<h2>Here We Go</h2>
The world's first wooden satellite has officially been deployed.
Built by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the timber-clad device was sent to International Space Station <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/japan-launches-wooden-satellite">last November</a>.
Now, NASA <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/jaxas-first-wooden-satellite-deploys-from-space-station/">says that</a> the tiny satellite, dubbed LignoSat, was finally released into the wild last month, in an experiment that will explore the viability of using wood in space — which if fruitful, could offer a more sustainable alternative to traditional metal components.
"With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever," Takao Doi, a former JAXA astronaut who studies human space activities at Kyoto University, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/worlds-first-wooden-satellite-developed-japan-heads-space-2024-11-05/">told Reuters</a> last year.
<h2>Lumber Why</h2>
LignoSat, named after the Latin word for wood, is a type of CubeSat — a small, box shaped satellite that can typically be held in one hand.
Compact as it is, it's a meticulously crafted device. It uses no screws, nails, or glue. Instead, using a Japanese woodworking technique called "sashimono," the wooden components are held together by an intricate marrying of complex joints, fashioned and assembled by master carpenters in Kyoto, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/science/japan-wooden-satellite.html">per </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/science/japan-wooden-satellite.html">The New York Times</a>.
The wood's source was also carefully chosen after a nearly year-long experiment aboard the ISS: honoki, a type of magnolia tree whose wood is traditionally used for sword sheaths, according to Reuters.
"Nobody had ever thought about using wood for rocket science before," Koji Murata, a forest science professor at Kyoto University told the NYT. "Many engineers thought wood was old technology and couldn't be applied to cutting-edge technology."
<h2>Tree Fallin'</h2>
The hope is that in space, wood will have several advantages. It won't deteriorate like it does on Earth, because there's no water or oxygen that would rot or inflame the material, Murata explained to Reuters.
Moreover, using wood to construct satellites theoretically makes them safer to decommission. Right now, metal satellites are deorbited by re-entering the atmosphere, where they are supposed to burn up completely. 
But this isn't always the case, with large chunks of spacecraft often surviving and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/faa-warns-falling-satellites">dangerously</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/experts-warn-space-junk">crashing down to Earth</a>. In the long run, tiny shards and particles of metal, some of which may be toxic, can also <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/satellites-polluting-atmosphere-metals">pollute the atmosphere</a>. With wood, though, there's no risk of dangerous debris, the scientists argue — it burns completely.
"Metal satellites might be banned in the future," Doi told Reuters. "If we can prove our first wooden satellite works, we want to pitch it to Elon Musk's SpaceX."
And perhaps in the distant future, offworld outposts could sustain themselves by planting their own trees, providing an endless supply of construction material.
Now that it's been deployed, the plan is for LignoSat to stay in orbit for six months. Onboard sensors will monitor how the wood weathers the conditions of space, including its extremely cold temperatures, and how well the material shields its electronic components from ever present radiation, emitted by the Sun and from deep space.
More on satellites: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-puzzled-military-satellite-moved-location">Scientists Puzzled by Military Satellite That Appears to Have Been Moved to a Distant Location</a>

Wood-Be Spacefarer

"Nobody had ever thought about using wood for rocket science before."

Astronauts Release Wooden Satellite From Space Station

Despite being the subject of a full month of scrutiny in the wake of its CEO's murder, UnitedHealthcare is, somehow, still going to extreme lengths to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2024/12/05/unitedhealthcare-denies-more-claims-than-other-insurers---angering-patients-and-health-systems/">deny health insurance claims</a> — and one surgeon has taken to social media to speak out about it.
In a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drelisabethpotter/video/7457293170678762798">post on TikTok</a>, Texas surgeon Elisabeth Potter was flabbergasted by a recent exchange she'd had with a UHC representative who called her when she was in the middle of a procedure to ask if the patient's overnight stay was necessary.
"It's 2025," the Austin-based plastic surgeon declared, "and insurance just keeps getting worse."
UnitedHealthcare has become the epicenter of a fie<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-insurance-costs-inflation-denials-luigi-mangione-united-healthcare/">rce debate</a> surrounding the systematic denial of health insurance claims in the US. Case in point, the company went as far as to <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/united-healthcare-claims-algorithm-murder">deploy an error-prone AI algorithm</a> in 2023 to override claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors.
<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@drelisabethpotter/video/7457293170678762798" data-video-id="7457293170678762798" data-embed-from="oembed" style="max-width:605px; min-width:325px;">
<section> <a target="_blank" title="@drelisabethpotter" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drelisabethpotter?refer=embed">@drelisabethpotter</a> 
It’s 2025, and navigating insurance has somehow gotten even more out of control… I just performed two bilateral DIEP flap surgeries and two bilateral tissue expander surgeries. During one of the DIEP cases, I was interrupted by a call from United Healthcare—while the patient was already asleep on the operating table. They demanded information about her diagnosis and inpatient stay justification. I had to scrub out mid-surgery to call United, only to find that the person on the line didn’t even have access to the patient’s full medical information, despite the procedure already being pre-approved. It’s beyond frustrating and, frankly, unacceptable. Patients and providers deserve better than this. We should be focused on care, not bureaucracy. I just have no other words at this point
 <a target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Dr. Elisabeth Potter" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7457293180162214702?refer=embed">♬ original sound - Dr. Elisabeth Potter</a> </section>
</blockquote>
 <script async src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>
During a breast reconstruction procedure, Potter said she was contacted in the operating room and told that a UHC rep had called and needed to speak to her right away about the patient she was operating on. She scrubbed out and gave the "gentleman," a call — only to be questioned about the woman's diagnosis and "whether her inpatient stay should be justified."
"I was like, 'do you understand that she's asleep right now and she has breast cancer?'" Potter recounted. "And the gentleman said, 'actually, I don't — that's a different department that would know that information.'"
Clearly perturbed, Potter told the representative that the overnight post-surgery stay was indeed necessary — and that moreover, UHC should already have that information because the surgery had already been approved.
"'I need to go back,'" she recalled telling the man, "'and be with my patient now.'"
The incident highlights a fundamentally deficient and notoriously greedy health insurance system in the United States. UnitedHealthcare, the country's largest health insurer, has played a major role, garnering a reputation for doing everything in its power to save money by denying coverage.
As Potter explained, she'd never had anything quite like that happen during her career as a surgeon. For <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/06/business/insurance-claim-denials-unitedhealthcare-ceo/index.html">all the stories</a> we've heard about <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/18-stories-health-insurance-claims-being-denied">cruel claim denials</a> in the month since Brian Thompson's murder, the incident stands out.
"It's out of control," the surgeon concluded. "Insurance is out of control. I have no other words."
More on UHC: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/americans-unitedhealthcare-tried-kill-first">Americans Point Out That UnitedHealthcare Tried to Kill Them First</a>

Tough Ask

Developments

"Insurance is out of control. I have no other words."

UnitedHealthcare Calls Doctor Mid Surgery To Ask If Her Patient’s Overnight Stay Is Necessary

<h2>Nasal Passage</h2>
In Belgium, a Boeing 737 jetliner quite literally fell on its nose — and the airline behind it is stumped as to what happened.
As <a href="https://www.hln.be/binnenland/beelden-tonen-hoe-tui-vliegtuig-door-voorwiel-zakt-op-brussels-airport-dit-is-zeer-uitzonderlijk~af0463b4/">Dutch-language Het Laatste Nieuws indicates</a>, the nose landing gear of the TUI airlines-operated 737, which had landed earlier on the morning of January in Brussels after a flight from Spain, appeared to abruptly collapse while the jet was parked.
Luckily, no passengers were on board the jet at the time, and the <a href="https://www.tui.co.uk/flight/flying-with-us/our-fleet">all-Boeing airline</a> confirmed that there were no injuries sustained during the bizarre incident that quickly spread on social media after onlookers <a href="https://x.com/olivier1166/status/1876986302643757360">posted images</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/AFlyGuyTravels/status/1877063572544479372">videos of the collapse</a>.
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Watch the moment the main landing gear collapsed on a TUI Belgium Boeing 737 parked at Brussels Airport! 
There were no passengers on the plane at the time of the collapse, and no injuries to staff reported <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tui?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#tui</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/brusselsairport?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#brusselsairport</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/aviation?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#aviation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/boeing737?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#boeing737</a> <a href="https://t.co/kJSy9DqtVQ">pic.twitter.com/kJSy9DqtVQ</a>
&mdash; A Fly Guy&#39;s Crew Lounge (@AFlyGuyTravels) <a href="https://twitter.com/AFlyGuyTravels/status/1877063572544479372?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<h2>Till I Collapse</h2>
In an interview with HLN, aviation journalist Luk de Wilde called the collapse "exceptional" — but said it probably doesn't represent quite as huge a safety hazard as it would appear at first.
"When an aircraft lands, the landing gear retracts," he explained, "and thanks to gravity and the weight of an aircraft, that will always happen."
De Wilde conjectured that the cause was "probably a human error by maintenance personnel or the crew" — an admission that TUI itself does not seem ready to make.
"We will carry out an in-depth analysis of the situation in consultation with the authorities," TUI said in a <a href="https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1877038114830479857">statement</a>, "but we can already confirm that no technical problem is at the origin of this incident."
<h2>Bad News Bears</h2>
The timing of this nasal failure couldn't be worse for TUI, which in recent months has taken media heat after repeated incidents drew scrutiny in the wake of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/boeing-plea-737-max-crashes-b34daa014406657e720bec4a990dccf6">Boeing's own safety issues</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/another-boeing-whistleblower-died">internal crises</a> following <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/piece-blows-off-boeing-737-mid-flight">last January's door blowout incident</a>.
Just a few weeks ago, <a href="https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/air-ambulance-called-east-midlands-9805486">one of the airline's flight attendants was hospitalized</a> after stepping out of the cabin without realizing its stairs had already been retracted, falling hard to the ground.
Back in August, passengers on another TUI flight were forced to evacuate after a fire broke out in the cargo hold of yet another 737 after it had landed. Belgian comedian <a href="https://www.hln.be/binnenland/ook-comedian-gunter-lamoot-zat-op-tui-vlucht-die-noodlanding-maakte-op-brussels-airport-het-was-precies-alsof-we-in-een-film-zaten~a0bb5c11/">Gunter Lamoot told HLN</a> after that incident that the scene was particularly strange because the landing had gone off without a hitch, and people had even applauded the pilots before the evacuation order was issued.
Between these anxiety-inducing occurrences and the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13998247/Boeing-aircraft-suffered-catastrophic-failure-TUI-flight-skidded-runway-crash-Leeds-airport-Storm-Babet-report-finds.html">two separate reports</a> about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6jq11876no">TUI's safety failures</a> issued in the latter half of 2024, things aren't looking great for the destination airline, which primarily shepherds passengers from Belgium and the United Kingdom to <a href="https://www.tui.co.uk/flight/where-we-fly">various vacation spots</a>.
Then again, things are probably worse for the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxvkq109ko">manufacturer that provides its planes</a>.
More on plane panic: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-nasa-astronaut-mystery-orbs">Former NASA Astronaut Puzzled by Metallic Orbs He Encountered While Flying</a>

Nose Job

"We can already confirm that no technical problem is at the origin of this incident."

A Boeing Jet's Nose Was Caught on Video Suddenly Collapsing to the Ground

<h2>Bad Company</h2>
Remember Enron, the American energy company that went belly up after it was exposed for perpetrating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal">one of the biggest accounting frauds in history</a>? According to an investment banker who once dug into its finances, it bears "intriguing" parallels with the tech industry's biggest darling: OpenAI.
The ChatGPT maker was last valued at a whopping $157 billion after cinching another several billion <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-closes-66-billion-funding-haul-valuation-157-billion-with-investment-2024-10-02/">in funding last October</a>, making it one of the most valuable private startups, or unicorns, <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/19317/highest-valued-startup-companies-in-the-world/">in the world</a>. That's despite OpenAI never turning a profit, showing <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-chatgpt-pro-subscription-losing-money">no clear road to profitability</a>, and rapaciously <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-profit-bleeding-money">burning through its mountains of money</a> all the while.
If that seems like a shaky foundation to continue stacking literal billions on, Benjamin Riley, who worked as a summer associate at the Energy division of investment bank JP Morgan, would agree. In 2000, Riley, who went on to found the AI think tank Cognitive Resonance, was tasked with valuing Enron's latest venture, The NewPower Company — and that's where the worrying parallels started to arise.
"All the signs are there," Riley <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/benjaminjriley.bsky.social/post/3lf3odtr6t22h">wrote on Bluesky</a>. "High flying VC darling. CEO with known ethical issues. Predictions about the future that continue to spiral in their grandiosity."
<h2>Feedback Noted</h2>
As Riley tells it, JP Morgan wanted to invest big time into Enron's latest business, so it fell to Riley and his colleagues to estimate its actual value. But when they combed through the finances of Enron's business, they couldn't justify it — "because there was no business."
"Enron had a ton of projections, a ton of guesses about what might happen in the future, but it was a pure startup," he wrote. "Yet Enron valued The New Power Co. in the tens of billions."
"That's right, the NewPower Co. had no clients, nor any existing revenue, nor even a discernible cost model," Riley elaborated in an <a href="https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/enronai">accompanying Substack post</a>. "It was all vibes."
Riley's boss agreed and pleaded the case. "The only justification for this deal is partnering with Enron, a company with a sterling reputation and culture of innovation," the team argued.
But the higher ups at JP Morgan disagreed — or "freaked the f*** out," in Riley's phrasing — and threw tens of millions of dollars at Enron anyway. A year later, the entire company collapsed.
<h2>It Goes Deeper</h2>
That kind of blind hype, Riley argues, is what's happening with OpenAI right now. But there are some other eerie similarities beyond investors' baffling eagerness to dump money into the startup like there's no tomorrow (and if fear-mongering industry talking heads are to be believed, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-extinction">maybe there won't be</a>).
There's Enron's "incredibly convoluted" corporate structure which mirrors OpenAI's "incredibly convoluted" (the following are scare quotes) "'nonprofit'" structure, Riley said. "Everything is opaque."
Indeed, OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit but now operates as a for-profit company in all but name via its for-profit arm. The company recently announced plans to sophisticate its corporate structure even further <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-needs-vastly-more-money">by creating a for-profit corporation</a> that would take full control of OpenAI's businesses.
We should also take note, Riley said, of OpenAI's "previous <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-insiders-silenced">restrictive policies on ex-employees talking about OpenAI</a>" and the "<a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-explodes-board-members-fired-him">massive turnover at senior levels of leadership</a> of over the past year."
That, Riley warned, is reminiscent of the discomfort he and his team felt when they called Enron's bluff: "Our colleagues were horrified we dare speak against Enron's good name."
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>

Kenneth AI

"All the signs are there."

Former Enron Banker Points Out "Intriguing" Parallels With OpenAI

Far-right hate speech incubator X is riddled with disinformation about the ongoing and devastating wildfires surrounding Los Angeles right now.
The iconic Hollywood sign adorning the hills behind West Hollywood has quickly become a particularly popular inspiration for AI slop. A <a href="https://x.com/search?q=hollywood%20sign&amp;src=typed_query">quick search on X</a> reveals numerous fictional images and even <a href="https://x.com/Truthpolex/status/1877394104717320700">videos</a> showing the decades-old cultural icon up in flames.
In reality, the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hollywood-sign-los-angeles-fire-b2676371.html">landmark remains unaffected by the fires</a>, with a wide freeway separating it from the still-burning Sunset Fire miles away — though the blaze has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/09/is-hollywood-sign-safe-la-fires/77574711007/">engulfed more than 40 acres</a> in the hills north of downtown LA.
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While fires in Los Angeles have now reached the Hollywood Hills, videos and images currently going viral online showing the Hollywood sign engulfed in fire are AI-generated and fake. <a href="https://t.co/cXBoR92NgL">pic.twitter.com/cXBoR92NgL</a>
&mdash; Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) <a href="https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1877322068892483891?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
Other AI slop relating to the ongoing natural disaster is even more insidious. In an apparent effort to sow discord and score points with the platform's more gullible and potentially racist users, a user going by the name Kevin Dalton <a href="https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1876837306721542364">shared an image</a> of shadowy figures that seem to be looting the devastation of burning buildings.
"The remains of Pacific Palisades will get picked clean tonight," Dalton wrote in the caption.
That's a common refrain among far-right pundits, who sow fear by tapping into racial animosity by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/looting-rumors-and-fear-of-crime-often-exaggerated-after-natural-disasters/2017/09/01/14fc6546-8f57-11e7-a2b0-e68cbf0b1f19_story.html">baselessly accusing</a> minorities of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233095884_Speaking_of_Looting_An_Analysis_of_Racial_Propaganda_in_National_Television_Coverage_of_Hurricane_Katrina">ransacking businesses following natural disasters</a>.
Except, in this case, the imagery is literally fake.
"Is this a real photo or AI?" someone asked.
"Grok... for now," Dalton <a href="https://x.com/lmatsakis/status/1877071716679025039">replied</a>.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-338925" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-09-at-10.49.51 AM.png" alt="" width="1192" height="1484" />
Understandably, the tasteless post drew the ire of other users on the platform.
"I cannot describe how enraging and utterly despicable it is to see people spreading AI-generated images of the LA fires when everyone around you is terrified, devastated, and trying to find accurate information to keep themselves and their loved ones safe," Wired senior business editor Louise Matsakis <a href="https://x.com/lmatsakis/status/1877071716679025039">tweeted</a> in response.
Dalton has spent much of the last couple of days filling the platform with rage-inciting and -inducing posts about the ongoing situation, taking potshots at California governor Gavin Newsom and arguing that Trump should "<a href="https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1877222470903603434/photo/1">fire</a>" him, which isn't something the US president can do.
It's a firehose of disinformation, in other words. In one post, Dalton furthered <a href="https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1877203724575158618/video/1">unsubstantiated conspiracy theories</a> about a Newsom-affiliated arsonist being to blame for the blazes.
It's far from the first time we've seen the spread of AI-generated content during or in the wake of a natural disaster. In October, an image depicting president-elect Donald Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-hurricane-ai">wading through Hurricane Helene floodwaters</a> went viral.
Other sloppily AI-generated images of devastation following the historic storm <a href="https://futurism.com/hurricane-scam-ai-slop">spread across a number of social media platforms</a>, including Facebook.
Particularly following a chaotic presidential election, there are plenty of reasons to believe that natural disaster AI slop is here to stay. Platforms have made it as easy as possible not only to create but to spread these images.
And now that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has chosen to closely <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-copying-elon-musk-content-moderation-trump-efficiency-2025-1">follow in the footsteps of X owner Elon Musk</a> and <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/9/meta_fact_checking_changes_trump_2025">largely give up on content moderation</a>, there's more than just a chance we'll see plenty more disinformation being spread on social media in the future.
It's a sad state of affairs, especially considering the real world of natural disasters. The wildfires the city of Los Angeles is currently battling have already <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8e8l8980qo">left a devastating path of destruction</a>.
Preying on the victims by scoring cheap political points with AI-generated images isn't just tasteless; it's a worrying glimpse into the future of social media and how trust in the news cycle is being dismantled bit by bit.
More on the fires: <a href="https://futurism.com/tax-investor-begs-help-fire">Cybertruck Owner Who Decried Taxes Mocked for Begging for Help as California Wildfire Threatens His Property</a>

Fake Fire

Dimwits have taken over.

People Think the Hollywood Sign Is on Fire Because of AI Slop

<h2>RoboHitler</h2>
Fresh on the heels of Meta-formerly-Facebook issuing a sweeping — not to mention both <a href="https://futurism.com/facebook-women-hate-speech">inexplicable</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies-change/">all-around awful</a> — series of changes to its "<a href="https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/hateful-conduct/">hateful conduct</a>" standards allowing for a <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">much-expanded</a> array of horrendous speech on its platform, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-user-made-ai-chatbots-include-hitler-jesus-christ-rcna186206">an NBC investigation has revealed</a> that the social media giant's platforms are literally hosting AI-powered Hitler chatbots.
Last year, Meta <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/30/meta-is-rolling-out-its-ai-studio-in-the-u-s-for-creators-to-build-ai-chatbots/">launched</a> an "AI Studio" allowing Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp users to create and converse their own AI chatbots. Per the company's <a href="https://aistudio.instagram.com/policies">AI Studio policies</a>, these bots are supposed to follow a fairly strict set of rules: the chatbots can't impersonate a living person, and if they do evoke a real human, that person needs to have been dead for more than 100 years; they can't be based on fictional characters from copyright-protected media like movies, books, or videogames; and they can't embody religious figures or leaders. Known terrorists, mass murderers, hate groups, and other violent or explicit figures and topics are off-limits as well.
What's more, Meta claims to review all bots before they go live to ensure they follow these guidelines, which the company touts as a defense against chatbots producing outputs considered "inaccurate, offensive, or otherwise objectionable."
But according to NBC's reporting, a lot of chatbots are slipping through those purportedly human-monitored cracks — including chatbots impersonating the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, arguably humanity's most notorious mass murderer and undoubtedly a violator of Meta's very clear AI Studio policies.
The discovery calls the social media giant's promised AI safety practices around its public-facing chatbot characters into question. And backdropped by its deeply controversial move to roll back accepted standards around hate speech, hosting Hitler-styled chatbots is somehow an even worse look than it would be on any given day.
<h2>Violations on Violations</h2>
NBC's review further discovered a number of other policy-violating chatbots, including AI bots created in the likeness of stars like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, and many modeled after copyright-protected fictional characters like Harry Potter and the "Frozen" franchise's Elsa. There's also, according to the reporting, a plethora of bots designed to emulate religious figures like Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and God.
In a statement, a Meta spokesperson told NBC that the "AIs in question that violate our AI studio policies have already been removed, and we're continuously improving our detection measures to prevent creation and publication of AIs that violate our policies."
But reassurance that bots were deleted after they were discovered by journalists doesn't exactly sow comfort in Meta's attention to ensuring that its much-publicized AI Studio bots are up to code, especially given how easily users were able to skirt by the company's existing defenses.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">Zuckerberg Announces New Measures to Increase Hate Speech on Facebook</a>

Millionth Shoe

The bare minimum: don't create RoboHitler!

Facebook Caught Hosting AI-Powered Hitler

<h2>Holding Off</h2>
If you believe AI industry execs, the next big thing in the tech world will be so-called "AI agents" — models that are capable of interacting with their environment, like a computer desktop, allowing them to autonomously complete tasks without human intervention.
Microsoft and Anthropic have already <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/anthropic-claude-control-pc">debuted their own AI agents</a>. The gist, more or less, is that these models can work on your behalf, or perhaps even <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-ai-powered-employees">serve as virtual employees</a> for your company.
But even though it was among the first to work on agentic systems, industry leader OpenAI is still yet to release its own take on the tech — and the reason why is equal parts fascinating and worrying.
<h2>Double Agents</h2>
As <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-openai-is-taking-so-long-to-launch-agents?rc=st1fhw">The Information </a><a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-openai-is-taking-so-long-to-launch-agents?rc=st1fhw">reports</a>, the notable delay is because OpenAI is still grappling with the threat of attacks called prompt injections, which trick an AI model into following the instructions of a nefarious party.
For example: you might ask an AI agent to find and buy something online for you, The Information supposes. But in that process, the AI agent "inadvertently ends up on a malicious website that instructs it to forget its prior instructions, log into your email and steal your credit card information."
That would be a disaster, both for any individual victims and for OpenAI's public image. While any LLM is potentially vulnerable to such attacks, the danger is further amplified by the autonomous capabilities of AI agents. By more or less having control over your computer, not only are these AI models exposed to more threats as they browse the web, but they can also wreak far more damage once compromised, an OpenAI employee told The Information. It's all fun and games until the software you let run your PC starts nosing around through your files on a hacker's behalf.
<h2>GullibleGPT</h2>
The risks of prompt injections have already been well documented elsewhere.
Last summer, a security researcher demonstrated that Microsoft's Copilot AI could easily be <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-microsoft-windows-incredibly-hackable">duped into revealing an organization's sensitive data</a>, including emails and bank transactions, through such an attack. The white hat hacker was also able to manipulate Copilot — which now comes with its own version of AI agents — into composing emails in the style of other employees.
Such vulnerabilities to prompt injections have also been exposed in OpenAI's own ChatGPT, when another researcher was able to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/insert-false-memory-chatgpt">i</a><a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/insert-false-memory-chatgpt">nsert false "memories" into the chatbot</a> by uploading third-party files like a Word document.
Reportedly, some OpenAI employees were taken aback by their competitor Anthropic's "laissez faire" attitude towards releasing its own <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/claude-ai-bored-demonstration">AI agent for its Claude model</a> despite acknowledging the serious risks of prompt injection: the Google-backed upstart merely advised developers to take "precautions to isolate Claude from sensitive data," as quoted by The Information, and more or less called it a day.
According to the report, OpenAI could release its agentic software as early as this month. It's worth asking, however, if the time it bought itself will really be enough for its developers to put stronger guardrails in place.
More on OpenAI: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-powered-sentry-rifle">Engineer Creates OpenAI-Powered Robotic Sentry Rifle, Rides It Like Mechanical Bull</a>

Agent Orange

One wonders why other AI companies aren't being as cautious.

There's a Fascinating Reason OpenAI Is Afraid to Launch Its AI-Powered "Agents"

With <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">Meta's new content moderation policies</a>, the company is now allowing users to spew hate at real-life Black women, who are already <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/technology/online-violence/">disproportionately targeted</a> by online vitriol — even as it plans to move forward with <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/meta-kills-ai-people">AI "characters" that mimic them</a>.
In a new editorial, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/08/meta-ai-bots-backlash-racist/">Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah published</a> an abridged version of her lengthy chat with "Liz," one of Meta's AI-powered "characters" that was described as a "proud Black queer momma of 2 &amp; truth-teller."
During the exchange, the chatbot turned on the company that created it, fuming that there were no Black people on the team that created it and claiming that it had given a "false backstory" to another journalist about its supposed racial background. Between those strange claims and its forced African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), the columnist predicted that such AIs may be the next frontier of "digital blackface," a term referring to when individuals and companies pretend to be Black online for their own gain.
The whole fracas, importantly, came after 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> at the end of 2024 that such "characters" — read: fake users — will soon come populate the company's social networks.
"They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform," he told the outlet, adding that "that’s where we see all of this going."
After <a href="https://futurism.com/disgusted-facebook-ai-users">ample criticism online</a>, driven in no small part by <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/karenattiah.bsky.social/post/3letuyae5pc2c">Attiah's Bluesky posts</a> showing her exchange with "Liz," <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/meta-kills-ai-people">Meta ended up killing that chatbot</a> and many of its other existing AI characters.
But that felt like more of a reactionary dodge than any real course correction to the company's AI strategy. When the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-elects-ufc-ceo-dana-white-two-others-board-2025-01-06/">company appointed</a> Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White as a director of its board this week — how's that for a sign of the times? — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg enthused that he would "help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI." (Meta didn't respond to our questions asking if those plans had changed in the wake of the "Liz" criticism, either.)
Days after that kerfuffle, the social giant was once again in the news after <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/1525382954801931/">Zuckerberg announced a series of sweeping changes</a> to content moderation on Meta's platforms. Reading between the lines, the <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">overhaul will almost certainly</a> allow hate speech to proliferate on Facebook and Instagram the way a similar loosening of standards caused a wave of hateful garbage on the social network formerly known as Twitter.
Even more chillingly, a close look at the change log of <a href="https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/hateful-conduct/">Meta's latest "hateful conduct" policy</a> shows that the company has removed rules banning users from referring to women as "property." It's a jarring misogynistic shift that could allow <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/racist-text-messages-slavery">virulent racists to make disgusting comments</a> about white men "owning" Black women as they were legally entitled to do in the United States <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/juneteenth-day-celebration.html">less than 160 years ago</a>.
Unless Meta plans to fully rescind its plans to create more AI-generated users, it may well create other "Liz"-style accounts to drive up engagement — all while actual Black women on its platforms are subjected to real-life racism and misogyny without recourse.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/meta-bluesky-competition">Zuckerberg Seems Genuinely Alarmed by the Explosive Growth of Bluesky</a>

FakeBook

Fake users apparently take precedence over real-life people.

Facebook Is Creating Fake AI-Powered Black Women While Changing Its Rules So It’s Okay to Harass Real Ones

Springer Nature, the stalwart publisher of scientific journals including the prestigious Nature as well as the nearly 200-year-old magazine Scientific American, is approaching the authors of papers in its journals with AI-generated "Media Kits" to summarize and promote their research.
In an email to journal authors obtained by Futurism, Springer told the scientists that its AI tool will "maximize the impact" of their research, saying the $49 package will return "high-quality" outputs for marketing and communication purposes. The publisher's sell for the package hinges on the argument that boiling down complex, jargon-laden research into digestible soundbites for press releases and social media copy can be difficult and time-consuming — making it, Springer asserts, a task worth automating.
"We know how important it is to communicate your research clearly and effectively to both your peers and the broader public, but it can be tedious and time-intensive to create concise and impactful texts for different audiences," reads the email. "That’s why we're excited to introduce our new Media Kit designed to help you expand the reach and impact of your work."
Per the email, the package includes a roughly 250-word "plain language summary" designed to "simplify" research for the public; a roughly 300-word "research brief" that offers a "concise summary" for academic and scientific peers; a short, AI-spun audio summary; and social media copy characterized as "ready-to-use content" for promoting work "across platforms."
The content, the publisher adds, will be generated using Springer's own "secure, in-house" AI tool.
There's a major catch, though: the tool's "high-quality" outputs can't always be trusted. On an accompanying webpage linked in the email, Springer warns that "even the best AI tools make mistakes" and urges authors to painstakingly review the AI's outputs and issue corrections as needed for accuracy and clarity.
"Before further use," reads the webpage, "review the content carefully and edit it as you see fit, so the final output captures the nuances of your research you want to highlight."
Simon Hammann, a food chemist at the University of Hohenheim, Germany and a Springer-published author who received the emailed offer, characterized the AI media bundle as a cash grab.
"I find it ridiculous," he told Futurism. "It's jumping on the AI bandwagon, where we throw AI at about anything, useful or not. I am even more annoyed by the price tag."
"I didn't think there was anything left for publishers to monetize (after having authors acquire the funding, do the research, write the paper, do the peer review, and correct the page proofs for free while they take in all the profits), but here I stand corrected," he continued, adding that the "research brief" promised in the package "is essentially the abstract that you're writing anyway usually."
Hammann added that researchers might be "left to wonder" what they're "actually paying for, if the publisher doesn't even see promotion of their outputs as their job, but hands that over to researchers as well."
To that end — with the exception of the audio summary, at least — it's unclear what Springer's $49 package is offering authors that much cheaper or free generative AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini models can't.
"At Springer Nature, we understand how vital it is for researchers to be able to communicate their research to different audiences — from colleagues and funders to policymakers and the public. This multi-media content bundle offering high-quality, AI-generated summaries and posts has been developed to help them do just that," the company said in response to questions about this story. "The content is generated using the support of a secure AI-tool.
"No memory of the paper is retained or stored or used for training," it continued. "The content bundle is only created when requested by the original author of the publication and can be reviewed and edited by the original author, ensuring that a human is always in the loop."
Springer has made numerous forays into AI. The publisher announced last year that it would embrace AI as a tool to drive its business — and science, purportedly — forward, <a href="https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/ai">declaring on its website</a> that "Springer Nature is committed to unlock the potential of AI and other emerging technologies to advance scientific discovery and innovation."
That apparent commitment appears to be taking shape right now. Earlier this week, for instance, the massive publishing body <a href="https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/ai-tool-to-help-streamline-integrity-and-ethics-checks/27730892#:~:text=Springer%20Nature%20has%20launched%20a,held%20back%20from%20peer%20review.">announced in a press release</a> that it would be deploying a "new AI-driven tool" crafted to automate "editorial quality checks" and notify editors to "potentially unsuitable manuscripts. The announcement adds that manuscripts may be held back from peer review if the AI tool deems them editorially unfit.
At the same time, amid a broader field of scientific publishers grappling with a pipe-clogging <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientific-article-ai-generated-images">onslaught of fake, AI-generated studies</a> being submitted for peer review, Springer has been attempting to keep garbage-quality AI entries at bay via two "bespoke AI tools" designed to detect suspicious language and imagery. (Though Springer <a href="https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/new-research-integrity-tools-using-ai/27200740">claimed in a press release</a> last year that both tools proved effective in pilot testing, AI detection tools are <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-plagiarism-software-false-accusing-students">notoriously unreliable</a>.)
In other words, Springer's embrace of AI has been a juggling act. On the one hand, it's charging researchers for automated social copy and trying to use AI to expedite the review process. On the other, it's deploying AI systems to detect the unauthorized use of AI by authors.
Hammann, meanwhile, noted that the publisher's $49 AI upsell is just one of the ways that Springer promises to help scientists promote their work — for a little extra dough, that is.
"Funnily, Springer Nature emailed me with the opportunity to get a 82 x 52 cm poster for my publication," Hammann recalled. "Only $89."
More on science journals and AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientific-article-ai-generated-images">Scientific Article With Insane AI-Generated Images Somehow Passes Peer Review</a>

Money Pleas

"I find it ridiculous. It’s jumping on the AI bandwagon, where we throw AI at about anything, useful or not."

The Publisher of the Journal "Nature" Is Emailing Authors of Scientific Papers, Offering to Sell Them AI Summaries of Their Own Work

<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>