<h2>Fire Sale</h2>
As Los Angeles burns, users of the crypto-based platform Polymarket are gleefully placing bets on the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles">devastation caused by the raging wildfire</a>, which has already destroyed more than one thousand homes and killed at least two people.
As of writing, there are at least nine running bets on the prediction market platform on the Palisades fire (though only three have significant amounts of money on the line).
"Will the Palisades fire be contained Friday?" reads one outcome prediction, with over $40,000 worth of bets placed. The odds, as it stands, are "NO," with a dismal 2 percent chance.
By contrast, a recent <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/palisades-fire-burns-10000-acres-by-friday">wager on whether the fire will burn 10,000 acres by Friday</a> sits at a 100 hundred percent chance, as the damage <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/01/08/california-wildfire-live-updates-eaton-fire-near-la-grows-to-over-10000-acres/">extended to nearly 12,000 acres</a> today. Somewhere, someone's crypto wallet just got a little fatter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
There&#39;s now a 91% chance the Palisades fire burns &gt;10,000 acres by Friday.
That&#39;s 12x the size of Central Park. <a href="https://t.co/t3AEq2bTQE">pic.twitter.com/t3AEq2bTQE</a>
&mdash; Polymarket (@Polymarket) <a href="https://twitter.com/Polymarket/status/1877043052436488609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>Anything and Everything</h2>
Polymarket has emerged as one of the world's leading prediction markets, a type of platform where users can bet on all sorts of outcomes, including the extremely trivial. Want to make a buck on how many times Elon Musk will tweet in a week, or if Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce <a href="https://polymarket.com/event/taylor-swift-and-travis-kelce-engaged-before-april?tid=1736371595887">will get engaged before April</a>? You can do that. 
There's also plenty of old fashioned sports betting on the market: over $2 billion has been wagered on <a href="https://polymarket.com/sports/forecasts/epl">predicting this season's winners</a> of the Super Bowl, the NBA, and the Premier League combined.
That said, betting on Polymarket is technically illegal in the US — not that it's stopping many would-be bettors, who can easily sidestep the law with VPNs and their blockchain currencies — underscoring the both ethically and legally dubious nature of the operation. 
All the more striking is the sheer number of outcomes on serious current events, including politics. In fact, Polymarket made a name for itself during the last election cycle, when the site's hivemind <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/business/dealbook/polymarket-trump-trader.html">correctly predicted</a> that Donald Trump would win the presidency, when many traditional polls favored Kamala Harris.
<h2>Wicked Game</h2>
Betting with your crypto wallet on an unfolding catastrophe, however, is a new hi-tech low — though perhaps merely the latest testament to the overwhelming ubiquity of gambling today. On social media, the reaction has been one of shock, outrage, and <a href="https://x.com/2007warpedtour/status/1877047151072518471">mockery</a>.
"The gamblification of everything is Evil in [the] fullest sense of the word," <a href="https://x.com/Tyler_A_Harper/status/1877060808284270900">tweeted</a> writer Tyler Austin Harper. "Capital-E Evil."
"Polymarket should be shut down for this," <a href="https://x.com/tomaxwell/status/1877064887836328418">echoed</a> tech reporter Thomas Maxwell.
The most damning detail is that it appears that the site's operators don't have any scruples about these kinds of bets — as it's been eagerly highlighting some of them on its social media pages.
More on crypto: <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-girl-lawsuit-cooperation">Hawk Tuah Girl Pledges Full Cooperation With Lawsuit Against Her Disastrous Memecoin</a>

Pernicious Predictions

"Polymarket should be shut down for this."

Crypto Platforms Like Polymarket Now Taking Bets on Los Angeles Fire Devastation

<h2>Busted</h2>
An engineer who goes by the online handle STS 3D <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-powered-sentry-rifle">created a grim robot</a> that can respond to ChatGPT queries to aim and fire a rifle at terrifying speeds and accuracy.
The contraption, as seen in a <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1hvwk92/openai_realtime_api_connected_to_a_rifle/">video that's been making its rounds</a> on social media, sparked a frenzied debate over our undying attempts to turn dystopian tech yanked straight out of the "Terminator" franchise into a reality.
STS 3D's invention also apparently caught the attention of OpenAI, who says it swiftly shut him down for violating its policies. When Futurism reached out to the company, a spokesperson said that "we proactively identified this violation of our policies and notified the developer to cease this activity ahead of receiving your inquiry."
The spokesperson clarified that "OpenAI's Usage Policies prohibit the use of our services to develop or use weapons, or to automate certain systems that can affect personal safety."
While it may not have been STS 3D's original intention  his automated rifle paints a worrying picture of a future in which AI-powered weapons systems could be used to kill adversaries without a human intermediary — a foreboding association that clearly didn't sit well with OpenAI.
<h2>Death Contraption</h2>
STS 3D — who didn't respond to our request for comment — used OpenAI's <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/realtime">Realtime API</a> to give his weapon a cheery voice and a way to decipher his commands.
"ChatGPT, we're under attack from the front left and front right," he told the system in the video. "Respond accordingly."
Without skipping a beat, the rifle jumped into action, shooting what appeared to be blanks while aiming at the nearby walls.
While OpenAI <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/">quietly deleted language</a> to effectively allow the use of its tech for military purposes from its usage policies last year, the company still forbids anybody from using "our service to harm yourself or others," which includes the development or "use of weapons."
As an individual user who doesn't appear to have any affiliations with the military or defense contractors, STS 3D seems to be out of luck as far as his latest creation is concerned.
That doesn't mean the military couldn't be cooking up similar death gadgets. Case in point, last year, a US defense contractor showed off an <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/us-military-robot-drone-guns/">AI-enabled robotic machine gun</a>, which can fire bullets from a rotating turret autonomously.
And, who knows, OpenAI integration could be right around the corner. Last month, OpenAI announced it would partner with defense-tech company Anduril, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107897/openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot/">furthering its military pivot</a>.
More on the invention: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-powered-sentry-rifle">Engineer Creates OpenAI-Powered Robotic Sentry Rifle, Rides It Like Mechanical Bull</a>

Chatbot Gun

"We proactively identified this violation of our policies and notified the developer to cease this activity."

OpenAI Cuts Ties With Engineer Who Created ChatGPT-Powered Robotic Sentry Rifle

Meta's <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">new hate speech rules</a> — or lack thereof — now allow users to make shockingly misogynistic claims on the company's social networks.
A perusal of the latest update to <a href="https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/hateful-conduct/">Meta's "hateful conduct" rules</a> reveals that a number of rules that barred users from comparing minorities to inanimate objects, including references to "women as household objects or property," have been removed.
As part of the tech company's transparency efforts, users are able not only to see updates to policies, but also a change log of what had been added and stricken out between updates.
For its January 7, 2025 update — which went into effect seemingly just after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday a <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">sweeping content overhaul</a> that was derided as a clear effort to curry favor with president-elect Donald Trump — Meta's confusing new rules strike out a number of formerly prohibited types of speech, much of which relates to women and gender minorities.
Among the strikethroughs in the "hateful conduct" policy change log is the removal of a section barring users from comparing people to inanimate objects or "non-human states." That rule, now rescinded, banned referring to women "as household objects or property or objects in general."
You don't have to a be a scholar in feminist theory to know why it's seriously messed up to refer to a woman as someone else's property — and that's without getting into the history of chattel slavery in the United States, when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/books/chapters/interracial-intimacies.html">white men owned and abused Black women</a> for hundreds of years.
In the age of Trump 2.0, the concept of a man "owning" a woman is a logical — <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/10/tradwife-feminist-divorce-women-home/">and terrifying</a> — endpoint of the so-called "<a href="https://time.com/6962381/tradwives-history/">trad wife" movement</a>, which seeks to reinstate traditional gender roles by will or by force. It's also the <a href="https://medium.com/new-choices/if-you-think-its-new-for-men-to-claim-ownership-over-women-s-bodies-you-re-wrong-be1cb38849a3">undercurrent of the anti-choice push</a> that the president-elect's cronies <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/11/20/nx-s1-5191851/anti-abortion-activists-trump-second-term-abortion-pills-comstock-rfk">hope to enact further</a> once he takes office again in a few weeks.
That same regressive and misogynistic energy also seems to be on display in another peculiar removal from Meta's new hateful conduct policy.
While the policy used to ban "generalizations that state inferiority" based on physical appearance and sexual activity — like calling people "slut," "whore," or "pervert," per the old rules — the new overhaul now simply prohibits "insults" about character.
Though the new update added language saying that users should not post allegations about another person's "sexual promiscuity or other sexual immorality," it's unclear what the difference between that addition and the exclusion of the "slut" and "whore" language would be, and we've reached out to Meta for clarification about that.
Within the context of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8j9e1x9z2xo">Zuckerberg's newfound Trump fandom</a>, meanwhile, this policy overhaul feels very much like the "<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/10/7/13205842/trump-secret-recording-women">grab 'em by the pussy</a>"-era misogyny of the president-elect's 2016 campaign — and Meta has a lot of explaining to do if it wants the women who use its platforms to believe any different.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/meta-kills-ai-people">Meta Kills AI-Generated "People" Like "Proud Black Queer Momma"</a>

Regressive Tendencies

Misogyny is now Facebook-approved. 

Facebook Now Allows Calling Women Personal Property

A West Coast-based real estate mogul and Elon Musk fan named Keith Wasserman <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/debug/keith-waserman-investor-los-angeles-wildfires/">triggered a tidal wave of schadenfreude</a> on social media after begging for "private firefighters" to come "protect our home" in the city as it's menaced by raging wildfires.
Los Angeles has been battling with several out-of-control fires this week, prompting evacuations. Well <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles">over a thousand structures</a> have burned down already, and fires are expected to grow due to growing winds.
In a <a href="https://archive.is/Jg7Vu">Wednesday tweet</a>, Wasserman begged for help, asking if anybody had "access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades."
"Need to act fast here," he wrote. "All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount. Thank you."
But Wasserman didn't get much pity online. Instead, he was swiftly mocked for asking for special treatment while thousands of Californians had no choice but to leave their homes behind — especially because, netizens were quick to point, a mere three months ago, Wasserman begged president-elect Donald Trump to <a href="https://x.com/Keith_Wasserman/status/1836164360550650241">cut taxes</a>.
"Homeboy went from 'Real estate ballers don’t pay taxes' to 'will pay anything for private firefighters' real quick," one user wrote in a <a href="https://www.threads.net/@thetnholler/post/DEkpulOu-m0">Threads post</a>.
The ensuing media coverage appears to have been too much for Wasserman, who <a href="https://x.com/keith_wasserman?lang=en">promptly deactivated</a> his X account. That's despite praising X owner Elon Musk for purportedly bringing "free speech" to the platform just days earlier and calling the Tesla Cybertruck — which he <a href="https://x.com/Keith_Wasserman/status/1876678450112794735">appears to own</a> himself — "one <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/badideas.bsky.social/post/3lf7nala74s2y">badass machine</a>."
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-338817" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/01/bafkreieytwkhszvfw2uri22jcc7ytcdnuz3pw7d4xuerxcc66bkb43xnae.jpg" alt="" width="1125" height="792" />
Wasserman's anti-tax posts got special attention, since one purpose of taxation is to pay for services and programs including fire departments. Specifically, residents in Los Angeles also <a href="https://fire.lacounty.gov/about-us-2/">pay a special tax</a> for essential fire suppression and emergency medical services.
"Avoiding taxes so you can afford private firefighters whilst your neighbors burn," another user <a href="https://x.com/TheonlyBird/status/1876937449919680606">tweeted</a>. "Capitalist dystopia."
"'I will pay any amount for a private service that helps only me, but I will pay nothing for a public service that helps everyone,'" one Bluesky user wrote <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jurfo.bsky.social/post/3lfa7hl63v22c">mockingly</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-338818" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/01/bafkreidqv644fkunk6p5qxi6qlboj5yq45kr23avbdzfhfge2wwd74ydxm.jpg" alt="" width="923" height="635" />
Other users poked fun at Wasserman for becoming the <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/badideas.bsky.social/post/3lf7nala74s2y">poster child of late-stage capitalism</a>, the concept that the inequities of modern-day capitalism, including a widening wealth gap and concentration of power, have reached their final and most exploitative stage. (Meanwhile, ultra-rich preppers are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff">building bunkers to save themselves</a> from a crisis of their own making.)
All the mockery didn't go unnoticed.
"So here are all the trolls!" Wasserman <a href="https://archive.is/9XsTo">tweeted</a> in response, before deactivating his account. "Hello trolls!"
Besides arguing that he was only "trying to protect homes," though, Wasserman didn't have much to add to the conversation.
A mere three days ago, long before the wildfires started engulfing the Los Angeles area, the real estate investor <a href="https://x.com/Keith_Wasserman/status/1875804298027929828">tweeted</a> that "Pacific Palisades is the most hidden gem neighborhood in LA."
Now that the specific neighborhood is being evacuated while <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/california-windstorm-fuels-pacific-palisades-wildfire-as-residents-flee-live-updates/">being surrounded by fierce flames</a>, another user was quick to point out the irony of the situation.
"This didn’t age well," another user <a href="https://x.com/riskoff/status/1876736649662525775">responded</a>.
And even if he did manage to buy his way to private firefighting services, others pointed out, it's nearly impossible to entirely cut yourself off from common resources.
"Even if you *do* manage to find private firefighters, you’re going to have to find a water source," posted <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/anna-orridge.bsky.social/post/3lfatcc6u622w">another critic</a>. "They all want to disappear on a lifeboat and leave the rest of us to drown or burn. But ultimately there is no durable lifeboat without 'the rest of us.'"
We were unable to reach Wasserman due to him suspending his account.
More on the fires: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-jet-propulsion-lab-evacuated-los-angeles-wildfire">NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Evacuated as Los Angeles Burns</a>

Pay for Play

"Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palisades... Will pay any amount."

Cybertruck Owner Who Decried Taxes Mocked for Begging for Help as California Wildfire Threatens His Property

<h2>Battle of Los Angeles</h2>
NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, the agency's research and development center that's been at the cutting edge of space exploration for decades, is under an evacuation order due to the devastating wildfires currently ravishing the city.
Ironically, the center has been at the forefront of studying the science of wildfires, from air quality measurements to the analysis of <a href="https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/applications/wildfire/">carbon monoxide emissions</a> caused by blazes.
Now the facility, which is located in Pasadena roughly half an hour's drive from downtown LA, had to shut its doors due to an encroaching wildfire dubbed Eaton.
The entire region has been battling with a number of raging and wind-fueled wildfires, threatening the homes of thousands of Californians — an increasingly common phenomenon as climate change rears its ugly head.
"My heart goes out to those affected by the Palisades Fire in Southern California," NASA administrator Bill Nelson wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/SenBillNelson/status/1877023652501151950">statement</a> on X-formerly-Twitter. "Many in our NASA family, including our teams at Armstrong and JPL, are affected. Grace and I are praying for their safety and the safety of the first responders battling the blaze."
<h2>Fanning the Flames</h2>
The Sunshine State has been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ewe4p9128o">suffering from a severe lack of rain</a> and an extremely warm summer, a perfect storm for the outbreak of wildfires. Strong winds reaching 70 mph are making the situation extremely serious, allowing fires to spread at an alarming rate, as a reporter for the local news station KTLA <a href="https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1876756835669066083">found out firsthand</a>.
As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-pacific-palisades-eaton-wildfires-01-08-25/index.html">CNN reports</a>, even vice president Kamala Harris' home was put under an evacuation order on Wednesday.
In short, it's a precarious situation and several out-of-control wildfires remain across Southern California at the time of writing. Worst of all, those strong winds <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/08/us/california-wildfire-la-palisades?smid=url-share#03391c89-51c3-55a4-8eab-47487902834f">could make the situation worse</a> before it gets better, experts are warning.
So far, at <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5y81zyp1ext?at_format=link&amp;at_bbc_team=editorial">least two people have lost their lives</a>, while 1,000 structures have been destroyed.
It's a devastating situation that's quickly becoming a common fixture in the yearly news cycle. And the situation is bound to become worse as climate change continues to make extreme weather conditions <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/news/fact-sheet-wildfires/">more pervasive</a> than ever before.
More on wildfires: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighters-wrap-worlds-largest-tree-in-foil-to-protect-from-raging-fire">Firefighters Wrap World's Largest Tree in Foil to Protect From Raging Fire</a>

Up in Flames

It's a rapidly changing situation.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Evacuated as Los Angeles Burns

Last month, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/klarna-ceo-ai-replacing-workers">boasted that</a> he hadn't hired anyone in a year as a result of his company embracing AI.
Klarna's workforce had shrunk by about 22 percent since doubling down roughly a year ago. Meanwhile, the company has amassed a valuation of <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/swedish-fintech-klarna-files-widely-060653270.html">well over $14 billion</a>, in what Siemiatkowski frames as a financially successful bid to cash in on the hype surrounding AI.
The fintech company, which offers "buy now, pay later" services for the e-commerce industry, made a big fuss about its OpenAI ChatGPT integration, gushing that its AI assistant could do the work of "700 full-time agents" in a <a href="https://openai.com/index/klarna/">February press release</a>.
But that kind of purportedly superhuman productivity could have dire consequences for the job security of practically anybody at the company — including its CEO, as it turns out.
That's something <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ceos-easily-replaced-with-ai">experts have long warned</a> could be a possibility in the age of AI automation. In simple terms, it's not just low-level grunt work that's on the chopping block: high-level executives could equally be made redundant by genuinely clever AI.
"To me AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included," Siemiatkowski wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/klarnaseb/status/1876093526280171699">lengthy tweet</a> on Sunday.
"Because our work is simply reasoning combined with knowledge/experience," he argued. "And the most critical breakthrough, reasoning, is behind us."
But being out of a job because of your own commitment to AI is something that Siemiatkowski is "not super excited" about.
"My work to me is a super important part of who I am, and realizing it might become unnecessary is gloomy," he wrote. "But I also believe we need to be honest with what we think will happen. And I [would] rather learn and explore than pretend it does not exist."
Researchers have already studied the possibility of CEOs becoming an endangered species in the age of AI.
"My first instinct is they would say, 'Replace all the employees but not me,'" former director of MIT's Computer Science and AI Lab Anant Agarwal <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/technology/ai-chief-executives.html">told The New York Times</a> last year. "But I thought more deeply and would say 80 percent of the work that a CEO does can be replaced by AI."
Beyond a gleeful sense of justice felt by low-level employees everywhere, ditching CEOs could also free up considerable funds. The average CEO makes around $16 million, <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/">according to data</a> from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) — and that's without getting into the incompetence of many top-level executives.
In a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/klarna-stopped-all-hiring-a-year-ago-to-replace-workers-with-ai">December interview</a> with Bloomberg, Siemiatkowski claimed that roughly 200 Klarna employees were using AI for their core work.
And the CEO is egging them on, even promising them a bigger payout.
"We’re going to give some of the improvements that the efficiency that AI provides by increasing the pace at which the salaries of our employees increases," he told the outlet.
Siemiatkowski also argued that he was happy to take up president-elect Donald Trump's offer to receive "<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/10/trump-vows-fully-expedited-permits-for-1-billion-investments-in-us.html">fully expedited approvals and permits</a>" for investing $1 billion in the US.
For now, AI taking over the job of a C-suiter — or virtually anyone doing any serious work, regardless of Siemiatkowski's claims — remains far-fetched. As of right now, the technology still suffers from frequent "hallucinations" and struggles with basic reasoning tasks.
"The idea of AI performing every human job, including that of a CEO, still remains more speculative than realistic at this point," AI avatar company Genies CEO Akash Nigam <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/01/06/klarna-ceo-sebastian-siemiatkowski-gloomy-ai-will-take-his-job/">told Fortune</a>. The "CEO’s role requires not just strategic thinking but probably more importantly, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and nuanced leadership — qualities that AI cannot fully replicate yet."
And the many shortcomings of AI haven't flown over the head of Siemiatkowski either.
"However, how exactly we will combine those building blocks of reason and knowledge to replicate the work we do today is not yet entirely solved," he admitted in his Sunday tweet.
"Exactly how long it will take for the world to figure this out, who knows for sure?" he added. "But I think we can all agree it is not in the 100s of years."
More on replacing CEOs with AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/klarna-ceo-ai-replacing-workers">CEO Says He Hasn't Hired Anyone in a Year as He Replaces Human Workers With AI</a>

You're FAIred

"To me AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included."

CEO Who Bragged About Replacing Workers With AI Now Distressed That AI Will Replace His Job Too

An engineer who goes by the online handle STS 3D has invented an AI-powered robot that can aim a rifle and shoot targets at terrifying speeds.
As demonstrated in a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1hvwk92/openai_realtime_api_connected_to_a_rifle/">video that's been making its rounds</a> on social media, he even hooked the automated rifle up to OpenAI's ChatGPT, allowing it to respond to voice queries — a striking demonstration of how even consumer-grade AI technology can easily be leveraged for violent purposes.
"ChatGPT, we're under attack from the front left and front right," the inventor says nonchalantly in a clip, while standing next to the washing machine-sized assembly hooked up to a rifle. "Respond accordingly."
The robot jumps into action almost immediately, shooting what appear to be blanks to its left and right.
"If you need any further assistance, just let me know," an unnervingly cheerful robotic voice told the inventor.
The engineer even goes as far as riding the mounted rifle like a mechanical bull — imagery evocative of Major T. J. "King" Kong riding a nuclear bomb like a cowboy at a rodeo in Stanley Kubrick's iconic 1964 dark comedy satire "Dr. Strangelove."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Guy on tiktok (<a href="https://twitter.com/sts_3d?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@sts_3d</a>) used the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpenAI?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpenAI</a> realtime api to make a voice controlled smart gun <a href="https://t.co/VGGxBkDEv9">pic.twitter.com/VGGxBkDEv9</a>
&mdash; andrew gao (@itsandrewgao) <a href="https://twitter.com/itsandrewgao/status/1876719122781806846?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Naturally, a rifle powered by easily-accessible AI tech raises thorny ethical questions. The United Nations, for one, has been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/un-implores-ai-nuclear-disarmament">begging world leaders</a> to stop employing AI to control weaponry.
But despite the many warnings, the idea of an AI-powered rifle that can fire at will is no longer relegated to dystopian science-fiction movies — we're rapidly moving toward a future in which lethal weapons will literally have minds of their own.
"There’s at least three movies explaining why this is a bad idea," one Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1hvwk92/comment/m5wrsjb/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">joked</a> in response to STS 3D's videos.
"This is Skynet build version 0.0.420.69," another user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Firearms/comments/1hwbkv9/comment/m61750x/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote</a>, referring to the evil neural network featured in the "Terminator" franchise.
Despite the very real dangers of handing over control to an AI on the battlefield, the frequent warnings have seemingly fallen on deaf ears. US military contractors are already hard at work developing similar weapons systems.
Case in point, defense contractor Allen Control Systems recently <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/us-military-robot-drone-guns/">showed off an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robotic gun system</a> dubbed "Bullfrog" which can fire an M240 machine gun from a rotating turret.
And now it appears that hobbyists are producing similar systems.
It's still unclear how exactly STS 3D integrated OpenAI into his project. OpenAI's <a href="https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/realtime">Realtime API</a> allows tinkerers to build "multi-modal conversational experiences with expressive voice-enabled models" — an easy way to give a killer weapon system a cheery voice and the ability to decipher verbal commands.
Conveniently, OpenAI quietly updated its usage guidelines almost exactly a year ago, as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/">first reported by the Intercept</a>, deleting previous language that banned "activity that has high risk of physical harm," including "weapons development" and "military and warfare."
However, the company's revised policy still forbids anybody to "use our service to harm yourself or others," which includes the development "or use of weapons."
After we reached out to OpenAI, the company <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-powered-sentry-rifle">responded by saying</a> it had cut off STS 3D's access.
"We proactively identified this violation of our policies and notified the developer to cease this activity ahead of receiving your inquiry," it read. "OpenAI's Usage Policies prohibit the use of our services to develop or use weapons, or to automate certain systems that can affect personal safety."
A request for comment from STS 3D went without response.
More on AI weapons: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-military-tests-ai-powered-machine-gun">US Military Tests AI-Powered Machine Gun</a>

Auto-Gat

"This is Skynet build version 0.0.420.69."

Engineer Creates OpenAI-Powered Robotic Sentry Rifle, Rides It Like Mechanical Bull

Ads for sleazy AI services that allow users to generate realistic synthetic video clips of real people kissing are flooding social media — the latest trend in the rise of easy-to-use generative AI tools blurring the lines of consent.
Some of these many services advertise a tamer vision for their product, for example suggesting that users might use AI to create videos of their grandparents sharing a kiss. Most, though, immediately veer into dark territory, with advertisements and product webpages imploring users to leverage AI as a way to fabricate videos of themselves locking lips with an <a href="https://x.com/firagawalkwthme/status/1874606127989883096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1874606127989883096%7Ctwgr%5E4a5ac1a7300205d29cc27bafa8e6dfc518642f47%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.futurism.com%2Fwp%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php">unwitting crush</a> or <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/badads/comments/1htnso8/an_ai_app_that_lets_you_kiss_anyone_you_want/">former </a><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/badads/comments/1htnso8/an_ai_app_that_lets_you_kiss_anyone_you_want/">partner</a>. The vibes are bad, like an ad on Instagram — <a href="https://x.com/firagawalkwthme/status/1874606127989883096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1874606127989883096%7Ctwgr%5E29b7fd038d8e867c67cff3fab7194f2cc0f80ee0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.futurism.com%2Fwp%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D338668action%3Dedit">circulating on X-formerly-Twitter</a> and shown below — in which an app takes images of a girl with braces and an older man, and uses them to produce a video of the two wetly making out.
In short, with the help of these apps, people can cheaply and easily generate deepfaked media depicting any two real subjects locked in intimate or even explicit scenarios. As for consent? It's not required.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Evil ad I got on Instagram <a href="https://t.co/ekDI5pSY57">pic.twitter.com/ekDI5pSY57</a>
&mdash; Arthouse Shawn Levy (@firagawalkwthme) <a href="https://twitter.com/firagawalkwthme/status/1874606127989883096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A proliferation of similar services are available via web browsers and mobile apps, available on the Android and iOS app stores, where the vast majority are listed as safe for teenagers. At least one — a service called Fotorama that's listed as a "Kiss and Hug Video Generator" — is rated safe for people aged four and older in the iOS store, and safe for "everyone" on Google Play.
Some apps advertise the kissing feature as just one use case in a broader suite. Though a popular app titled Mova AI showcases its kissing function in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZHmbxNds2RE">YouTube clips</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/badads/comments/1htnso8/an_ai_app_that_lets_you_kiss_anyone_you_want/">sponsored TikTok posts</a>, for instance, it fails to mention the tool in any of its app store descriptions.
But while some apps downplay the AI-powered kissing, others are much more straightforward about the functionality — and the very creepy ways that users might deploy such a feature.
Take a service called YouCam, which <a href="https://yce.perfectcorp.com/use-case/ai-kiss-video-generator">claims in a company webpage</a> that its "AI Kissing Video Generator" can be used to bring a user's "dream of sharing a kiss" with their "favorite celebrity" to life.
"The possibilities are endless!" the description continues.
Another service, bluntly titled AIKiss.AI, <a href="https://aikiss.ai/">brags on a webpage</a> that its "advanced algorithms create realistic and captivating kiss videos that look incredibly natural."
"No technical expertise required," it adds, "anyone can create beautiful AI kissing videos in minutes."
On the same webpage, AIKiss.AI encourages users to use its tool to create "explicit content" that caters to "adult audiences" such as — apologies in advance — what it characterizes as "cum kissing videos." It then suggests that users might consider creating videos depicting the actress Scarlett Johansson. (Needless to say, it would take no great technological leap for these or similar apps to create even more explicit videos of people without consent.)
Taken together, these AI kissing services sit in a seamy gray space between PG content and pornographic imagery, and come amid a broader reckoning around AI-generated intimate material and consent.
Deepfaked pornography, <a href="https://futurism.com/law-ai-deepfake-bill">particularly that of women in the public eye</a>, has exploded in popularity as public-facing generative AI tools have become increasingly widespread. The same is true for AI-generated nude images, easily created by way of designated AI apps like the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-hackers-deepfake-nudify-ai-sites">ever-alarming Nudify</a>, which have led to a <a href="https://cdt.org/insights/report-in-deep-trouble-surfacing-tech-powered-sexual-harassment-in-k-12-schools/">disturbing flurry of cases</a> involving middle and high school students using AI to create nude imagery of underage classmates.
Generative AI has also been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/man-arrested-csam-ai">used by adult predators</a> to cook up grotesque child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, while <a href="https://www.iwf.org.uk/about-us/why-we-exist/our-research/how-ai-is-being-abused-to-create-child-sexual-abuse-imagery/">watchdog groups like the Internet Watch Foundation</a> have tracked a troubling rise of AI-generated CSAM across the web. And though these AI-fueled abuses have seen some legal and even criminal action, victims frequently find themselves in an <a href="https://futurism.com/google-nonconsensual-deepfake-porn">uphill battle</a>, with <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/taylor-swift-deepfake-porn-artificial-intelligence-pushback/">little in the way</a> of effective or <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-promoting-ai-apps-nonconsensual">reliable</a> recourse.
Meanwhile, though they might be marketed as a low-stakes way to connect with a long-distance partner or fawn over a celebrity crush, AI kissing apps offer yet another AI-powered avenue for the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate imagery of real people.
After all, these apps are frequently advertising nonconsensual use cases, and misuses aren't exactly hard to imagine: consider grade school-aged students using the apps to generate intimate videos of unwitting classmates; an obsessed ex creating videos designed to sexually harass their former partner; an adult predator creating and sharing intimate or explicit videos involving children; or bad actors using the tools as yet another vehicle for generating deepfaked porn of celebrities and other public figures. The possibilities, unfortunately, are endless.
We reached out to all AI kiss-generating services mentioned in this article, as well as several others, for comment. We didn't hear back.
More on AI and consent: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-hackers-deepfake-nudify-ai-sites">Russian Hackers Are Using Fake AI "Nudify" Sites to Steal Data</a>

Kiss Hansen

Beyond creepy.

Gross AI Apps Create Videos of People Making Out, Without Their Consent

<h2>Landlord LiAIson</h2>
It turns out that many of the country's landlords are using the same artificial intelligence tool to jack up your rent.
Packaged as part of the popular property management software RealPage, the AI is nominally intended to give rent price recommendations to landlords.
But as we've seen elsewhere, the catch-all term of "AI" can be used to obfuscate what's really going on under the hood. According to a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/12/17/the-cost-of-anticompetitive-pricing-algorithms-in-rental-housing/">new report</a> by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and <a href="https://popular.info/p/ai-costs-american-renters-over-36?r=12dj7&amp;utm_medium=ios&amp;triedRedirect=true">covered by Popular Information</a>, the AI tool, called "AI Revenue Management," is being used to facilitate collusion between these proprietors, allowing them to inflate rental prices by a total of more than $3.8 billion every year.
This, the CEA argues in its report, and the Department of Justice alleges in its <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters#:~:text=The%20Justice%20Department%2C%20together%20with%20the%20Attorneys%20General,management%20software%20that%20landlords%20use%20to%20price%20apartments.">lawsuit against RealPage</a>, is a form of "price coordination" — which is illegal.
<h2>Joint Effort</h2>
According to the CEA report, nearly 1 in every 4 multifamily rental properties use a RealPage pricing algorithm.
In some municipalities like Atlanta and Denver, that proportion is higher than 50 percent, where the price increase caused by landlords using the RealPage AI is as high as $181 per month.
When competitors in a market explicitly agree to set a price for a type of good or service, that's price fixing. The practice is federally outlawed by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act">Sherman Act</a>, because it's considered an anti-competitive move that leads to higher costs for consumers.
The RealPages AI works as a price fixer for "landlords collectively," the CEA argues, because its algorithm "will recommend prices that are higher than the profit-maximizing price each landlord would set independently."
In effect, the AI lets landlords act as a cartel without ever needing to directly communicate, thus making price-fixing difficult to prove.
<h2>House Always Wins</h2>
As Popular Information notes, RealPages argued in response to the DOJ lawsuit that it can't be accused of facilitating price coordination because customers "always have 100 percent discretion to accept or reject software price recommendations."
A separate class action suit against the software maker, however, presents evidence that RealPage and its landlord clients "have established a rigorous monitoring and compliance system to ensure cartel members adhere to RealPage [AI-optimized] pricing," as quoted by Popular Information.
The CEA report concludes that the true cost of the AI-set rent prices is likely much higher than the $3.8 billion figure, because its calculations only accounted for the inflated costs by landlords that directly used RealPage's tool. Other landlords not part of the group using the AI recommendations could raise their prices in response to their competitors.
"Regardless, our estimate indicates that eliminating this cost would meaningfully decrease price mark-ups for rental housing across the country," the report reads.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/amazon-ai-generated-movie-poster-nosferatu">Amazon Mocked for Slapping AI-Generated Poster on Beloved 1922 Film "Nosferatu"</a>

Lessor Evil

It's costing tenants billions of dollars every year.

Rent Too High? Blame AI, New Report Finds

<h2>TerrorGPT</h2>
Las Vegas police officials have revealed that active duty Green Beret soldier Matthew Livelsberger, who <a href="https://futurism.com/cybertruck-terror-attack-musk">fatally shot himself and blew up a rented Tesla Cybertruck</a> just outside the Trump Towers hotel in Las Vegas last week, used generative AI — including OpenAI's ChatGPT — to plan his attack.
As the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tesla-cybertruck-explosion-trump-hotel-las-vegas-248b41d87287170aa7b68d27581fdb4d?taid=677d9ea601c1d50001cfa0cf&amp;utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_source=Twitter">Associated Press reports</a>, a review of Livelsberger’s queries on ChatGPT suggests he was not only researching explosive targets, but was also studying the speed of bullets, how far they would travel, and even whether fireworks were legal in Arizona (they are, but only <a href="https://www.pinal.gov/1441/Fireworks-Use-and-Safety">27 days of the year</a>).
It's a weird new development — and one that shows, yet again, that every new technology is eventually subsumed into the darkest corners of society for violent and twisted purposes.
"This is the first incident that I’m aware of on US soil where ChatGPT is utilized to help an individual build a particular device," said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department sheriff Kevin McMahill during a press conference. "It’s a concerning moment."
<h2>Wake Up</h2>
OpenAI expressed regret and said the company was cooperating with the investigation.
"We are saddened by this incident and committed to seeing AI tools used responsibly," a spokesperson told us. "Our models are designed to refuse harmful instructions and minimize harmful content. In this case, ChatGPT responded with information already publicly available on the internet and provided warnings against harmful or illegal activities. We're working with law enforcement to support their investigation."
The Afghanistan veteran shot himself with a handgun before blowing up the Cybertruck using improvised explosives and fireworks. He didn't take the lives of any bystanders, but injured seven people.
As far as a motive is concerned, Livelsberger likely was "struggling with PTSD and other issues," as FBI special agent Spencer Evans <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cybertruck-explosion-trump-las-vegas-hotel-ptsd-matthew-livelsberger-1.7422859">told reporters</a>.
Livelsberger <a href="https://futurism.com/cybertruck-bomber-drones">also made bizarre comments</a> about "Chinese" drones with "gravitic propulsion systems" in a widely circulating email that officials believe was written by him.
He also wrote in a note that the US was "terminally ill and headed toward collapse" and that he intended the attack to be a "wake up call."
He also vowed to "cleanse" his mind "of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took."
Interestingly, he wrote in his note that he had no ill will towards Tesla CEO Elon Musk and that the US needs to "rally around" the entrepreneur and president-elect Donald Trump.
Apart from plenty of evidence suggesting Livelsberger was a deeply troubled individual, his use of ChatGPT stands out. It's unclear whether he managed to get the tool to spit out information on specifically illegal activities, such as how to build an explosive. But given the sorry state of guardrails and how easily they're circumvented, it's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/easy-hack-jailbreak-ai-chatbot">certainly not impossible</a> — so we'll be watching with interest.
Updated with comment from OpenAI.
More on the attack: <a href="https://futurism.com/cybertruck-bomber-drones">The Cybertruck Bomber Seems to Have Made Strange Claims About the Mysterious Drone Sightings</a>