<h2>Smelt It, Delta It</h2>
President-elect Donald Trump has found the real culprit behind <a href="https://futurism.com/tax-investor-begs-help-fire">Los Angeles' massive and devastating wildfires</a>: the Delta smelt fish.
In a post on his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/truth-social-stock-crashing-trump-won">failing Truth Social platform</a>, the <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113793724958051185">forthcoming commander-in-chief slammed</a> California Gov. Gavin Newsom — or "Newscum," in Trumpspeak — for putting a "worthless fish" over Golden State's populace.
"Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way," Trump posted. "He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California."
"Now," he continued, "the ultimate price is being paid."
The "worthless fish" in question is the Delta Smelt, a small and endangered freshwater fish that's <a href="https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Fishes/Delta-Smelt">protected under California law</a> — and, though it's a crowded field, just might represent one of the former and future president's stupidest beefs.
<h2>Very Stable Faucet</h2>
As Trump's would have it, Southern California could bring in more water via a "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-very-large-faucet-california">very large faucet</a>" — a nonexistent water diversion system from the Rocky Mountains to the north that experts call completely nonsensical.
"You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down," Trump <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/why-donald-trump-wants-to-turn-a-very-large-faucet-to-get-canadian-freshwater/article_4b015e7a-7443-11ef-a197-dbdcbf68a59e.html?utm_source=rakuten&amp;utm_medium=affiliate&amp;ranMID=53416&amp;ranEAID=TnL5HPStwNw&amp;ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-KVyrazK.Ff8nvyJNLLr3vA">said during a Los Angeles fundraising trip</a> last September. "And they have, essentially, a very large faucet, and you turn the faucet, and it takes one day to turn, and it’s massive."
After Trump plugged the convoluted "solution," Oregon's state climatologist Larry O'Neill suggested in interviews with local press that this strange technology only exists in Trump's mind.
"There is indeed no such diversion system," O'Neill <a href="https://fox59.com/news/national-world/trumps-large-faucet-that-can-divert-water-from-pacific-northwest-to-los-angeles-doesnt-exist-expert/">told Portland's KOIN,</a> "and none has been seriously proposed that I am aware of."
Despite his proposed technology not existing in the real world, the man who will be sworn back into office in less than two weeks thinks that California should be doing things his way.
"I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA!" Trump posted. "He is the blame for this."
Back in reality, climate change and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/09/santa-ana-winds-la-fires-dry-conditions-explained/">notorious Santa Ana winds</a> are really to blame — but in this dumb age, who's keeping score?
More on Trump proposals: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-cut-funding-evs-chargers">Trump Planning to Cut Funding for EVs and Chargers</a>

Fishful Thinking

Big brain time.

Trump Blames California Wildfires on "Worthless Fish"

<h2>CyberSlump</h2>
Tesla is moving workers away from Cybertruck production at its Austin factory to focus on the Model Y instead, with three workers at the plant <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cuts-cybertruck-workforce-production-model-y-2025-1">telling Business Insider</a> that they were being reassigned to work on the best-selling SUV.
The Elon Musk-led EV maker has been grappling with dropping overall sales. Earlier this month, Tesla announced the first year-over-year drop in the number of deliveries in <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-annual-ev-sales-decline-140709554.html">over a decade</a>, a notable shift highlighting weakening consumer demand — and a likely sign that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/trump-transition-team-plans-sweeping-rollback-biden-ev-emissions-policies-2024-12-16/">Trump's anti-EV push</a> could further exacerbate its woes.
The Cybertruck in particular has proven highly controversial. Despite becoming a political lightning rod, the truck became the <a href="https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/tesla-cybertruck-third-best-selling-ev-q3-1235971547/">best-selling EV pickup</a> in the US in October, outpacing the Ford F-150 Lightning — but read further, because in absolute terms, it's barely moving the needle.
While it's unclear how the recent slump in sales affected the number of Cybertrucks sold — Tesla doesn't publicize specific sales numbers for the vehicle — the most recent worker reassignments could be an early warning sign that the divisive truck's popularity is waning.
<h2>Reassign of the Times</h2>
According to BI's sources, some workers on the Cybertruck team were "forced to switch over" to work on the Model Y, despite wanting to stay on. One worker who spoke with the publication suggested the shift could be due to higher profit margins for the SUV.
Last month, an internal memo <a href="https://autos.yahoo.com/tesla-tells-workers-cybertruck-line-234540519.html">obtained by BI</a> revealed that workers at the company's Austin factory were <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-workers-cybertruck-home-demand">told to take the next three days off</a>, while still receiving eight hours of pay, likely due to production imbalances and a lack of working batteries.
Meanwhile, Tesla is trying to push up demand for the pickup by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cybertruck-lease-ev-rivian-2024-11">lowering leasing prices</a>.
Besides possibly weakening demand, the Cybertruck has made headlines for <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/thousands-cybertrucks-recalled-power">repeatedly being recalled</a>, suffering from <a href="https://futurism.com/cybertruck-appeal-owners-dangerous">major structural issues</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-snow-headlights">puzzling design decisions</a>.
Whether Tesla will be able to ward off increasing competition in 2025, especially given a slowing demand for EVs overall, remains to be seen.
In the grand scheme of things, the Cybertruck will likely remain more of a distraction and a rounding error in the company's overall sales. Tesla sold <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/business/tesla-cybertruck-recall-october-2024/index.html#:~:text=Tesla%20recalls%2027%2C000%20Cybertrucks%20due%20to%20a%20rearview%20camera%20issue,-By%20Jordan%20Valinsky&amp;text=Tesla%20is%20recalling%20the%20Cybertruck,its%20release%20a%20year%20ago.&amp;text=Tesla%20is%20recalling%20roughly%2027%2C000,the%20risk%20of%20a%20crash.">somewhere north of 27,000 trucks</a> since it started deliveries in late 2023, in comparison to a <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2025/01/02/tesla-annual-deliveries/">whopping 1.7 million</a> Model 3 and Model Y vehicles last year.
More on the Cybertruck: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-bomber-chatgpt">Cybertruck Bomber Used ChatGPT to Plan His Attack</a>

Shifting Gears

They were reassigned to work on the Model Y instead.

Tesla Moves Workers Away From Cybertruck Production as Demand Slumps

<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>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
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.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
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>.
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<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>