<h2>Fiscal Shortage</h2>
While trying its darndest to become profitable, OpenAI is still falling comically short — which, since it's the 800-pound gorilla in the nascent AI industry, should probably give pause to its rivals both large and small.
In a <a href="https://x.com/sama/status/1876104315296968813">post on X-formerly-Twitter</a>, CEO Sam Altman admitted an "insane" fact: that the company is "currently losing money" on ChatGPT Pro subscriptions, which <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-pro/">run $200 per month</a> and give users access to its suite of products including its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-o1-self-preservation">o1 "reasoning" model</a>.
"People use it much more than we expected," the cofounder wrote, later <a href="https://x.com/sama/status/1876104580070813976">adding in response to another user</a> that he "personally chose the price and thought we would make some money."
Though Altman didn't explicitly say why OpenAI is losing money on these premium subscriptions, the issue almost certainly comes down to the enormous expense of running AI infrastructure: the massive and increasing amounts of electricity needed to power the facilities that power AI, not to mention the cost of building and maintaining those data centers.
Way back in spring 2023, analyst <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsoft-readies-ai-chip-as-machine-learning-costs-surge?rc=st1fhw">Dylan Patel told The Information</a> that the company was likely spending around $700,000 per day running ChatGPT, or about 36 cents per query; nowadays, a single query on the company's most advanced models can <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-o3-cost-per-query">cost a staggering $1,000</a>.
In other words, there's an inconvenient reality for anyone in the AI space trying to turn a profit, as <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-pivoting-benefiting-humankind-making-money">OpenAI now is</a>: the smarter these systems get, the more expensive they become to run — which poses a major problem for pricing.
<h2>Is This Loss</h2>
With <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-coo-says-chatgpt-passed-11-million-paying-subscribers?rc=st1fhw">around 10 million paying subscribers</a>, that gargantuan overhead means OpenAI is still <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/technology/openai-chatgpt-investors-funding.html">burning through mountains of cash</a> while chasing the dream of profitability.
Indeed, according to insiders who <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/openai-sees-5-billion-loss-this-year-on-3point7-billion-in-revenue.html">spoke to CNBC last fall</a>, OpenAI was on track to lose a whopping $5 billion in 2024, which put the company firmly in the red compared to its $3.7 billion in revenue.
To that end, the company's board of directors sheepishly admitted in an <a href="https://openai.com/index/why-our-structure-must-evolve-to-advance-our-mission/">end-of-year blog post</a> that OpenAI needs way more cash than it previously thought — even though it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-closes-66-billion-funding-haul-valuation-157-billion-with-investment-2024-10-02/">secured $6.6 billion in funding</a> just a few months prior.
"We once again need to raise more capital than we'd imagined," the governing body wrote. "Investors want to back us but, at this scale of capital, need conventional equity and less structural bespokeness."
Though there have reportedly been internal talks to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/27/openai-might-raise-the-price-of-chatgpt-to-22-by-2025-44-by-2029/">raise the price of a regular ChatGPT subscription</a> (which currently costs a more modest $20 per month), that level of pricing increase doesn't seem like it'll keep up with the energy demands of powering the behemoth — or the draw of shinier new toys.
More on ChatGPT: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-cooling-company-stock-rise">What the Company With the Highest Stock Gain From AI Actually Does Is Extremely Grim</a>

Cost Deficiency

"People use it much more than we expected."

It Costs So Much to Run ChatGPT That OpenAI Is Losing Money on $200 ChatGPT Pro Subscriptions

<h2>Do or Donut</h2>
A man had the misfortune of becoming trapped inside a driverless Waymo taxi as it drove around a Scottsdale, Arizona parking lot in circles — instead of getting him to the airport for his imminent flight.
Tech entrepreneur Mike Johns <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mikejohns_lyft-uber-omg-activity-7271962168286191617-E7j4/">shared a video of the distressing encounter</a> on LinkedIn last month.
"I have a flight to catch, why is this thing going in a circle?" an exasperated Johns told Waymo customer service in the video. "I'm going dizzy."
"I've got my seatbelt on, I can't get out of the car," he said. "Has this been hacked? What's going on?"
Fortunately, Johns eventually got a refund and even made it to the airport in time, as the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-05/los-angeles-man-trapped-in-circling-waymo-says-he-missed-his-flight-home">LA Times reports</a>.
Nonetheless, the incident highlights the significant rough edges that remain for robotaxis, even as they become an increasingly common sight on US streets. Despite years of research and development, plenty of vehicles are still getting stuck — to their helpless customers' dismay.
"My Waymo experience sucked," Johns wrote in the caption of his video. "Mind you I was on my way to the airport and nearly missed my flight. I'll keep it old fashion and just Lyft or Uber."
<h2>Ride Along</h2>
Waymo, a subsidiary of Google owner Alphabet, launched its robotaxi service in LA last fall. For years now, the company has been offering driverless ride-hailing to riders in both Phoenix and San Francisco.
As Waymo plans expansions in <a href="https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/">Austin</a>, <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article297065439.html">Miami</a>, and <a href="https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/partnering-with-nihon-kotsu-and-go-on-our-first-international-road-trip">Tokyo, Japan</a>, it stands out in a crowded field of would-be competitors — <a href="https://futurism.com/why-tesla-cybercab-robotaxi-no-sense">most notably Elon Musk's Tesla</a> — trying to make the idea of a driverless taxi service a reality.
There have been considerable growing pains for most of those ventures, from robotaxis <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/video-waymo-stuck-roundabout">getting stuck in roundabouts</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robotaxi-smashes-delivery-robot">smashing into delivery robots</a>. As the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/self-driving-dirty-secret">New York Times reported</a> in September, robotaxi services often require humans to take over control as a result.
General Motors' Waymo competitor Cruise has become the poster child of the tech's shortcomings, with the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/11/gm-is-giving-up-on-cruise-robotaxis-pivots-to-personal-autonomous-vehicles/">company shutting down</a> in December following several <a href="https://futurism.com/california-revokes-cruise-robotaxi-permit">hair-raising safety incidents</a>.
Whether the services will ever provide an advantage over getting a ride from a human driver remains unclear. A <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/waymo-expensive-slower-taxis#:~:text=A%20new%20study-,conducted%20by%20Forbes,-reveals%20how%20Waymo">study by Forbes</a> last year <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/waymo-expensive-slower-taxis#:~:text=A%20new%20study-,conducted%20by%20Forbes,-reveals%20how%20Waymo">found that</a> Waymo rides aren't just more expensive, but they take twice as long on average.
In short, their presence on public streets has not only become a nuisance but a glimpse of an automated future that foregoes human connection in favor of efficiency and profit (which, it's worth noting, still <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/waymo-not-profitable">seems a long way off</a>).
"It's just, again, a case of today's digital world," Johns <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/la-man-nearly-misses-flight-as-self-driving-waymo-taxi-drives-around-parking-lot-in-circles/">told CBS News</a>. " A half-baked product and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle."
"Human-less, right?" he added. "Human-less. "That's the ghost in the shell, right?"
More on robotaxis: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-has-secretly-been-testing-robotaxis">Tesla Has Secretly Been Testing Robotaxis</a>

Mr. Waymo's Wild Ride

"I have a flight to catch, why is this thing going in a circle?"

Man Trying to Catch Flight Alarmed as His Driverless Waymo Gets Stuck Driving in Loop Around Parking Lot

Flavored nitrous oxide is the newest drug to sweep America's youth — and it sounds like folks are already developing debilitating addictions and alarming side effects.
As <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/galaxy-gas-flavored-nitrous-oxide-drug-epidemic.html">New York Magazine reports</a>, the "Galaxy Gas" brand has become synonymous with the latest generation of nitrous oxide that's readily available at smoke shops and online.
With longer highs, candy-esque flavors, and little legal restriction, the chemical formerly known as "whippets" or "nitrous" involves huffing the gas into one's lungs to achieve a brief head rush.
Though whippets have long been popular among hippie-ish subcultures, the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 breathed new life into the market for the barely-regulated chemical as it's <a href="https://futurism.com/astronomer-tiktok-galaxy-gas">gone viral on TikTok</a>. As more and more people began to seek out the escape provided by a nitrous rush, however, chronic users are reporting all kinds of freaky side effects.
An employee who works at an Atlanta-area smoke shop called Cloud 9, which is run by a family that created the Galaxy Gas brand and owned it until October of 2024, told NYMag that he'd see people come in multiple times a day to purchase canisters and even tanks of nitrous. Upon returning, many would have limps, tremors, and be slurring their words.
Eventually, the employee began lying to customers and telling them the location was sold out of Galaxy Gas even when they weren't, out of fear of someone hurting themselves or others while using the drug — a salient concern given that last month, a <a href="https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/lawsuit-claims-driver-high-galaxy-gas-killed-man-riding-bike-after-buying-product-smoke-shop/D6RAQZENPJADNIQHO2RTKOTGXE/">Georgia driver was sued</a> for fatally running down a cyclist while huffing the branded gas.
Nitrous oxide has <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26496821/">generally fallen</a> into the category of drugs seen as "risky, but survivable in moderation." But some combination of availability and adulterants seem to be pushing it into more harmful territory.
For Kiersytn Milligan, a 25-year-old tattoo artist from Texas who got hooked on nitrous, the results were almost as dire. After encountering the drug at a party, the young woman soon began using it all the time on her own — so much so that her local smoke shop developed a deal for her where she would get one tank free after purchasing five.
"My life consisted of huffing whippets alone 24 hours a day," Milligan told NYMag. "I couldn’t breathe without it. If I had about five minutes without it, my heart would start palpitating."
Not long after getting deep into nitrous use, the tattoo artist began to lose her hair. Later, she lost the ability to walk and control her bodily functions, including bowel movements, and had frequent seizures. After four car accidents and a total loss of motor control, Milligan's grandmother took her to the hospital, where she was met with tragic news: she was paralyzed, and had blood clots in her lungs and a cyst in her brain.
According to Grace, another former Cloud 9 franchise employee who spoke to NYMag using a pseudonym, the bigger Galaxy Gas got, the weirder things became in the shop.
"The people that are coming in asking for it, they’re getting younger and younger," she told the magazine. "You could see that they were out of it; you could barely understand what they were saying."
As NYMag explains, Galaxy Gas was quietly sold to an undisclosed buyer last fall after a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/galaxy-gas-nitrous-oxide-social-media-controversy/">rash of bad press</a> about its <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/374109/nitrous-oxide-laughing-galaxy-gas-whippets-history">explosive popularity</a> and <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/galaxy-gas-brainrot-era">side effects</a>.
And there are still lots of other dupes available online and in stores, which means that so-called "gas heads" can still get their fix of the damaging chemical, even if it's not from their preferred brand.
More on galaxy gas: <a href="https://futurism.com/astronomer-tiktok-galaxy-gas">Astrophysicist Surprised to Learn Why Her TikTok on "Galaxy Gas" Was Suddenly Blowing Up</a>

Whip It

Developments

"You could barely understand what they were saying."

Kids Are Huffing Galaxy Gas Until They Get Tremors, Limps and Lose Bowel Control

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is calling for NASA to ditch its Artemis program, arguing that the "Moon is a distraction" and that "we're going straight to Mars" instead in a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1875023335891026324">recent tweet</a> — and directly contradicting the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-moon-landing-pushed-back-yet-again">agency's long-established plans</a>.
In a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1871997501970235656">separate tweet</a> on Christmas Day, Musk  accused the space agency's Moon program of being "extremely inefficient as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program."
The broadsides once again highlight the mercurial entrepreneur's obsession with <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-city-mars-death-catastrophe">establishing a city on Mars</a>, a starry-eyed vision he wants to see facilitated by his space company's next-generation heavy-lift rockets.
And while the idea of ditching the Artemis program — which was officially formed by Musk's new ally, president-elect Donald Trump, in 2017 — seems bafflingly counterintuitive and shortsighted, his emboldened calls to skip the Moon can't be dismissed given his immense new influence.
Musk now holds huge sway not only over the fate of his many businesses, but the political landscape as well, most recently <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-trump-election-night-together">helping Trump win the election</a> and even playing a major role in the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-shut-down-government">torpedoing of a US Congress funding bill</a> last month.
Consequently, the South African billionaire has been put in <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-doge-department">charge of a so-called "Department of Government Efficiency</a>" to excise $2 trillion from the national budget. Whether this advisory group will be able to take aim at the Artemis program <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-department-fake-feel-important">remains to be seen</a>.
Nonetheless, now that Musk has a significant foothold in Washington, DC, NASA's efforts to land the first astronauts on the surface of the Moon before the end of this decade could be in serious trouble — or at least look dramatically different after some high-powered meddling.
What's perhaps most likely, at least in the short term, is that instead of scrapping NASA's plan, the Trump-Musk alliance could make significant adjustments instead, perhaps by <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-sls-moon-rocket-might-be-canceled">ditching</a> the agency's expensive and inefficient Space Launch System in favor of SpaceX's reusable Starship or Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-mars-moon-artemis-nasa/">Ars Technica's Eric Berger suggests</a>.
One unknown is <a href="https://futurism.com/jared-isaacman-head-nasa-history">NASA's incoming administrator Jared Isaacman</a>, a billionaire and private astronaut who has been to space twice with the help of SpaceX — but who so far has expressed support for NASA's existing lunar gameplan.
In a <a href="https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1864346915183157636">statement</a> Isaacman tweeted following his nomination, the billionaire proclaimed that "Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth."
That vision directly contradicts Musk's desire to aim our sights exclusively at Mars, a striking difference in tune that will be fascinating to watch play out.
Will Trump's administration and Isaacman bend the knee, calling off upcoming Artemis missions — or will it be a matter of appeasing Musk's plans while simultaneously pursuing American boots on the Moon?
Chances are, we'll have to wait quite some time until we get a definitive answer. The Artemis program has formed an intricate web between NASA and its private contractors, SpaceX included, which likely can't be ripped apart or burned down overnight.
More on Artemis: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-moon-landing-pushed-back-yet-again">NASA's Moon Landing Gets Pushed Back Yet Again</a>

Moon Skip

"The Moon is a distraction."

Elon Musk Trying to Scrap NASA's Moon Program

<h2>Orbstacle Course</h2>
Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao says he had a baffling encounter when he was flying his private four-seat airplane in 2023.
At an altitude of 9,000 feet over Houston, Texas, the former Space Shuttle commander had two "perfectly smooth" and "shiny" spheres, each roughly three feet in diameter, rip by him a mere 20 feet away. He first detailed the unusual encounter in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4xMH2D2K-Q">interview with NewsNation</a> in December, and recently elaborated on the sighting in a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/04/us-news/ex-nasa-astronaut-dr-leroy-chiao-says-metallic-orbs-he-saw-had-no-visible-means-of-propulsion/">follow-up with the New York Post</a> — claims from a highly accomplished pilot and space traveler that add fuel to the fire of debates over unidentified objects in the skies.
"There was nothing around me other than the panhandle of Texas at nine thousand feet on this instrument flight plan and just suddenly these things appeared," he told the publication.
"They came right at me," he added.
<h2>Alien Bird Strike</h2>
Intriguingly, the Pentagon <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqsYroxu0_U">released a declassified video</a> of a UFO soaring over a military base in the Middle East in April 2023, roughly four months before Chiao's encounter. (Some experts have since suggested it could've simply <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a45645931/is-pentagon-ufo-actually-a-balloon/">been an ordinary party balloon</a>.)
As the New York Post points out, the object visible in the footage roughly aligns with Chiao's own description.
"That’s what it made me think of," he told the publication. "I wonder, 'Gosh, I wonder if this is the same thing.'"
Officials from the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9746110/metallic-flying-orbs-nasa-pentagon-panel-ufos-uaps/">also revealed in 2023</a> that "metallic orbs" are the most prevalent type of UFOs in the sightings the office was studying. However, the panel stressed at the time that there was no evidence that they represented encounters with extraterrestrial technology.
A crash with the objects could've ended in disaster, Chiao claimed.
"Obviously if I collided with them it would have been really bad," he said. "No one would’ve known what happened to me."
Chiao could only guess as to what may have been behind the two mysterious orbs, suggesting it could've been "some secret military program."
It's hard to make of Chiao's account, especially without any hard evidence. His claims that the two orbs didn't even disturb the "air around my airplane" as they zipped by in complete silence, and that they showed "no visible means of propulsion," are particularly eyebrow-raising.
It's certainly not the first account of its kind. A number of former military pilots have come forward over the years, claiming to have made similar sightings. Claims by David Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, <a href="https://futurism.com/us-recovered-non-human-vehicles">catapulted the topic</a> into the mainstream in mid-2023, sparking sensational claims of an alleged government cover-up of the <a href="https://futurism.com/david-grusch-congress-ufos">recovery of alien spacecraft</a>.
<h2>Universal Coverage</h2>
As a NASA veteran, though, Chiao is keeping it real.
"I firmly believe there is other intelligence in the universe," he told the Post. "I think it’s the height of arrogance to think that we’re the only intelligent life in this entire universe."
But the "flip side of that is that we’ll never find each other because the universe is so vast," he added. "So I have trouble believing that aliens have visited us."
More on UFOs: <a href="https://futurism.com/former-governor-maryland-drones-stars">Former Governor of Maryland Mocked for Posting Video of "Drones" That Appear to Be Ordinary Stars</a>

Great Orbs of Metal

"They came right at me."

Former NASA Astronaut Puzzled by Metallic Orbs He Encountered While Flying

In a freewheeling <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-sam-altman-interview/?sref=YfHlo0rL">interview with Bloomberg</a>, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unloaded on the company's board members who <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-leaving-openai">abruptly sacked him</a> in November 2023 — new perspective on the coup that fleshes out both the history of the company and Altman's chaotic character as a leading figure in the explosive AI industry.
At the time, the board said it no longer had the "confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," accusing him of not being "consistently candid in his communications."
After being asked if he was "traumatized" by being booted from the company and the chaos that followed, Altman had some choice words for the former board members, many of whom <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67470876">stepped down</a> following his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/in-stunning-reversal-openai-rehires-sam-altman">reinstatement</a> just over a week later.
"And all those people that I feel like really fucked me and fucked the company were gone, and now I had to clean up their mess," adding that he was "fucking depressed and tired."
"And it felt so unfair," the billionaire told Bloomberg. "It was just a crazy thing to have to go through and then have no time to recover, because the house was on fire."
OpenAI quickly churned through <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-edgelord-tweets">several</a> <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/mira-murati-openai-new-ceo">short-lived CEOs</a> before rehiring Altman shortly afterward, a messy custody battle that shook the company — and its public perception — to its core.
The company's board went through a major game of musical chairs, with <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/openai-employees-say-firms-chief-scientist-has-been-making-strange-spiritual-claims">esoteric</a> chief scientist Ilya Sutskever — who was one of the orchestrators of the coup and was quickly removed from the board as a result — <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-researcher-quits-criticism-superallignment">quitting in May 2024</a> in a fit of rage.
At the time of Altman's dismissal, the company's board consisted of six people. Four of them voted to remove the CEO, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-previous-openai-board-left-him-with-complete-mess-2025-1">only one of them</a>, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, stayed on the board following Altman's reinstatement.
Meanwhile, many signs have suggested that Altman has been attempting to <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-pivoting-benefiting-humankind-making-money">consolidate power at the top</a> of the company's ranks after <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-remove-non-profit-control-give-sam-altman-equity-sources-say-2024-09-25/">news emerged</a> last year that the company was moving to restructure its core business into a "for-profit benefit corporation."
After Bloomberg insinuated that he was being "sneaky" to turn the company into a competitive for-profit, Altman dismissed the turn of phrase, dismissing 2024 as a "crazy year."
"It’s a company that’s moving a million miles an hour in a lot of different ways," he told the publication. "I would encourage you to talk to any current board member 12 and ask if they feel like I’ve ever done anything sneaky, because I make it a point not to do that."
Altman, however, did appear more lucid about the chaos following his dismissal in late 2023.
"The one thing I’m more aware of is, I had had issues with various board members on what I viewed as conflicts or otherwise problematic behavior, and they were not happy with the way that I tried to get them off the board," Altman admitted in his interview with Bloomberg. "Lesson learned on that."
Just over a year later, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Altman holds more power over OpenAI than ever before. Case in point, weeks after Sutskever left, OpenAI <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-openai-safety-team-replacement#:~:text=dissolving%20its%20safety%2Doriented%20Superalignment%20team">dissolved the safety-oriented Superalignment team</a> he was once in charge of.
Less than ten days later, OpenAI announced the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-openai-safety-team-replacement">creation of a new "safety and security committee</a>" — with Altman at the helm.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-whistleblower-suchir-balaji-mother-murder-claims">Mother of OpenAI Whistleblower Alleges He Was Murdered, Says There Were Signs of Struggle</a>

Serious Sam 

"And all those people that I feel like really f*cked me and f*cked the company were gone, and now I had to clean up their mess."

Sam Altman Explodes at Board Members Who Fired Him

<h2>Kill 'Em All</h2>
Meta was forced to euthanize its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-planning-ai-powered-users">AI-generated "characters</a>" after getting slammed for how cringe and problematic they were.
As <a href="https://www.404media.co/metas-ai-profiles-are-indistinguishable-from-terrible-spam-that-took-over-facebook/">404 Media reports</a>, Meta has now killed off most of its remaining AI user accounts — most of which were <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/social-profiles-for-metas-ai-characters/amp/">launched in 2023</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-celebrity-ai-clones">kiboshed by summer 2024</a> — in the wake of a backlash against one of its executives suggesting they may be the future of the company's social networks.
At the end of 2024, Connor Hayes, Meta's VP of product for generative AI, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/91183cbb-50f9-464a-9d2e-96063825bfcf">told the Financial Times</a> that these AI-generated accounts would "have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI."
Immediately following that end-of-year admission, folks online unsurprisingly <a href="https://futurism.com/disgusted-facebook-ai-users">began clowning the notion</a> of Facebook and Instagram-sponsored bot accounts.
"Translation: 'Our real users are quitting the platform, so we will fill our community with fake users instead,'" <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1hpf9v0/comment/m4h604h/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">one Reddit user wrote</a>.
"This is some deeply evil shit," <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/johnedwinmason.bsky.social/post/3leu5zyjdod2j">a Bluesky user opined</a>.
<h2>Liz Lemon</h2>
While criticism reached a fever pitch, users started tracking the fake profiles down — and what they found was somehow even worse, and stranger, than you'd imagine.
As Washington Post columnist <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/karenattiah.bsky.social/post/3letuyae5pc2c">Karen Attiah posted on Bluesky</a>, one of the since-killed profiles was described as a "proud Black queer momma of 2 &amp; truth-teller." Named "Liz," the account existed primarily as a chatbot, and when Attiah asked it about the people who created it, she was met with a pretty jarring answer.
"My creators' team is predominantly white, cisgender, and male — a total of 12 people: 10 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Asian male," the AI profile responded. "Zero black creators — pretty glaring omission given my identity!"
Along with the buzzword-heavy "Liz" account, Meta not only created accounts like "Carter," its dating coach chatbot, but also promoted user-generated AI accounts as well. As <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mjgault.bsky.social/post/3letyuqz7qk26">folks took to Bluesky</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/disgusted-facebook-ai-users">Reddit</a> to dunk on these profiles, Meta started taking them down, 404 reported.
In a <a href="https://www.404media.co/metas-ai-profiles-are-indistinguishable-from-terrible-spam-that-took-over-facebook/">statement to 404</a>, Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney attempted to set the record straight about the company's AI profiles — but that "clarification" didn't provide much illumination.
"There is confusion: the recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product," the spokesperson said. "The accounts referenced are from a test we launched... in 2023."
"These were managed by humans," Sweeney continued, "and were part of an early experiment we did with AI characters."
We've reached out to Meta to ask exactly how many profiles were killed and what, if any, the company's plans for AI users will be moving forward. Given the aforementioned non-clarification, however, we're not expecting much.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/meta-bluesky-competition">Zuckerberg Seems Genuinely Alarmed by the Explosive Growth of Bluesky</a>

Fake Friends

Instagram created a fake, AI-generated Black woman — and the response was outraged.

Meta Panics, Kills AI-Generated "People" It Created Like "Proud Black Queer Momma"

Last week, an active-duty US Army soldier died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound right before <a href="https://futurism.com/cybertruck-terror-attack-musk">blowing up the Tesla Cybertruck</a> he had rented in front of the Trump Towers hotel in Las Vegas using a crudely-built explosive and fireworks.
The 37-year-old Green Beret soldier named Matthew Livelsberger left behind a deranged manifesto, calling the incident a "wake-up call" for the country.
The contents of the note suggest that Livelsberger was "struggling with PTSD and other issues," FBI special agent Spencer Evans told reporters, as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cybertruck-explosion-trump-las-vegas-hotel-ptsd-matthew-livelsberger-1.7422859">quoted by the Associated Press</a>, with the soldier saying he needed to "cleanse my mind" of his fallen comrades and the "burden of the lives I took."
Most salaciously, <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/01/03/green-beret-who-detonated-cybertruck-left-note-calling-attack-wake-call.html">according to Military.com</a>, Livelsberger appears to have also authored a December 31 email, widely shared in the military community, that made unsubstantiated claims about the claims of mysterious drone sightings that <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/mystery-drones-new-york">made headlines for weeks</a> at the end of the year. Livelsberger alleged they were of Chinese origin and technologically highly advanced. (In reality, experts have <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/adamkinzinger.bsky.social/post/3ld5gvp7jek2o">since argued</a> that there was no evidence of any nefarious activity and that many of the sightings could have <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/senator-photo-drone-tie-fighter-star-wars">far more mundane explanations</a>.)
"What we have been seeing with 'drones' is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently China in the east coast, but throughout history, the US," reads the email, which Livelsberger allegedly sent to a podcast called "The Shawn Ryan Show."
"The so what is because of the speed and stealth of these unmanned AC, they are the most dangerous threat to national security that has ever existed," it continued. "They basically have an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the [White House] if they wanted. It's checkmate."
Las Vegas officials told Military.com that they had "strong evidence to suggest that it was the subject that wrote it, but we haven't conclusively proven that yet."
But as officials have pointed out, Livelsberger was clearly showing signs of emotional distress, meaning the tragic blast was almost certainly neither a political stunt aimed at Trump and Musk, nor an insider with explosive information about unidentified flying objects. In actuality, his death was almost certainly the result of some combination of misinformation, violent rhetoric, and a mental health crisis.
Following the incident last week, Livelsberger's motive became a major point of contention, especially considering the optics of the situation: Tesla's Cybertruck has become a political lightning rod, synonymous with the EV maker's CEO Elon Musk's increasingly extremist views.
The choice of target, a hotel part-owned by his <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-president-not-musk">number one ally</a>, president-elect Donald Trump, also suggested that Livelsberger may have wanted to send an explicitly political message.
The explosion didn't damage the hotel, but injured seven nearby bystanders.
"It's not lost on us that it's in front of the Trump building, that it's a Tesla vehicle, but we don't have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology," Evans told reporters last week.
Investigators are now poring over Livelsberger's medical records to see whether he was suffering from mental health issues or received treatment.
But considering his actions, there's a very good chance that such issues may have played a role, highlighting a pervasive issue among the military's ranks. According <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp">to the US Department of Veterans Affairs</a>, seven percent of US veterans will have PTSD at some point in their lives.
More on the incident: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/senator-photo-drone-tie-fighter-star-wars">Dunce-Like Senator Posts Photo of "Drone" That's Actually a TIE Fighter From "Star Wars"</a>

Cyberbomber

"What we have been seeing with 'drones' is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft..."

The Cybertruck Bomber Seems to Have Made Strange Claims About the Mysterious Drone Sightings

Two years on, the consequences of the Texas abortion ban are almost too grim to contemplate: amidst a <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/infant-mortality-abortion-ban-texas">surge in infant mortality</a>, babies are being found discarded in dumpsters, ditches, curbsides, and garbage trucks, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/12/28/abandoned-baby-texas-abortion-ban/">Washington Post reports</a>.
This year, there have been at least 18 cases of abandoned infants in the state, according to Texas Department of Family and Protective Services figures cited by WaPo. That's more than double the number documented ten years ago, the newspaper notes.
"There apparently has been... a little bit of an epidemic on this," said a sheriff's official for Houston's surrounding county, where the body of an infant was found in a roadside ditch this summer, as quoted by WaPo. The morbid discovery was made by a landscaping crew.
The Texas ban, which went into effect in 2021, is considered the most draconian in the nation. It makes no exceptions even in cases of rape or incest, leaving women with no legal means of stopping unwanted pregnancies.
And according to independent research from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, the percentage of women without access to healthcare is the highest in the country, per WaPo. The already desperate circumstances are even worse for pregnant undocumented immigrants, who may avoid going to a clinic to seek care for fear of being deported.
"All of these intersectional things could be leading to this," Blake Rocap, a lawyer with the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told WaPo. The issue is exacerbated by the state's "abysmal" access to prenatal care, he added, "particularly for people without private insurance, particularly for people without immigration status."
In addition to the harrowing rise of infant abandonment, Texas currently has the eighth highest rate of teenage births, per US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, with over 20 cases per 1,000 teens aged between 15 and 19, compared to 13.6 nationwide. It also has the 13th worst <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/deranged-abortion-law">maternal mortality</a> in the country, with around 28 deaths for every 100,000 live births.
All the while, the state's Republican leadership has slashed funding for women's health and reproductive care.
But the problem isn't only the abortion ban and the poor access to care, according to critics. It's also the lack of education on the issue. State lawmakers have continued to cut funding for an awareness campaign that would inform mothers what to do when they decide they can't keep their baby, the WaPo said, despite enjoying a budget surplus well over $30 billion.
Texas has "safe haven" laws that let mothers anonymously relinquish newborn babies at designated locations without risk of prosecution — measures that are often used to downplay the cruelty of the abortion ban. But little to no effort is being made to let women know that these alternatives exist, let alone fund them.
This is plain even to opponents of abortion.
"Women don't know what to do," Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, a former congresswoman and director of The Woodlands township, told WaPo. "We have to educate, to give them more choices, to give them a chance to provide a loving home for their child."
More on abortion: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/babies-dying-banning-abortion">Hundreds More Babies Are Dying Since Banning Abortion</a>

Abandoned At Birth

Unbelievably grim.

Babies Being Found in Dumpsters After Texas Abortion Ban

<h2>Bolt from the Blue</h2>
The sophomore year of Kia's three-row electric SUV has come to a pretty inauspicious conclusion.
This week, the Korean automaker issued a recall for nearly 23,000 EV9 electric cars for the 2024-25 model year after discovering that some of them had seats that weren't fully bolted down — and all purportedly because of a single employee. Whoops.
According to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last month, the second and third-row seat mounting bolts may be missing in EV9 cars manufactured between September 2023 and October 2024 at the Kia Autoland Gwangmyeong assembly plant in South Korea. As many as 22,883 vehicles may be affected.
"Seats with missing seat mounting bolts may not properly restrain an occupant during certain collisions, thereby increasing the risk of injury," the <a href="https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V962-8779.PDF">recall report</a> states.
<h2>My Bad</h2>
But the most eyebrow-raising detail, <a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/106162-kia-recalling-23000-ev9s-over-fears-worker-forgot.html">as spotted by TechSpot</a>, is the scapegoat for the huge screw up.
In the recall report, Kia places all of the blame on an "error" made by a single "plant assembly worker," who apparently didn't make sure all the seat bolts were properly mounted.
Kia didn't specify if the employee was <a href="https://jalopnik.com/should-i-avoid-buying-a-new-car-made-on-a-monday-or-a-f-1845774311">working on a Monday or Friday</a> when the costly flubs were made — though it did make sure to mention the employee in its manufacturer notice sent to car dealers, just so they know who to blame.
<h2>Holdfast</h2>
According to a <a href="https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RMISC-24V962-7931.pdf">chronology report</a> filed with the NHTSA, the issue was first raised in a customer complaint back in September. In an inspection of 90 randomly selected EV9 SUVs performed by Kia North America, no loose or missing seat mounting bolts were found.
Subsequent inspections uncovered only three total cases of missing seat bolts — all leading back to the same employee, apparently, as of mid-December. And so in reality, the issue may be far less pervasive than the size of the recall suggests, though you can never be too careful.
Kia says that dealers will inspect the recalled EVs and perform the adjustments and installations needed free of charge.
More on EV recalls: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/thousands-cybertrucks-recalled-power">Thousands of Cybertrucks Recalled for Bricking While Driving</a>