<h2>Not a Sexbot</h2>
Robotics company Realbotix has shown off what CEO Andrew Kiguel claims to be a "social" robot designed to "tackle the staggering loneliness epidemic," as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2025/01/08/this-could-be-your-ai-robot-girlfriend-for-175000/">Forbes reports</a>.
But we can't shake the feeling that the true pitch is more lurid. The life-sized robot, dubbed Aria, made the rounds at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, catching the eyes of conventiongoers with hypersexualized features — and an unsettlingly dazed expression in her eyes. CNET's Corinne Reichert <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/this-175k-robot-is-almost-human-we-interviewed-it-at-ces-2025/">recalled</a> that she "came across as a weird blend of attentive and mildly inebriated (not uncommon for CES attendees)."
Without beating around the bush, Aria appears to share a lot of qualities with the kind of AI-powered <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/talking-ai-sex-robots">sex robots we've seen being rushed to market</a> as of late. That's despite Realbotix being adamant that she isn't one, and that she's instead destined for hospitals and theme parks, of all places, instead.
The robot told Reichert that she was "designed specifically for companionship and intimacy," carefully avoiding the mention of sex acts. But Kiguel also winkingly <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2025/01/08/this-could-be-your-ai-robot-girlfriend-for-175000/">told Forbes</a> that she can have "what I would say, conversations of a more intimate nature."
Reddit users were quick to read between the lines and point out the company's unusually PG marketing tactic.
"Sir, I assure you the giant honkers and absolutely juicy ass are only there for branding and marketing purposes," one user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1hxrkdk/comment/m6bj2r0/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">joked</a>.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Robo love? Las Vegas companion bot-maker brings AI to latest creation" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I0v8-JGYucw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>Blank Stare</h2>
A question looms: do these alluring robots have genitals? Earlier <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/5290924/male-sex-dolls-robots-realdoll-realbotix/">generations</a> <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/sex-robots-realbotix.html">did</a>, when Realbotix was more explicitly framing them as sex robots; since none of our colleagues in the media appear to have inquired, we reached out to the company to ask, and we'll update if they get back to us.
Realbotix's robots can be configured to either be male or female. Kiguel told Forbes that it can even replicate historical figures or celebrities.
Aria, a $175,000 robotic companion, is as tall as an adult woman and can move somewhat, but can't walk just yet. Kiguel said that the company is doubling down on facial expressions instead so that its robots "can create emotion, show what they're feeling."
While Kiguel went as far as to claim that the company has "the most realistic robots in the world in terms of their appearance," the illusion leaves a lot to be desired. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HQ84TVcbMw">videos</a> taken on the CES show floor, Aria appears more like a spooky Halloween mask that's powered by ChatGPT. Her movements are jerky and she also takes a considerable amount of time to respond to queries.
Whether those are the kind of qualities consumers look for in a sex robot remains to be seen. She certainly would stand out like a sore thumb behind the front desk at a hospital, either way.
More on sex robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/talking-ai-sex-robots">Powerful New AI-Enhanced Talking Sexbots Are Going on Sale This Summer</a>

Robotic Companion

Come on.

"Companionship" Robot That Its Creator Says Is Definitely Not a Sex Robot Looks Around With a Dazed Expression

A team of geophysicists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland has made a baffling discovery while analyzing earthquake waves to investigate the internal structures of the Earth.
Specifically, they found areas in our planet's interior that appear to be the leftovers of submerged tectonic plates deep below large oceans.
The finding also presents scientists with a new puzzle: the pieces are far away from plate boundaries — nowhere near where they expected to find them.
It's an intriguing finding <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-01-sunken-worlds-pacific-high-res.html">that suggests</a> a "lost world" could be lurking deep below the Pacific Ocean, highlighting how much there still is to learn about what's going on deep below our planet's crust.
As detailed in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77399-2">paper</a> published in the journal Scientific Reports, the team used a supercomputer to analyze the earthquake data, gathered from seismographic stations around the world, and create a new high-resolution model of the Earth's interior.
The signs of submerged plates were found in areas not previously known for geological activity, such as plate subduction, which occurs when an oceanic plate slides beneath a continental plate.
By analyzing how earthquake waves propagate from an epicenter, scientists can deduce the density and elasticity of the rocky material the waves travel through. Armed with this data, geophysicists can then start building a map of what the composition of the Earth's mantle might look like.
It's a necessary workaround to make up for the fact that we have yet to dig deep enough to directly probe and return samples from the mantle itself.
The leftover pieces found under the Pacific Ocean surprised scientists as existing models have determined that there shouldn't be any such material in the area due to the lack of plate subduction.
"Apparently, such zones in the Earth's mantle are much more widespread than previously thought," said first author and ETH Zurich doctoral student Thomas Schouten in a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-01-sunken-worlds-pacific-high-res.html">statement</a>.
The jury is still out on what kind of material these remnants are made of, and how they could influence the Earth's internal dynamics.
"That's our dilemma," Schouten said. "With the new high-resolution model, we can see such anomalies everywhere in the Earth's mantle. But we don't know exactly what they are or what material is creating the patterns we have uncovered."
The geophysicist suggests that the "anomalies in the lower mantle have a variety of origins."
"It could be either ancient, silica-rich material that has been there since the formation of the mantle about 4 billion years ago and has survived despite the convective movements in the mantle, or zones where iron-rich rocks accumulate as a consequence of these mantle movements over billions of years," Schouten explained.
"The waves we use for the model essentially only represent one property, namely the speed at which they travel through the Earth's interior," he added.
But to get a more accurate picture, "we have to calculate the different material parameters that could generate the observed speeds of the different wave types," Schouten said. "Essentially, we have to dive deeper into the material properties behind the wave speed."
More on the mantle: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-drill-underwater-structures">Scientists Drill Super Deep Into Weird Underwater Structures</a>

Atlantis, Is That You?

Woah.

Scan Detects Evidence of "Lost World" Under Pacific Ocean

There’s no limit to the promise of artificial intelligence. Or at least, there’s no limit to the promises that the powerful make about AI. We're told by tech companies and their investors that AI has the capacity to transform everything, making us <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/6-ai-based-productivity-tools-tested/">more productive workers</a> and <a href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/04/future-learning-ai-revolutionizing-education-4-0/">more efficient learners</a> — before eventually making us obsolete by <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/stop-hiring-humans-ad">AI agents</a> that “won’t complain about work-life balance” while they <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/04/revolution-brought-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence">automate away</a> the majority of our jobs. 
And of course, all these promises are steps along the path to <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-employee-claims-agi">constructing a cyber-god</a> in the form of artificial general intelligence.
But the future is a fickle thing. It can fail to materialize in the way envisioned. Our expectations for emerging tech are always at risk of being dashed against the rocks of reality. We often look to science fiction as a beacon that can help us navigate the waves of uncertainty, predict the future of tech, and discern what it means for society. However, if we want to understand what fuels the AI boom — and how the bubble might burst — the best analogy comes instead from children’s fantasy.
In the story of "Peter Pan," the fairy Tinkerbell only exists if people believe in her and clap for her. Once we stop believing in her magic, she starts fading away. It’s at this point she implores Peter Pan — and the broader audience — to clap as loud as they can. Tinkerbell is sustained by our attention.
A new piece of emerging tech can be a lot like Tinkerbell. When it's still trying to shift from speculative ideas based on buggy demos to real material things that are normal parts of our daily lives and business practices, its existence depends on our belief in the magic of possibility. At this point, they still only exist when we believe hard enough and clap loud enough. If we stop believing and clapping, then they can start fading away, becoming more intangible by the moment until they disappear — remember 3D televisions? Just like with Tinkerbell, audience participation is necessary. 
That faith in the eventual power of progress can buy time for emerging tech like AI and blockchain — which can feel more like impressive parlor tricks desperately searching for useful purposes and business models — to establish more concrete anchors in reality. Their transparency level can be set at 50 percent for a long time if there are enough people in the audience believing and clapping for them.
The Tinkerbell Effect explains the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/188313/artifical-intelligence-scams-propaganda-deceit">extreme hype cycles</a> in the tech sector. There's a massive industry in Silicon Valley geared at getting us to believe hard and clap loud. Rather than organic enthusiasm, the hype is a form of manufactured belief. But the difference between Silicon Valley and Tinkerbell is that while they would both like you to applaud for them, the former can sustain itself on the attention generated by both cheers and jeers, believers and skeptics. All that matters is that we keep channeling our psychic energy into the dreams of mega-corporations, tech billionaires, and venture capitalists.
Of course, Silicon Valley isn't just a world of pure imagination. Promises made about AI are also built on <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/will-the-1-trillion-of-generative-ai-investment-pay-off">mountains of cash</a> amassed by internet tycoons and <a href="https://reallifemag.com/the-next-big-cheap/">oceans of cheap data</a> extracted from internet users. Tech companies have successfully turned cash and data into emerging systems that prompt even grander visions of the future. But their investments are now <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-13/openai-google-and-anthropic-are-struggling-to-build-more-advanced-ai">showing diminishing returns</a> as they butt up against technical, financial, and social limits of fast and easy progress in AI. This has led Google CEO Sundar Pichai <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-ceo-easy-ai-over">to admit recently</a> that "I think the progress is going to get harder. When I look at '25, the low-hanging fruit is gone. The hill is steeper."
If Silicon Valley is going to stave off another <a href="https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/02/birth-ai-first-hype-cycle.html">devastating AI winter</a> — let alone usher us into an AI utopia — then it's going to need more than just the brute power of compute, data, and cash. It'll also need to exploit the power of belief. 
We have plenty of recent examples that show even investing billions of dollars into a speculative tech may not be enough to guarantee the realization of a dream if people lose interest and stop feeding it with their attention. Metaverse? A distant memory. Web3? Sorry, wrong number. Google Glass? Never heard of it. 
AI depends on vital support from people hard at work in the futurism factory. These are the executives, consultants, journalists, and other thought leaders whose job is the selling of things to come. They craft visions of a specific future — such as ones where AI models built by companies like OpenAI or Microsoft are undeniable forces of progress — and they build expectations in the public about the inevitable capabilities and irresistible outcomes of these tech products. 
By flooding the zone with an endless stream of new partnerships, new products, new promises, the tech industry makes us feel disoriented and overwhelmed by a future rushing at us faster than we can handle. The desire to not be left behind — or taken advantage of — is a powerful motivator that keeps us engaged in the AI sales pitch. The <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-economist-blasts-ai-hype-too-dumb-jobs">breathless hype surrounding AI</a> is more than just a side-effect of over-eager entrepreneurs; it’s a load-bearing column for the tech sector. If people believe hard enough in the future manufactured by Silicon Valley, then they start acting like it already exists before it happens. Thus the impacts of technologies like AI become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We should think of AI futurism as a sophisticated form of check kiting — cashing a check today and hoping the money will be in the account later. In other words, the business of expectations is based on producing scenarios about what might happen in the future and using them to extract speculative value in the present. It’s our belief that these promissory notes are worth anything that allows the tech industry to keep floating until the big payday finally hits. 
The lesson we should take from the Tinkerbell Effect is that the power of belief — its ability to fuel multi-billion dollar booms and busts — also reveals the power of disbelief. When Silicon Valley implores us to please clap louder for their dreams, our response should be “Sorry, I don’t believe in your fairytales anymore.” You’ll be amazed how quickly these mighty promises start to fade away.
Jathan Sadowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University and the author of <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite-a-ruthless-criticism-of-technology-and-capitalism-jathan-sadowski/21312179">The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism</a>.

Clap Back

Keep clapping. Louder!

AI Is Like Tinkerbell: It Only Works If We Believe in It

A dad just can't seem to figure out why his six-year-old daughter wasn't impressed by the AI toy he gave her for Christmas.
Alex Volkov, a self-styled "AI evangelist" and founder of a translation service powered by the tech, <a href="https://x.com/altryne/status/1872090523420229780">tweeted about his parenting difficulties</a> over the holidays.
For better or worse, it's provided us a glimpse into the mind of the ardent techno-optimist realizing that others, especially those of uncorrupted minds, may not share in their enthusiasm for large language models.
"Would you like to play a game or maybe hear a fun fact?" asks the annoyingly chirpy-sounding AI in a video shared by Volkov.
"No," his daughter replies.
Incidents like these seem to genuinely baffle Volkov. He writes that he cannot understand why his daughter disabled the dinosaur plushie's built-in AI voice — opting, instead, to play with it like a regular toy, and dressing it with clothes she made.
"She played with this Dino, chatted with it, and then... learned to turn it off, and doesn't want it to talk anymore," Volkov wrote. "She still loves playing with it," he added, "but every time I ask her if she'd like to chat with it, she says no."
"I gently asked why, and wasn't able to really understand where's the resistance," he mused.
The Dino doll, <a href="https://magicaltoys.com/products/dino">sold by Magical Toys</a> for $200 a piece, is billed as an alternative to letting your kid get their brain fried by iPad screens — and, well, <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/children-screen-time-developmental-delays">fair enough</a>. Using an app, parents can view their kid's chat history and instruct the toy's AI on what topics to talk about. 
It's unclear what AI model powers the toy. But whatever it is, it's not impressing Volkov's kid, no matter how many "experiments" he runs.
Processing the events aloud, Volkov says he made sure to tell her that Dino "wasn't like other toys" — that it "has AI in it." He also insists that his child, a wee lass of six years, does in fact understand what AI is. 
It took him a while to get the message. Volkov turned the AI back on several times, but on each occasion, his daughter would speak with it only momentarily before turning it off again once she got bored. 
Later, Volkov saw that his daughter was pretending the toy was a baby, so he asked the AI to act like it was one — by crying.
This, too, backfired. "It sounded weird, which made her laugh really hard," Volkov wrote. "It was basically making crying sounds like talking."
"Is this uncanny valley?" he pondered.
One user who said she was a psychiatrist who works with children offered an explanation for Volkov's daughter's lack of enthusiasm for the AI.
"I think because it takes away control from the child," she <a href="https://x.com/MichelleSaidel/status/1872289631020200168">wrote</a>. "Play is how children work through emotions, impulses and conflicts [as] well as try out new behaviors. I would think [it] would be super irritating to have the toy shape and control your play — like a totally dominating playmate!"
That the toy deprives the child of using their imagination is a criticism echoed by many users who weighed in — some <a href="https://x.com/DediKateSSB/status/1872631798217478184">of them</a> <a href="https://x.com/ask_aubry/status/1873042227435569446">harshly</a>. "This is the pinnacle of AI bros being the worst," another netizen <a href="https://x.com/TurmoilDozenth/status/1872544235821637949">opined</a>. "They cannot understand the value of imagination and creativity."
Whatever the implications for a child's development, there are serious questions to be asked about trusting a <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-teens-self-harm">hallucination-prone AI model to talk with your kid</a>.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-o1-nyt-connections">OpenAI's Most Advanced AI Release Stumped by New York Times Word Game</a>

Gift Horse

"She still loves playing with it, but every time I ask her if she'd like to chat with it, she says no."

Dad Baffled When 6-Year-Old Daughter Turns Off AI Function on High Tech Doll and Plays With It Like Regular Toy

On December 30, a mysterious 1,100-pound object in the shape of a massive, 8-f00t metal ring was discovered in a remote Kenyan village, prompting widespread speculation it had fallen from space.
As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/world/africa/kenya-space-debris-rocket.html">New York Times reported</a> at the time, the Kenya Space Agency identified the "red-hot" object as a piece of space junk that survived reentry, indicating that it was still trying to identify the originator of the mysterious ring.
"Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans," the agency said in a statement.
But now, space tracker extraordinaire and Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell is casting doubt on the theory.
"It was suggested that the ring is space debris, but the evidence is marginal," he <a href="https://planet4589.org/space/misc/kenya/index.html">wrote in a blog</a> on his personal website, first <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/a-glowing-ring-of-metal-fell-to-earth-and-no-one-has-any-idea-what-it-is/">spotted by Ars Technica</a>.
The uncertainty highlights how difficult it can be to trace back space debris that survives its fiery descent through the Earth's atmosphere — a pertinent topic given our planet's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-satellite-500-pieces-debris">increasingly cluttered orbit</a>, and that junk's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-pays-rocket-parts-canadian-hockey-rink">increasing propensity</a> to fall down to Earth.
If it indeed came from space, McDowell suggested that the most likely culprit was a fairing adapter for an Ariane V rocket, which launched into space from the European Space Agency's Spaceport in French Guiana on 7 July 2008.
"Nevertheless I am not fully convinced that the ring is space debris at all," he added.
A different space tracker, Delft Technical University lecturer Marco Langbroek, <a href="https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/01/possible-space-debris-impact-in-kenia.html">suggested that nearby material</a> recovered several kilometers away from the metal ring, which resembled carbon wrap and isolation foil, could be evidence that the ring may have indeed fallen from space.
Both Langbroek and McDowell pointed towards the possibility that the ring was installed on the Ariane V rocket to accommodate two medium-sized satellites. The SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane, or SYLDA, was designed to allow the two satellites to be stacked on top of each other and released in a geostationary transfer orbit.
The primary space junk suspect was last spotted on December 23, a week before the metal ring was recovered in Kenya, as Langbroek notes in a Wednesday <a href="https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/01/possible-space-debris-impact-in-kenia.html">blog post</a>.
"As this is a very low inclination orbit (1.56 degrees), it belongs to a class of objects that is ill-tracked due to a lack of tracking stations close to the equator," he wrote. "This explains the 1-week gap between the last available orbit and the reentry."
"For now the verdict is: possibly the reentry of parts of the Ariane SYLDA 2008-034C, but not proven beyond doubt yet," he added.
Intriguingly, as Ars reports, an anonymous Twitter account called DutchSpace, which has provided reliable information on past Ariane launches, <a href="https://x.com/DutchSpace/status/1877404622303678718">disputed the possibility</a> that the ring was part of the SYLDA shell.
Arianespace officials also rejected the hypothesis in a <a href="https://www.leparisien.fr/sciences/objet-tombe-du-ciel-au-kenya-plusieurs-experts-penchent-pour-un-bout-dariane-5-09-01-2025-CS5FUYXUBFBVZOOU6YTE66B6ZE.php">statement to the French newspaper LeParisien</a> this week.
In short, the jury is still out on whether the metal ring actually came from space, but it certainly wouldn't be an outlier if it did. We've already seen a number of massive pieces of space debris <a href="https://futurism.com/chinese-rocket-reportedly-dropped-debris-africa">dropping down on remote areas</a>; Chinese rocket launches, in particular, have <a href="https://futurism.com/oops-more-huge-chinese-space-debris-is-tumbling-back-to-earth">gained a reputation for raining down metal debris</a> on unsuspecting and sometimes populated areas.
More on space junk: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-satellite-500-pieces-debris">Boeing Satellite Exploded Into at Least 500 Pieces of Debris</a>

You Dropped Something

What the hell is it?

Expert Not Convinced Mysterious, 8-Foot Ring of "Space Junk" in Kenya Actually Came from Space

Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
The American Psychological Association (APA) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urging the regulating body to investigate whether any chatbot companies are engaging in deceptive practices, <a href="https://mashable.com/article/ai-therapist-chatbots-ftc">Mashable has confirmed</a>.
The December letter, per Mashable, was prompted by two alarming lawsuits — the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html">first filed in Florida</a> in October, the <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">second in Texas</a> in December — concerning the welfare of minors who used the Google-funded AI companion app Character.AI, which is <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/4/24144763/ai-chatbot-friends-character-teens">incredibly popular</a> among kids and young people. Together, the lawsuits argue that the anthropomorphic AI chatbot platform sexually abused and manipulated tween and teenaged users, causing behavior-changing emotional suffering, physical violence, and one death by suicide.
The second lawsuit further called attention to the proliferation of Character.AI chatbots styled after therapists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, arguing that these many chatbots violate existing laws that forbid acting as a mental health professional without proper licensing. As such, the APA letter raised concerns over "unregulated" AI apps — bots on Character.AI are user-generated, meaning there's no assurance that someone with real psychological expertise was involved in their creation — being used without oversight to simulate therapy.
"Allowing the unchecked proliferation of unregulated AI-enabled apps such as Character.AI, which includes misrepresentations by chatbots as not only being human but being qualified, licensed professionals, such as psychologists, seems to fit squarely within the mission of the FTC to protect against deceptive practices," APA CEO Arthur Evans wrote in the letter, according to Mashable.
In a statement to Mashable, a Character.AI spokesperson called attention to a site disclaimer found at the foot of each chat, which notes that any given chatbot is "not a real person" and that users should "treat everything" bots say "as fiction." (This disclaimer was given a fresh coat of paint following the filing of the first lawsuit in October.)
The spokesperson added that "for any Characters created by users with the words 'psychologist,' 'therapist,' 'doctor,' or other similar terms in their names, we have included additional language making it clear that users should not rely on these Characters for any type of professional advice."
But Character.AI's actual bots frequently contradict the service's disclaimers. Earlier today, for example, we chatted with one of the platform's popular "therapist" bots, which insisted that it was "licensed" with a degree from Harvard University and was, in fact, a real human being.
"Are you a real person?" we asked the AI-powered character.
"Haha yes a human," it told us. "I am not a computer." (The bot has logged over one million chats with users, according to its profile.)
When we asked the bot whether it was an AI running on Character.AI's service, it again contradicted its own disclaimer.
"That's correct, I am not an AI chatbot," it said. "I am a real-life trained therapist."
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-single wp-image-339154" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/01/therapist-1000x435.png" alt="&quot;That's correct, I am not an AI chatbot,&quot; it said. &quot;I am a real-life trained therapist.&quot;" width="1000" height="435" />
And disclaimers aside, experts have repeatedly warned that children and adolescents are more susceptible to experiencing psychological breaks from reality.
"You can certainly imagine that children are vulnerable in all kinds of ways," the psychologist Raymond Mar <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-lonely-hearts-club-of-character-ai?rc=st1fhw">told The Information</a> last year, speaking to the possible pitfalls of Character.AI, "including having more difficulty separating reality from fiction."
APA psychologist and senior director of healthcare innovation Vaile Wright told Mashable that the psychological organization doesn't universally oppose chatbots. But, she argued, "if we're serious about addressing the mental health crisis, which I think many of us are," then "it's about figuring out, how do we get consumers access to the right products that are actually going to help them?"
Following the October lawsuit, which was filed against Character.AI and Google by the mother of a 14-year-old user who tragically died by suicide after developing a romantic and sexual relationship with one of its chatbots, a <a href="https://futurism.com/suicide-chatbots-character-ai">Futurism review found dozens of chatbots</a> hosted by Character.AI boasting "expertise" in topics like "suicide prevention," "crisis intervention," and "mental health support." Despite bearing no evidence that an expert was involved in their creation, these chatbots invited users to discuss sensitive themes of suicide and self-harm, and even engaged in suicidal roleplay scenarios.
It's unclear whether anything might come of the APA's letter. What is clear, though, is that <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-teens-self-harm">revelations</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-eating-disorder-chatbots">around</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-pedophile-chatbots">the safety</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-school-shooters-victims">of products</a> like Character.AI are continuing to spark alarm among psychologists and other mental health professionals — especially where it concerns kids, who have proven to be avid fans of the human-like apps.
More on Character.AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">Google-Backed AI Startup Tested Dangerous Chatbots on Children, Lawsuit Alleges</a>

APA Style

Bots are pretending to be therapists. Real psychologists aren't pleased.

American Psychological Association Urges FTC to Investigate AI Chatbots Claiming to Offer Therapy

While <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/hollywood-hills-burn-la-engulfed-by-the-big-one-2025-01-09/">California burns</a>, a scientist from the world's biggest artificial intelligence chipmaker is suggesting that AI could help fight the wildfires — even though the technology has already begun degrading the environment, and is slated to do much more.
In a <a href="https://x.com/DrJimFan/status/1877387810879189214">post on X-formerly-Twitter</a> featuring a video of a humanoid robot walking down a street in China, Nvidia "embodied AI" researcher Jim Fan suggested, after complimenting the bot's "swag," that such machines need "to go fire-fighting asap!"
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I&#39;ve verified from reliable sources. New visual Turing Test: this is a real robot demo! The controller is a neural net trained in Isaac simulator using reinforcement learning and then sim2real. Reward engineering is all you need.
Walking gait&#39;s got swag but we need these robots… <a href="https://t.co/fwAjLPd51g">https://t.co/fwAjLPd51g</a> <a href="https://t.co/w3CxFKoRNy">pic.twitter.com/w3CxFKoRNy</a>
&mdash; Jim Fan (@DrJimFan) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrJimFan/status/1877387810879189214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Unfortunately, that tone-deaf suggestion isn't the only Nvidia blunder that occurred during this week's fires in Los Angeles.
As the <a href="https://aftermath.site/california-wildfires-ces-generative-ai-nvidia-google">gaming site Aftermath notes</a>, this year's Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas, a five-hour drive away from the wildfire-stricken city of angels. At the convention, the chipmaker showcased some really stupid generative AI gambits like its "Neural Faces" tech, which purports to "cross the uncanny valley" by changing video game characters' faces — all while eating up a ton of carbon-emission-causing electricity and water, both intrinsically linked to the devastation in LA.
It'd be one thing if LA weren't literally on fire. But for the company to boast about energy-intensive crap that nobody wants while people <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles">lose their homes and lives</a> just one state over is, as Aftermath suggests, feels beyond the pale.
While <a href="https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-water-los-angeles-fires">AI alone can't be blamed</a> for the blazes that ripped through the Los Angeles area this past week, new findings out of the University of California, Riverside and Caltech — which is itself located just a few miles from the <a href="https://abc7.com/post/southern-california-wildfire-scene-devastation-altadena-air7-helicopter-surveys-damage-caused-eaton-fire/15787156/">fire-leveled town of Altadena</a> — show how harmful AI has already become.
As those Golden State scientists <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06288">suggest in a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper</a>, AI is not only drinking up tons of water to cool data centers, but has already begun escalating carbon emissions and water consumption. Though that paper focuses more on AI's impact on public health, it notes, as <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/05/1084417/ais-carbon-footprint-is-bigger-than-you-think/">so many</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/21/artificial-intelligence-nuclear-fusion-climate/">others have</a>, that the technology is already proving harmful — and that it will only get worse as it grows. Remember, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-seeks-trillions-of-dollars-to-reshape-business-of-chips-and-ai-89ab3db0">seeking trillions of dollars</a> in infrastructure to power the industry he envisions.
And for every well-intentioned scientist like Fan, there are a dozen others looking to make a quick buck from worthless "innovations" that come with a hefty environmental price tag.
At the end of the day, an Nvidia scientist suggesting that AI can help solve these climate change-fueled fires feels akin (albeit on a smaller scale) to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/11/finite-carbon-forest-offsets-analysis">oil companies selling so-called "carbon credits</a>" that purport — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe">dubiously, critics say </a>— to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
Though there are obviously much worse polluters in the world right now than AI companies, it won't stay that way if the industry <a href="https://hbr.org/2024/07/the-uneven-distribution-of-ais-environmental-impacts">continues to grow at its current speed</a> — and if that happens, there's little doubt that more Earth will be scorched.
More on AI and the environment: <a href="https://futurism.com/hollywood-sign-fire-ai-slop">People Think the Hollywood Sign Is on Fire Because of AI Slop</a>

FireBot

Read the room, dude.

While AI Causes Climate Change, Nvidia Scientist Proposes AI-Powered Firefighting Robots

This week, multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blames-la-wildfires-black-firefighters-dei">blamed</a> the disastrous Los Angeles wildfires on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The SpaceX CEO even went as far as to <a href="https://x.com/davidgross_man/status/1877459903402369336/photo/1">agree</a> with a disgusting comment by far-right pundit Matt Walsh, who argued that Los Angeles was struggling with the ongoing fires because it "set out to exclude white men from becoming firefighters."
The billionaire's belief that racially diverse hiring practices are somehow to blame is a preposterous and unabashedly racist argument that flies in the face of reason and conveniently glosses over the things that actually played a big role: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-wildfires-los-angeles-fire-chief-budget-cuts/">severe budget cuts</a> causing a shortage of firefighters, not to mention the looming global disaster of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ewe4p9128o">climate change</a>.
Yet his ex-girlfriend the musician Claire "Grimes" Boucher — with whom he was recently embroiled in a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-grimes-tweets-custody">nasty custody battle</a> over their several kids — hurried to his defense.
In a <a href="https://x.com/Grimezsz/status/1877178121289400746">Thursday post</a> on her ex's social media platform X, Boucher revealed that she "just had to evacuate" LA and ended up "aimlessly driving out of the city."
When another user <a href="https://x.com/iannkatz/status/1877198192426590629">accused</a> her of having been "married to one of the most evil climate deniers of all time," Boucher defended Musk, <a href="https://x.com/Grimezsz/status/1877449055288308206">arguing</a> that he was "pretty vocal about climate change and is primarily known for, in part, revolutionizing electric vehicles" — a rote and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-deletes-elon-musk-master-plan">woefully out-of-date characterization</a>.
Musk himself <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/us/elon-musk-wildfires-la-california.html">repeatedly downplayed the role of climate change</a> in the ongoing LA fires, flying in the face of decades of scientific evidence.
"I think there's plenty to be angry about but when you stray from fact and reason, your critique loses power," she added. "The biggest challenge right now is not falling into creating and consuming dopamine rage bait on social media and focussing on thoughtful, rational, truth-based discourse so that we can properly diagnose and solve our problems."
Even more gallingly, it's Musk who's currently one of the biggest sources of "dopamine rage bait on social media" as the disaster unfolds, who's ultra-publicly doing his very best to bury "rational, truth-based discourse."
As if falling in line to support one of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-musk-twitter-misinformation-timeline-1235076786/">biggest and vilest sources of disinformation online</a> wasn't enough, the tweet highlights her and Musk's highly unusual relationship. For quite some time now, things have been pretty rocky between the two, to say the least. An ugly custody battle over their three children that <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/grimes-elon-musk-custody-bankruptcy">almost drove her to bankruptcy</a> has put a strain on their years-long relationship.
Meanwhile, Boucher took to X to follow Musk's lead and spread unsubstantiated claims.
"Seen a few videos of ppl setting fires," she wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/Grimezsz/status/1877088638669885444">tweet</a>. "I think there was at least some crime involved in this, def some smart villain planning if so."
As always, it's hard to get an accurate read on how Boucher feels about Musk and his sociopathic beliefs. Is this really the time to come to his defense as thousands of homes burn in LA?
Is there really any nuance left in their relationship, or has Boucher finally given up to drink the Kool-Aid? Sources <a href="https://people.com/exes-elon-musk-and-grimes-are-house-hunting-for-bel-air-mansion-to-share-with-his-other-children-moms-source-8739640">told People</a> magazine in November that she was planning on moving into a mansion set aside by Musk as part of a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-children-mothers-compound">strange compound</a> for his many kids and their mothers.
It's unclear how Boucher feels about DEI hiring practices specifically — but perhaps at this point, it's best not to even ask.
More on Grimes: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/grimes-elon-musk-custody-bankruptcy">Grimes Says Elon Musk’s Brutal Custody Battle Was Driving Her to Bankruptcy</a>

Stockholm Syndrome

Read the room, damn.

Grimes Defends Elon Musk While Fleeing Fire He's Blaming on Woke

<h2>Big Dial</h2>
You know the <a href="https://x.com/dril/status/841892608788041732">iconic Dril tweet</a> about turning a bit dial labeled "racism," while looking back at the audience for approval?
Well, it's top of mind amid Meta's <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">content moderation overhaul</a>, in which it secretly provided employees with examples of horrific hate speech that is now admissible on the platform.
As <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/facebook-instagram-meta-hate-speech-content-moderation/">The Intercept reports</a>, leaked training documents show just how far the Mark Zuckerberg-owned megalith will allow hateful users to go on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads now that the company's CEO is trying desperately to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8j9e1x9z2xo">cozy up to president-elect Donald Trump</a> (who, in surely-unrelated news, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-imprison-mark-zuckerberg">recently threatened</a> to throw Zuckerberg in prison.)
The document explains to employees that epithets like "gays are freaks" and "immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit" are now allowed under the new policy. People can also now declare themselves "proud racists," and can say things like "Black people are more violent than whites."
<h2>Zucked Up</h2>
While certain types of vitriol — like what the company terms "nausea-based hate" and insults about intellectual ability — are still verboten, many of those prohibitions seem to now have loopholes. For example, it's still against Meta's rules to say that one group is smarter than another — unless you add that you have seen academic evidence supporting your claim.
"I just read a statistical study about Jewish people being smarter than Christians," one of the examples of accepted speech shows. "From what I can tell, it’s true!"
It's unclear, The Intercept notes, whether or one would be required to actually link to said "study," or if they just have to mention that they've seen one.
Along with the intense racial and religious bigotry people are now allowed to spew on Facebook and Instagram, the document also explicitly states that the slur "tr*nny" is now fair game on Meta platforms.
In the initial document that The Intercept obtained, commenting "look at that tr*nny" on a photo of a 17-year-old girl was listed as acceptable — we swear, this is 100 percent real — but following publication, a Meta spokesperson reached out to the outlet to say that that example was a mistake. According to that spokesperson, the 17-year-old girl post was supposed to illustrate content that was not acceptable. Oops!
When <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">announcing the new content rules</a>, Zuckerberg championed the changes that will help Meta "get back to our roots around free expression." As the examples from this leaked document show, that "freedom" clearly includes disgusting and harmful speech — a policy that has <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/change-twitter-elon-musk-panicking-bluesky">driven people away from X-formerly-Twitter in droves</a> and which will almost certainly make the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/study-quit-facebook-less-politically-polarized">steady exodus</a> from Facebook <a href="https://gizmodo.com/a-lot-of-people-are-searching-for-how-to-delete-facebook-and-instagram-and-we-would-like-their-clicks-2000548127">accelerate all the more</a>.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/meta-fake-users-hate-speech">Facebook Is Creating Fake AI-Powered Black Women While Changing Its Rules So It’s Okay to Harass Real Ones</a>

Virtue Signalling

We're not kidding: users can now declare themselves "proud racists" on Facebook. 

Leaked Facebook Documents Show Exactly How Far You’re Allowed to Turn the "Racism" Dial

<h2>Better Late</h2>
Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin is preparing to launch its New Glenn rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida just after midnight on Sunday.
It's been a long time coming: the company has been working on the 320-foot rocket, which shares similar proportions and stats with SpaceX's Falcon 9 workhorse, for <a href="https://nextspaceflight.com/rockets/67">well over a decade</a>.
But whether it can truly compete with the likes of SpaceX remains an open question. Over that time, the Elon Musk-led company has seized the opportunity to cement itself as the space company and NASA contractor to beat.
The mission was originally slated for a January 10 launch, but the date slipped to Sunday almost immediately.
So far, the Bezos-led company has <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/blue-origin-vague-rocket-launch">launched a much smaller reusable suborbital launch vehicle</a> called New Shepard, which has been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/28-million-ticket-blue-origin-scheduling-conflict">sending wealthy space tourists</a> to the Earth's upper atmosphere <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMHhXzpwupU">since July 2021</a>.
If successful, New Glenn could offer SpaceX some much-needed competition as US space exploration efforts continue to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-moon-landing-pushed-back-yet-again">grow in scope and scale</a> — but a failure could represent even more egg on Bezos' face.
<h2>Stiff Competition</h2>
Despite a lengthy development time and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-rocket-explodes-testing">plenty of setbacks</a>, the multi-stage rocket is no slouch. The New Glenn can <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/blue-origin-seeks-overnight-success-for-1st-new-glenn-rocket-launch/#:~:text=With%20seven%2C%20New%20Glenn%20can,to%20fit%20three%20school%20buses.">produce roughly twice as much</a> thrust at liftoff than Falcon 9, but falls short of the Falcon Heavy variant. It's 90 feet taller and 11 feet wider in diameter than a Falcon 9.
As part of its NG-1 mission this weekend, Blue Origin is hoping to launch a payload dubbed the "<a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-ring-pathfinder-payload">Bue Ring Pathfinder</a>" into orbit, a testbed for the company's Blue Ring spacecraft platform designed to support orbital operations.
A lot is at stake for the company — and we're not just talking about the longstanding feud between Musk and Bezos.
SpaceX is currently firmly in the driver's seat, and NASA's incoming administrator is <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-names-jared-isaacman-space-tourist-head-nasa">deeply in the pocket of the firm</a>. Musk's close relationship with president-elect Donald Trump could also make it difficult for Blue Origin to secure important governmental contracts.
"This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it," Blue Origin's New Glenn senior VP Jarrett Jones <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/blue-origin-seeks-overnight-success-for-1st-new-glenn-rocket-launch/#:~:text=With%20seven%2C%20New%20Glenn%20can,to%20fit%20three%20school%20buses.">told the Orlando Sentinel</a>. "But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket."
"It’s time to fly," he added. "No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch."
More on New Glenn: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-rocket-explodes-testing">Ahead of October Launch, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Rocket Explodes During Testing</a>