincts. But when the two life forms inevitably come into conflict, literary critic <a href="https://solaris.lem.pl/ksiazki/beletrystyka/niezwyciezony/96-poslowie-niezwyciezony">Jerzy Jarzębski writes</a>, human evolution proves its mettle over the mindless automaton — not by eradicating the deadly species, but by making a conscious decision to let it live.
Lem probably never imagined his evolutionary parable of living dust was just a few decades from becoming a reality — or that it would become the inspiration for the development of a real-life military technology known as "smart dust."
Starting out as a <a href="https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust/SmartDustBAA97-43-Abstract.pdf">theoretical research proposal</a> to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — the Cold War-era military tech bureau behind everything from <a href="https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/703894/evolution-of-gps-from-desert-storm-to-todays-users/">GPS navigation</a> to the <a href="https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2025/number/2/article/big-tech-and-the-us-digital-military-industrial-complex.html">modern internet</a> — smart dust is now being developed for use in a wide variety of industries, from <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010854523004769?via%3Dihub">environmental studies</a> to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58021-x">commercial mining</a>.
That’s <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/smart-dust-scientists-world-sensor">according to Interesting Engineering</a>, which recently published a rundown of the state of present-day smart dust after decades of development. Though "dust" remains a bit of a misnomer — it's more like a bunch of tiny sensors capable of delaying data to a central device — there's a large body of theoretical and simulated work laying a path for practical microengineering that's steadily coming into its own.
Case in point, while nanotech began as an effort to build relatively simple <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1037346">wireless receivers</a> around the size of a grain of rice, thanks to decades of R&amp;D, some motes being developed are now <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/theintelligentminer.com/2019/04/09/the-intelligent-guide-to-smart-dust-in-mining/amp/">nearly invisible</a> to the naked eye, measuring in at anywhere from 1 cubic millimeter to .02 cubic millimeters.
As early as 2003, micro-sensor platforms like <a href="https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~culler/papers/mica-sensors.pdf">Crossbow Technology, Inc's</a> "MICA" and <a href="https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/co/2001/01/r1044/13rRUxjQy7J">UC Berkeley's</a> "Spec" have successfully detected all kinds of variables while measuring in at mere millimeters, recording changes in humidity, light and temperature.
Recent developments within the past 10 years have expanded these sensor's abilities to record<a href="https://convergenceinstruments.com/pdf/Dust_Issues.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOorfzg44d-GjMjUDQSS4aiovu-JCbIpg5dSCLBH-AZhojNCwqQNY"> various levels of sound</a>, and work is underway to develop motes capable of detecting the <a href="https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202419052">chemical composition of the air</a>. They can be used individually to record changes in the <a href="https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2016/11/neural-dust/">human body</a>, or <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1233824100">deployed in swarms</a> to identify biological compounds.
In the future, the mites are hoped to be able to report a <a href="https://scienceofsingularity.com/2020/07/22/smart-dust-utility-fog-virtual-people-the-future-of-programmable-matter/">near-infinite amount of data</a> in suspended, 3D environments — like a microscopic version of Bill Paxton’s "Dorothy" sensors in the 1996 weather thriller "Twister."
Per IE, the current "smart dust industry," made up of tech companies like <a href="https://www.processindustryinformer.com/dust-networks-and-emerson-process-management-partner-to-deliver-fips-197-advanced-encryption-standard-certified-solutions/">Emerson Process Management</a> and <a href="https://www.cs.wustl.edu/~lu/wsn_articles/smart_dust_cnn.pdf">Hewlett-Packard</a>, was valued at around $115 million in 2022. By 2032, it’s expected to reach nearly $400 million.
While various militaries are keen on developing smart dust for intelligence reasons, much of the present research is carried in university and corporate labs. An Israeli firm called Stardust Solutions, for example, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2025/03/reach-for-the-stardust-former-israel-atomic-energy-commission-official-leads-controversial-geoe">drew concerns</a> from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists when it announced its intentions of releasing a variation on smart dust to block out the Sun — involving inert particular matter in conjunction with an atmospheric monitoring system — in violation of <a href="https://www.ciel.org/news/us-israeli-start-up-unveils-reckless-geoengineering-gamble/">international geoengineering laws</a>.
While the tech is pretty dystopian as it is, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The need to interface with a centralized data-processing unit, for example, means the tiny units can’t travel too far from their human controller. Their usable lifespan is likewise pretty short, though that’s changing with innovations in <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/rice-grain-size-microbatteries-power-smart-dust">energy-harvesting capabilities</a> via light, vibrations, and electromagnetic fields.
One thing’s abundantly clear: now might be a good time to invest in an air purifier.
More on tiny tech: <a href="https://futurism.com/china-nano-drone">Chinese Military Shows Off Fly-Sized Drones for Covert Ops</a>

Little Miracles

Is anyone else itchy?

Scientists Working on "Smart Dust" That Can Spy on a Room While Drifting Throught the Air

SpaceX has <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-nasa-official-spacex">lots</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-feud-jeff-bezos-spacex-starship">of</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-spacex-company-town-rights">enemies</a> — but this may be the most unexpected yet.
As <a href="https://www.space.com/space-exploration/human-spaceflight/the-turtles-and-the-nudists-will-have-to-migrate-spacex-plan-for-starship-launches-from-florida-sparks-debate-among-space-coast-residents">Space.com reported</a>, members of the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) — yes, that's a real group — were among those protesting the Elon Musk-owned company's proposed use of Kennedy Space Center on the Sunshine State's so-called Space Coast.
Among the many potential impacts associated with bringing SpaceX to Florida — including hearing damage to local residents and flight delays across the state, per various opponents — is the repeat closure of Playalinda Beach, a remote location on the Canaveral National Seashore that's one of Florida's four main public beaches <a href="https://www.visitflorida.com/beaches/faq/nude-beaches/">where nudity is legal</a>.
Popular among the clothing-optional set, Playalinda could be closed up to 60 times per year due to Starship operations — and Deborah-Sue Stevens, a <a href="https://aanrwest.org/media/attachments/2022/09/07/2022-regionalassemblyminutes.pdf">former regional director</a> for the nudist organization's Western branch, says those closures will harm many members of her community.
"[There are] probably a quarter million people that travel and think like I do," Stevens said, calling into the Zoom meeting from California, "who look for destinations that are beautiful and surrounded by like-minded people."
Erich Schuttauf, the executive director of AANR — which bills itself as the largest and longest-established nudist organization in the US with foundations dating back to 1931 — added that Playalinda closures might affect the non-nude community too.
As Schuttauf explained, nudists may end up traveling to nearby Volusia County, whose <a href="https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2024/03/27/apollo-beach-what-to-know-about-volusia-countys-nude-beach/73110804007/">clothing-optional Apollo Beach</a>, located further along the Canaveral shore, is also popular among those who like to sunbathe in their birthday suits.
Should Playalinda be removed as an option, Schuttauf warned, nudists may overtake Apollo and end up going over the clothing optional line, causing some decidedly Floridian conflicts between them and their clothed counterparts.
Not everyone was interested in preserving the nude beach's current status, however. Max West, a random man quoted by Space.com who claimed during the Zoom call that he plans to move to the area to photograph Starship launches, essentially suggested that the nudists suck it up.
"The turtles and the nudists will have to migrate," West said, presumably alluding to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/americas/space-x-debris-mexico-sea-turtles-intl-latam">disputes over whether</a> SpaceX's rocket debris pose a hazard to endangered sea turtles . "That's the cost that you have to pay for this incredible stuff that's happening."
Unfortunately, it looks like that wannabe SpaceX photographer may end up getting his way.
Although the FAA hasn't yet completed its environmental review for SpaceX's request to move to Florida, and has yet to determine whether Musk's company can meet both its financial and safety requirements to operate at the Kennedy Space Center, construction of a Starship tower has nevertheless been underway for more than a year — giving the impression that approval is a foregone conclusion.
More on SpaceX: <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-starship-delays">SpaceX Suddenly Seems Pretty Terrified to Launch Starship After Long String of Super Expensive Explosions</a>

Naked Glum

"The turtles and the nudists will have to migrate."

Nudists Declare War on SpaceX

OpenAI claims to have figured out what's driving "hallucinations," or AI models' strong tendency to make up answers that are factually incorrect.
It's a major problem plaguing the entire industry, greatly undercutting the usefulness of the tech. Worse yet, experts have found that the problem is <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">getting worse as AI models get more capable</a>.
As a result, despite incurring astronomical expenses in their deployment, frontier AI models are still prone to <a href="https://futurism.com/gpt-5-huge-factual-errors">making inaccurate claims</a> when <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-makes-up-answers">faced with a prompt they don't know the answer to</a>.
Whether there's a solution to the problem remains a hotly debated subject, with some experts arguing that hallucinations are <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/impossible-chatbots-stop-lying-experts">intrinsic to the tech itself</a>. In other words, large language models may be a <a href="https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/current-ai-models-a-dead-end-for-human-level-intelligence-expert-survey-claims">dead end</a> in our quest to develop AIs with a reliable grasp on factual claims.
In a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04664">paper</a> published last week, a team of OpenAI researchers attempted to come up with an explanation. They suggest that large language models hallucinate because when they're being created, they're incentivized to guess rather than admit they simply don't know the answer.
Hallucinations "persist due to the way most evaluations are graded — language models are optimized to be good test-takers, and guessing when uncertain improves test performance," the paper reads.
Conventionally, the output of an AI is graded in a binary way, rewarding it when it gives a correct response and penalizing it when it gives an incorrect one.
In simple terms, in other words, guessing is rewarded — because it might be right — over an AI admitting it doesn't know the answer, which will be graded as incorrect no matter what.
As a result, through "natural statistical pressures," LLMs are far more prone to hallucinate an answer instead of "acknowledging uncertainty."
"Most scoreboards prioritize and rank models based on accuracy, but errors are worse than abstentions," OpenAI wrote in an <a href="https://openai.com/index/why-language-models-hallucinate/">accompanying blog post</a>.
In other words, OpenAI says that it — and all its imitators across the industry — have made a grave structural error in how they've been training AI.
There'll be a lot riding on whether the issue is correctable going forward. OpenAI claims that "there is a straightforward fix" to the problem: "Penalize confident errors more than you penalize uncertainty, and give partial credit for appropriate expressions of uncertainty."
Going forward, evaluations need to ensure that "their scoring discourages guessing," the blog post reads. "If the main scoreboards keep rewarding lucky guesses, models will keep learning to guess."
"Simple modifications of mainstream evaluations can realign incentives, rewarding appropriate expressions of uncertainty rather than penalizing them," the company's researchers concluded in the paper. "This can remove barriers to the suppression of hallucinations, and open the door to future work on nuanced language models, e.g., with richer pragmatic competence."
How these adjustments to evaluations will play out in the real world remains to be seen. While the company claimed its latest GPT-5 model hallucinates less, users were <a href="https://futurism.com/gpt-5-disaster">left largely unimpressed</a>.
For now, the AI industry will have to continue reckoning with the problem as it justifies tens of billions of dollars in capital expenditures and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change">soaring emissions</a>.
"Hallucinations remain a fundamental challenge for all large language models, but we are working hard to further reduce them," OpenAI promised in its blog post.
More on hallucinations: <a href="https://futurism.com/gpt-5-huge-factual-errors">GPT-5 Is Making Huge Factual Errors, Users Say</a>

Lies Generator

It's "working hard" to correct it.

OpenAI Realizes It Made a Terrible Mistake

For many rocketry enthusiasts, watching SpaceX launches was an exciting hobby — one that they'd <a href="https://texashighways.com/culture/people/elon-musk-space-x-site-turned-boca-chica-into-a-tourist-attraction/">travel down</a> to the very bottom of Texas to witness in person at the Starbase launch facility off the Gulf of Mexico.
But with CEO Elon Musk now fully entrenched in <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-drivers-sue-elon-musk-right-symbols">bigoted right-wing politics</a>, that joy has turned to grief for former fans, who now lament the loss of their once-joyful pastime.
"Most of the time, watching a rocket launch as a grown-up fills me with the same feelings I had when I saw my first as a kid — fear, glee, wonder and excitement — as a spaceship makes its way into a largely foreign environment," wrote Emily Carney, a space historian and author, <a href="https://spacenews.com/the-grief-of-a-fandom-on-starship-musk-and-losing-the-spark/">for SpaceNews</a>. "It really never gets old."
However, at the 10th Starship launch from at the end of August — SpaceX's "<a href="https://futurism.com/part-of-starship-explodes">most successful</a>" test flight of the heavy-lift vehicle yet, which should have been an exciting feat to witness — Carney recounted feeling dejected instead of elated.
"I should be happy, right? Yeah, um, no," she wrote. "I have been a space fan for pretty much all of my life, yet I couldn’t find the enthusiasm even to watch the launch and mission unfold."
Turning to Threads, Instagram's Twitter clone, the historian found she wasn't alone in that feeling.
"It’s very sad how SpaceX probably has had its biggest success tonight with Starship and I, a space freak for nearly 44 years, couldn’t be bothered to watch it," <a href="https://www.threads.com/@emilycarneyspace/post/DN1rkg1Wsqs?xmt=AQF0YNfQMnY1sWn7GcCiFArMrmKDAl0zH0pP1iI8_nndLw">Carney posted</a>.
"This is how I feel," <a href="https://www.threads.com/@mike.maddox.5243/post/DN48vfTioaD?xmt=AQF0YNfQMnY1sWn7GcCiFArMrmKDAl0zH0pP1iI8_nndLw">remarked another user</a>. "Space obsessed since I watched Apollo as a five year old. Space mad. Read every book I could, built my own rockets, named a child after a cosmonaut, cried the whole way around [Kennedy Space Center] — and I just feel nothing."
"I’m trying to take comfort in the fact that a lot of good, heartfelt effort and dedication have gone into the Starship program long before Musk became whatever the pure awfulness he is today," <a href="https://www.threads.com/@photo_ryan/post/DN1ufnw2BFy?xmt=AQF0YNfQMnY1sWn7GcCiFArMrmKDAl0zH0pP1iI8_nndLw">wrote yet another Threads user</a>. "Science, NASA, and the space program will succeed and continue in spite of him. He’s definitely ruined much of the joy and tainted this for so many though."
It's not hard to see why those onetime SpaceX-watchers feel so crestfallen, given that Musk's horrendous politics quite literally <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/mothers-children-dying-musk-cuts">have a death toll</a>. Thanks to the <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-usaid-constructing-reality">billionaire's draconian cuts</a> to grants for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) during his time in Donald Trump's White House, an estimated 360,000 people <a href="https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/schatz-details-trump-administrations-destruction-of-usaid-deadly-consequences-that-followed-as-senate-considers-codifying-doge-cuts">have already died</a> from starvation and lack of medication, and an additional 14 million lives could be lost should those cuts be codified and extended through 2030, per a <a href="https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/USAID-cuts-global-impact-14-million-deaths">new study</a> in The Lancet, an esteemed medical journal.
With the USAID cuts alone being enough for any avowed SpaceX-watcher to turn their back on the Musk-owned company, there are plenty of other reasons for people like Carney — whose book "<a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496241399/star-bound/">Star Bound</a>," co-written with space scion Bruce McCandless III, details the history of NASA's spaceflight program — to grieve.
"When asked by some why I felt a lack of interest in [the latest launch of] Starship, I pointed out Musk’s January gesture, which to me could not be mistaken as anything other than what it appeared to be: a Nazi salute," she wrote of the CEO's infamous Sieg Heil at Trump's inauguration. "I saw this happen with my eyes."
Add in Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/civil-rights-groups-horrified-elon-musk-racist">racism</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">anti-Semitism</a>, and "<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-africa-racist-white-farmers-trump-musk-genocide-ramaphosa-rcna190749">white genocide</a>" outbursts, and you have a wannabe spaceman who "never had to enter himself into US politics and space policy," Carney wrote, instead choosing to enter that fray and <a href="https://futurism.com/mars-society-expert-elon-musk-ruining">irreparably harm</a> NASA and the US space program along the way.
As for erstwhile SpaceX fans, that hurts.
"A considerable part of the space fandom is experiencing a specific kind of grief," she wrote, "when the thing you most enjoyed is now associated with other things that are irretrievably dark."
More on Musk's public: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-most-hated-person-america-gallup">Elon Musk Appears to Now Be the Most Hated Person in America, According to New Research</a>

Fan Fatality

"A considerable part of the space fandom is experiencing a specific kind of grief."

People Who Loved Watching SpaceX Launches Can’t Stomach Them Anymore Since Elon Musk Started Being So Horrible

Nepal's government collapsed this week following an ill-advised attempt to ban social media outright.
The lifting of the social media ban on Monday was unable to quell a surge in anger. Youth-led groups of disaffected "Gen Z" activists clashed with police in the streets of the capital, Kathmandu, protesting growing wealth inequality and government corruption.
Over <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o">50 people were killed</a> in the clashes as angry crowds set government buildings ablaze, forcing prime minister Sharma Oli to resign on Tuesday.
Ironically, social media — one of the core aspects of this week's clashes — has turned into an important forum as protesters looked to elect a new leader. As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/world/asia/nepal-protest-genz-discord.html">New York Times reports</a>, young people are using Discord, a group chat platform conventionally used for playing video games, to debate Nepal's fate — and future leader.
"The Parliament of Nepal right now is Discord," a 23-year-old content creator told the newspaper.
It's not just a backroom conversation — the combination of voice, video, and text chats was reportedly being discussed on national TV, yet another wild demonstration of the power of social media during periods of civil unrest.
According to the NYT, the Discord group's widespread support of Nepal’s former chief justice, Sushila Karki, had grown palpable by Wednesday, the day after Oli was ousted.
One server, dubbed "<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/policy/nepals-gen-z-picks-new-leader-on-discord-crypto-community-in-shock">Youth Against Corruption</a>," accumulated <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250912-from-discord-to-bitchat-tech-at-the-heart-of-nepal-protests">more than 145,000 members</a>.
Discord polls put Karki at the top of the list.
"The point was to simulate a kind of mini-election," Shaswot Lamichhane, a channel moderator and recent high school graduate, told the NYT.
Despite plenty of chaos and organizers struggling to tamp down calls for violence, the young protesters' arguments appeared to have been convincing. Karki <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o">became the nation's first female prime minister</a> earlier today following dialogue between protest and government leaders.
Crypto markets prediction platform Polymarket <a href="https://x.com/Polymarket/status/1966546206777090541">called</a> Karki the "first world leader elected via Discord."
"I think I just witnessed the first internet-native revolution," one user on the Discord server wrote, as <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/policy/nepals-gen-z-picks-new-leader-on-discord-crypto-community-in-shock">quoted by The Street</a>.
While it's a particularly powerful example of the influence of social media, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace social movements expert Steven Feldstein told the NYT that the tech may be less successful in creating a "stable political structure in the long term."
Analysts are now calling on the international community to back an interim government.
"Nepal’s closest neighbours, China and India, should support the restoration of democracy and civilian order, and the dialogue among all political forces in Nepal," Nepal's Centre for Social Inclusion and Federalism executive chairman Vijay Kant Karna <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3325265/nepals-gen-z-protesters-back-ex-chief-justice-sushila-karki-interim-leadership">told the South China Morning Post</a>.
"Meanwhile, all democratic talks should be held at the president’s residence, not at the army barracks," he added.
More on Discord: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/students-hospitalized-hackers-horrifying-pictures">Students Hospitalized After Hackers Send Horrifying Pictures</a>

The Discord Has Spoken

"The Parliament of Nepal right now is Discord."

Youth Group in Nepal Overthrows Government, Elects New Leader via Discord Poll

In a pretrial hearing for two of the so-called "Zizians" — an alleged cult started by a charismatic, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/business/ziz-lasota-zizians-rationalists.html">cape-wearing</a> vegan named Jack "Ziz" LaSota who <a href="https://futurism.com/zizians-rokos-basilisk-faked-death">wanted to save the world</a> from <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/rokos-basilisk-the-most-terrifying-thought-experiment-of-all-time.html">killer AI</a> — a screaming defendant and a trash-talking attorney turned the otherwise serious appearance into a bona fide circus.
Confused yet? Us too.
As <a href="https://courthousenews.com/courtroom-tensions-flare-as-zizian-cult-murder-case-nears-trial/">Courthouse News reports</a>, the scene at the Solano County Courthouse in Central California earlier this week was pandemonium as 30-year-old Alex "Somni" Leatham and 24-year-old Suri Dao awaited the official date for their trial, in which both are charged with the attempted murder of their former landlord, Curtis Lind, who was blinded during a <a href="https://www.thereporter.com/2025/04/22/former-vallejo-tenant-testifies-in-detail-about-sword-stabbing-incident/">2022 katana attack</a> over a rent dispute — an assault that ultimately became the first of six violent crimes associated with the loose group.
The co-defendants are also charged in connection with the killing of their friend Emma Borhanian, who was shot by Lind during the first of two violent incidents with the Vallejo landlord — who was, to make things all the more convoluted, <a href="https://www.thereporter.com/2025/04/22/former-vallejo-tenant-testifies-in-detail-about-sword-stabbing-incident/">killed earlier this year</a> by yet another associate of the cult when he was <a href="https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/27/man-killed-in-vallejo-was-main-witness-in-upcoming-murder-trial/">set to testify</a> against Dao and Leathem.
Almost as soon as the hearing began, Leathem — who, like Ziz and others in the loose group, is a trans woman — began screaming.
"I am an innocent woman! I have done nothing wrong! This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people! What will you do when they come for you?" Leatham hollered. "Where have the good men gone? Where are the gods?"
She went on to accuse prison guards of denying her estrogen in custody — which is, to be fair, a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/25/1130146647/transgender-inmates-gender-affirming-health-care-lawsuits-prison">thing that happens</a> to a lot of incarcerated trans people, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/transgender-prison-inmates-hormone-therapy-d07dc644d3eb29d847de92cc09f1284d">despite a recent court ruling</a> requiring it be provided to them — and said she had been "kidnapped" by "dead-eyed brutes."
Leatham apparently shouted the same thing more than 10 times before being escorted out by three armed guards and having her hearing — the first time she'd seen co-defendant Suri Dao, age 24, in six months — rescheduled for September 24.
According to <a href="https://www.thereporter.com/2025/09/11/zizian-pair-file-pretrial-motions-including-request-for-new-attorney/">additional information from the Vacaville Reporter</a>, a local newspaper in Solano County, Leathem also requested a replacement for her public defender. Though that article didn't elaborate as to why the 30-year-old wanted to fire her lawyer, CHN notes that the attorney accused prosecutor Ilana Shapiro of "misconduct" and being "beyond ridiculous" during the same hearing for not providing her with documents she needed to request time off for a personal trip.
A day after Dao and Leatham's hearing in California, fellow Zizian Teresa Youngblut, who is only 21 years old, pleaded "not guilty" in a Vermont court to the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-group-zizians-arrests">fatal shooting</a> of Border Patrol agent David Maland, who died from a gunshot wound after he and two other federal agents stopped her near the Canadian border in January. Youngblut has been charged with killing Maland and injuring those two other agents, and last month, federal prosecutors announced that they are <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/08/14/feds-death-penalty-zizian-border-patrol/85664075007/">seeking the death penalty</a> if she is found guilty.
Notably, LaSota has not yet been charged in connection with any of the alleged murders, which also include the slaying of <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/vallejo-vermont-pennsylvania-killings-20114339.php">two members' parents</a> in Pennsylvania and the <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/associates-woman-border-patrol-shooting-tied-20058348.php">shooting of Ophelia Bauckholt</a>, a German quantitative trader who had been traveling with Youngblut and was killed during the same shootout that led to Maland's death in January.
More on the Zizians: <a href="https://futurism.com/rokos-basilisk-zizian-cult-jail">Alleged Leader of Roko’s Basilisk Murder Cult Says She Did Nothing Wrong, and Would Appreciate Some Vegan Food in Jail</a>

Ziz Rizz

"Where have the good men gone? Where are the gods?"

AI Murder Cult Hearing Devolves Into Courtroom Chaos

As generative AI slop is threatening to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce303x19dwgo">turn Hollywood on its head</a>, not everybody in the industry is enthusiastic about the tech.
In a hilarious counter to a fan's AI-generated image of actor Brandon Sklenar dressed as the DC Comics' Batman, DC Studios filmmaker and "Superman" director James Gunn <a href="https://www.threads.com/@jamesgunn/post/DObchOKEWis/it-would-be-weird-to-cast-an-ai-batman-with-a-inch-arm?hl=en">quipped in a Threads post</a> that "it would be weird to cast an AI Batman with a 14 inch arm."
Gunn was alluding to the AI-generated Batman's unnaturally short appendages, pointing out the AI's failure to account for perspective.
"At least we can rest easy knowing the DCU’s Batman won’t be AI-generated," a different Threads account <a href="https://www.threads.com/@dcfilmnews/post/DObf275ETnU?xmt=AQF0LCsYLiKpP9nBIoyViCHpNYPs8SYTh_d06WmNwQ4VyA">added</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-363923" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-12-at-3.32.55 PM-1200x1272.png" alt="" width="1200" height="1272" />
The news comes just days after entertainment conglomerate Warner Bros Discovery, which distributes the blockbuster "The Dark Knight" trilogy and 2022's "The Batman," <a href="https://futurism.com/midjourney-trouble-warner-bros-discovery">sued AI image generator company Midjourney</a> over facilitating mass copyright infringement.
Basically, Warner Bros says the startup is letting its users create AI-generated images and videos of its copyrighted characters — much like the image Gunn was responding to.
As <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/batman-james-gunn-hilarious-response-192530007.html">SuperHeroHype points out</a>, fans have increasingly been floating Sklenar's name for portraying DC Studios' next iteration of Batman. However, the studio has yet to make any announcement about who will put on the mask as the successor to actor Robert Pattinson, who will be starring in the sequel to "The Batman" next year.
The use of generative AI in cinema has turned into a highly contentious topic as people employed in the entertainment industry continue to worry about the tech making them redundant.
Big-name actors, directors, and filmmakers, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sean-penn-writers-ai-human-obscenity">including Sean Penn</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/09/24/guillermo-del-toro-strikes-back-against-ai-generated-art/">Guillermo del Toro</a>, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-director-steven-spielberg-opposed-using-ai-front-camera-2025-06-27/">Steven Spielberg</a> have publicly opposed the use of AI in Hollywood.
"I don't want AI making any creative decisions that I can't make myself," Spielberg <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ai-director-steven-spielberg-opposed-using-ai-front-camera-2025-06-27/">told Reuters</a> in June. "And I don't want to use AI as a non-human collaborator, in trying to work out my creative thinking."
But that hasn't stopped the filmmaking industry from embracing the tech.
Case in point, ChatGPT maker OpenAI <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-full-hollywood-movie-using-ai">announced this past week</a> that it's teaming up production companies in London and Los Angeles to create a feature-length animated movie made largely with artificial intelligence.
However, given Gunn's latest remarks, it's unlikely we'll see an AI-generated Batman gracing the silver screen any time soon.
And fans are elated at his dismissal of the idea.
"Love how he makes fun of these people," one user on the DCU subreddit <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DCU_/comments/1ndkmvk/comment/ndhfyyt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote</a>.
"That's some grade A premium snark," another user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DCU_/comments/1ndkmvk/comment/ndhevdd/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">added</a>.
More on Warner Bros.: <a href="https://futurism.com/midjourney-trouble-warner-bros-discovery">Midjourney Is in Major Trouble</a>

Batman With T-Rex Arms

"That's some grade A premium snark."

James Gunn Slams AI-Generated Batman

It's one thing when a respected scientist has a novel idea of what <a href="https://futurism.com/force-universe-changing">dark matter or dark energy</a> might be, or what could explain spooky quantum phenomena like <a href="https://futurism.com/oxford-scientists-quantum-teleportation-supercomputers">entanglement</a> and <a href="https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-explained/quantum-superposition">superpositions</a>.
But the wonders of the internet has brought an entire economy built on outrage and conspiracy theories, enabling even the most crackpot grifters and fringe scientists to reach a wide audience and easily make a quick buck. We've all heard them rage against vaccines and seed oils, but one of their buzziest claims lately might surprise you: that theoretical physics are all lying to us, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/science/physics/the-rise-of-conspiracy-physics-dd79fe36">Wall Street Journal </a><a href="https://www.wsj.com/science/physics/the-rise-of-conspiracy-physics-dd79fe36">reports</a>.
Allegedly, theoretical physicists are corrupt and collude with each other to uphold groupthink. The lack of world-changing discoveries in recent decades, or a framework that reconciles quantum mechanics and classical physics, evinces an academic establishment that's become enfeebled by its unwillingness to allow room for disagreement or to entertain more radical ideas.
It's true that physics has become increasingly fixated on riddle-like ideas about string theory and invisible dark matter, and that certain observations about the universe are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-hubble-tension-is-becoming-a-hubble-crisis/">failing to match up with physicists' predictions</a>. Perhaps some portion of it is wrong; over the centuries, science has periodically <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ether-theoretical-substance">thrown out widely-accepted ideas</a> based on new evidence.
But the ideas peddled by proponents of the "physics is fake" theory, on closer inspection, sound absolutely ludicrous.
One of them, Eric Weinstein, went on Piers Morgan's YouTube talk show in May to complain about academics ignoring his "Theory of Geometric Unity" that supposedly unifies all the forces of physics.
On the same show, though, John Hopkins physicist Sean Carroll pointed out why: in the paper, Weinstein admits right off the bat that his theory is "partially remembered and stitched together" from old notes and documents.
"It's not serious," Carroll excoriated. "It's a dog-ate-my-homework kind of thing."
Nonetheless, Weinstein — who popularized the term "intellectual dark web" — reaches a huge audience. After famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7rd04KzLcg">giving a lecture</a> at Oxford half a decade ago, he now has over a million followers on Twitter and has repeatedly been a guest on Joe Rogan's prominent podcast. He's also a managing director at Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's VC firm. 
His latest conspiracy theory, according to the WSJ, is that peer review was created by the government in collaboration with Ghislaine's Maxwell's father, and that her partner Jeffrey Epstein was directed by an intelligence agency to stop humans from exploring space.
A big part of Weinstein and the "intellectual dark web's" shtick is acting like underdog mavericks rebelling against an oppressive but out-of-touch establishment. When Carroll swatted down his paper, an aghast Weinstein responded, per the WSJ: "How dare you. Your intellectually insulting aspect reminds me of you as the Marie Antoinette of theoretical physics influencers."
But it seems another draw is that the disgruntled outsiders bring tabloid-style drama to a space that the public largely sees as sterile and official. Chris Williamson, who hosts the "Modern Wisdom" podcast that regularly features scientists, described it as "The Kardashians for physicists."
Instead of hearing physics news trickled down to you by interviews and press releases, you now get to behold scientists — posers or actual, crank or orthodox — bellow at each other, if not directly then across a series of back-and-forth videos angrily reacting to their opponent's angry reaction. "Anti-skeptic" YouTuber Professor Dave has nearly four million subscribers for making videos on these controversies, the WSJ noted.
It would be more amusing if this wasn't coming at a time when science and scientific institutions are being demonized, more than ever, in mainstream, right-wing politics, with the material consequences of that coming to bear. Already the Trump administration has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/trump-national-science-foundation-grants-ruling">cancelled more than a billion dollars in grants</a> at the National Science Foundation, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/nyregion/nsf-trump-stem-research-cuts.html">wants to slash its budget</a> in half. 
Those cuts, and others, have affected cancer research, vaccine research, and climate research, the latter <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-pulls-funds-research-climate">becoming so villainized</a> that initiatives which even contained the word "climate" are being stripped of their funds. The administration has also <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx29rdpg45xo">fired thousands</a> at workers <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/06/noaa-seeks-17-cut-to-workforce-next-year-after-firing-hundreds-of-probationary-employees/">at scientific agencies</a> like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even public darling NASA has lost over 2,000 employees to ruthless downsizing, with half its science budget on the chopping block and <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-signs-life-mars-trump-error">its Mars Sample Return mission set to be canned</a>, too.
In all, that these anti-academics are gaining such a huge platform and have carved out a little economy for themselves is no accident — it reflects just how broken the public’s relationship with science is.
More on conspiracies: <a href="https://futurism.com/conspiracy-theory-spreading-openai">A Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI</a>

Physics Hotline

"How dare you."

Fringe Movement Claims the Entirety of Modern Physics Is Wrong

The sky's the limit for how outrageously implausible some scams can get. Actually, try beyond the atmosphere.
An elderly woman in Japan sent thousands of dollars to a trickster who claimed to be an astronaut trapped in space and in danger of suffocating, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-romance-scam-fake-astronaut-distress-japan/">Agence France-Presse reports</a>. In fairness to the lady, though, she thought they were in love.
The 80-year-old pensioner, who lives in Sapporo, the capital of Japan's northern island Hokkaido, met the scammer on social media in July, police said, describing it as a romance scam.
Not only did the scammer claim to be a male astronaut, but he soon broke the news to her that he was "in space on a spaceship right now." And urgently, he was "under attack and in need of oxygen." So what else could he do but plea to a stranger he just met on the internet for help?
Naturally, cash was the only solution to this unfolding orbital crisis. The scammer convinced the poor old lady — who lived alone — to electronically send around 1 million yen, or $6,750, to buy oxygen. 
How that oxygen was supposed to get immediately delivered is anyone's guess, but that's enough money to keep the lights on at the International Space Station, which costs around a billion dollars <a href="https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ig-24-020.pdf">per year in maintenance and upkeep</a>, for a grand total of three or four minutes. 
Listen: she was doing her part. (And, to be fair, <a href="https://boingboing.net/2016/02/12/nigerian-astronaut-lost-in-spa.html">this isn't even the first time</a> that an online scammer has claimed to represent an astronaut trapped in space.)
As the AFP reports notes, there's been a drastic uptick in fraud that targets the lovesick. In the US alone, victims lost around $1.14 billion to romance scams in 2023, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/heres-how-to-avoid-romance-scams-which-cost-consumers-1point14-billion-last-year.html">according to the Federal Trade Commission</a>, which is double the toll reported in 2021. Strikingly, the median amount of money lost per person was over $2,000 — the highest of any form of imposter scam. Love sure does hurt.
The elderly are especially vulnerable to these internet-enabled cons, romantic or not, and Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world. And while it didn't take much to dupe this lonely octogenarian, the rise of widely available AI tools is supercharging just how convincing these scammers can be.
Some are using AI-powered "<a href="https://futurism.com/deepfakes-scam-boomers">realtime deepfakes</a>" to give themselves beautiful and realistic fake faces that hold up even during live video calls. They're also using AI voice synthesizers to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-voice-hostage-scam">imitate the voices of their victims' relatives</a>, fooling boomers, for example, into thinking their grandkid has been taken hostage and needs ransom money. AI chatbots, meanwhile, makes it take exactly zero effort for scammers to keep up lengthy conversations over text. 
In other words, your Facebook-addicted, <a href="https://futurism.com/facebook-ai-generated-images-viral">AI-slop-resharing grandparents</a> don't stand a chance. Maybe, as the tech gets better, neither will you.
More on scams: <a href="https://futurism.com/online-jobs-text-scam">What Actually Happens If You Sign Up for One of Those Scammy "Online Jobs" Is Pretty Fascinating</a>

Astronaut Harmer

"In space on a spaceship right now."

Woman Sends Money to "Stranded Astronaut" So He Can "Buy Oxygen"

Albania has appointed the world's first-ever AI government official in hopes of rooting out some of the Balkan state's <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/sep/commentary-albania-how-one-most-corrupt-countries-europe-tackling-crime">long-running corruption</a>.
As <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/albania-apppoints-worlds-first-virtual-minister-edi-rama-diella/">Politico Europe reports,</a> the new AI minister — which should not be confused with a minister of AI, which a few countries already have, including <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-new-minister-of-ai-must-not-be-naive-to-its-harms/">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.imd.org/news/digital/updates-whoever-leads-the-ai-race-will-lead-the-future-uae-minister-says-at-our-signature-programme-in-dubai/">United Arab Emirates</a> — has been dubbed "Diella," meaning "sunshine" in Albanian.
Announced this week by Edi Rama, Albania's prime minster, Diella — which also serves as the avatar for e-Albania, the country's government services portal — will oversee public procurement, the process by which governments and state-owned companies buy, via taxpayer dollars, everything from office supplies to concrete for roadwork.
Decisions about how that money is spent will, as Rama told a Socialist Party assembly in the Albanian capital of Tirana, all go through Diella in a "step-by-step" process that is "100 percent incorruptible, and where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100 percent legible."
"This is not science fiction," he said, per Politico, "but the duty of Diella."
Along with being the nation's public procurer, the AI official will, the prime minister said, also "hire talents here from all over the world," and in doing so somehow drive down the "fear of prejudice and rigidity of the administration."
Though it's unclear whether Diella the procurement minister will have the same underpinnings as the e-Albania government services assistant of the same name, <a href="https://a2news.com/english/shqiperia/aktualitet/diella-rama-prezanton-asistenten-e-re-virtuale-me-ze-dhe-fi-i1138185">reporting earlier this year</a> from A2, a CNN affiliate in Albania, indicate that the latter was built on tech from from OpenAI and Microsoft.
On the government services site, Diella is seen wearing a pink-and-white traditional Albanian dress and headscarf — but as of now, it remains unclear whether the procurement minister version will be depicted wearing something similar.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-363868 size-full" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/09/Screen-Shot-2025-09-12-at-10.58.16-AM.png" alt="Diella, the AI avatar for e-Albania, the country's government service portal. The avatar's message, translated to English, reads: Welcome! I am your assistant for any question you may have about e-Albania. Image via e-Albania/screenshot." width="850" height="901" />
Though it's purported to root out corruption from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0w4e4e00jo">drug traffickers</a> and <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/violent-albanian-criminal-group-linked-to-corruption-disrupted-sky-ecc-analysis">gangs</a> who <a href="https://albaniandailynews.com/news/pm-reveals-report-on-public-procurement">take advantage</a> of the Albanian government's contracting system, Diella could, if left unsupervised, <a href="https://futurism.com/hackers-trick-chatgpt-personal-data">easily be exploited</a> by any bad actor who knows how — or could just <a href="https://futurism.com/gpt-5-huge-factual-errors">plain make bad decisions</a>, as we've seen time and again from AI built by companies including OpenAI.
Still, it's a fascinating experiment in <a href="https://futurism.com/white-house-deploy-elon-musk-mechahitler">AI integration into government</a> — and quite possibly a <a href="https://fedscoop.com/hhs-rolls-out-chatgpt-across-department/">sign of things to come elsewhere</a>.
More on AI in Albania: <a href="https://futurism.com/albania-replace-government-ai">This Country Wants to Replace Its Corrupt Government With AI</a>