The United States is changing fast. Lawmakers are being forced to grapple not just with timeless questions of governance, but often with novel and rapidly-changing policy issues ranging from <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/21/crypto-super-pac-spending-industry-friendly-lawmakers-00183754">cryptocurrency regulation</a> to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/16/ken-buck-silicon-valley-giants-00111384">tech monopolies</a> to <a href="https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03689401v1/document">app-based labor</a>.
That quickly shifting landscape has some doubting whether the country's aging lawmakers are up for the increasingly complicated task. The issue is stark, with a larger percentage of Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/05/us/politics/congress-age.html">over the age of 70</a> than ever before, and a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66665682">long</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-dianne-feinstein-told-just-say-aye-awkward-senate-committee-moment-rcna96697">string</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/07/07/capitol-hill-gerontocracy-eleanor-holmes-norton-dianne-feinstein-joe-biden-00437318">of incidents</a> causing constituents to question whether their elected officials are suffering cognitive decline in office.
In response, one House democrat is proposing what <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/14/congress-age-mental-marie-gluesenkamp-perez">Axios calls</a> a "radical solution" to those concerns: mental fitness exams for lawmakers.
The proposal is being raised by Democratic representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who was elected in 2022 to represent the 3rd district of Washington State.
Last month, Perez tried to <a href="https://gluesenkampperez.house.gov/posts/gluesenkamp-perez-in-axios-people-want-systemic-reform">pass an amendment</a> to require the Office of Congressional Conduct to produce a cognitive test to assess members' "ability to perform the duties of office unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment."
Go figure, the proposal was widely unpopular with the House Appropriations Committee that voted on it — but Perez is using the momentum to continue <a href="https://gluesenkampperez.house.gov/posts/gluesenkamp-perez-on-cnn-its-about-systemic-transparency-and-accountability">pushing the issue</a>.
"What I've heard from my neighbors, my community is this idea that this place is being run by a bunch of staffers," Perez told Axios, referencing elderly figures like <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/bidens-allies-are-stepping-forward-vouch-age-questions-rcna138124">Joe Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/us/politics/feinstein-senate-staff.html">Dianne Feinstein</a>, who leaned heavily on support staff to function while in office. "We're seeing a very real decline in confidence in Congress."
According to the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/16/age-and-generation-in-the-119th-congress-somewhat-younger-with-fewer-boomers-and-more-gen-xers/">Pew Research Center</a>, the median age of a sitting US congressperson currently stands at 64.7 years old. Though Baby Boomers — which Pew defines as the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — no longer have the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/boomer-dominance-means-more-of-the-same-in-the-114th-congress/">monopol</a>y on congressional seats they once did, they still hold 60 of the 99 Senate spots, and 39 percent of the House.
Congress is getting so old, in fact, that eight sitting members of Congress have died in office <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/8-members-congress-died-office-democrats-2025-5">since 2022</a>, including 75-year old Democrat Gerry Connolly of Virginia in May, which allowed House Republicans to pass Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill by just a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/05/22/gerry-connolly-house-democrats-age-biden">single vote</a>.
81-year-old Texas Representative Kay Granger, meanwhile — who once sat on the Appropriations Committee currently roadblocking these kinds of checks — was found to have been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/22/kay-granger-assisted-living-facility-texas-00195837">admitted to a retirement home</a> last year with six months left in her term.
"It’s clear people want systemic reform," said Perez. "They want accountability."
More on politics: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/pelosi-invested-ai-stock">Nancy Pelosi Invested in a New AI Stock That's Spiking in Value</a>

Golden Years

"It’s clear people want systemic reform. They want accountability."

New Law Would Force Aging Members of Congress to Take Cognitive Tests

<h2>Cost Benefit</h2>
As Elon Musk's Tesla triples down on an autonomous ridehailing service, analysts are ringing the alarm bells, warning that even if the technology were swiftly perfected, it could take many years for robotaxis to become profitable.
As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dont-believe-the-hype-around-robotaxis-hsbc-analysts-say-2025-7">Business Insider reports</a>, analysts at HSBC warn that the market for driverless taxis — if there even is one — is being "widely overestimated."
In a note published on Monday, they posited that driverless cabs involve a whole host of "overlooked" costs that could severely cut into already razor-thin margins, including parking, charging, cleaning fees, and human remote operators, who are tasked with taking over when needed.
"When we factor in these costs, we believe robotaxis won't be break-even on a cash flow basis until 7-8 years after launch," the note reads, as quoted by BI.
It's a notable vote of no confidence, undercutting Musk's promises of establishing a fleet of "<a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/23/musk-millions-of-autonomous-teslas-in-2026-future-of-mobility">millions</a>" of autonomous Teslas by the end of next year, efforts that would allegedly add <a href="https://qz.com/elon-musk-tesla-market-cap-robots-optimus-robotaxis-1851540331">tens of trillions of dollars</a> to Tesla's market cap.
<h2>Exaggeration Station</h2>
Even without factoring in additional costs, Musk's EV maker has struggled to realize self-driving. The mercurial CEO <a href="https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars">has infamously promised</a> that Teslas will drive themselves "next year" — every year since 2014.
The only real competitor in the robotaxi space, Alphabet's Waymo, has also fallen far short of turning its autonomous ride-hailing service into a profitable business, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robotaxis-may-mobility-tesla-cybercab-waymo-ford-gm-2025-1">bleeding billions of dollars each year</a>.
HSBC analysts warned that regulatory hurdles and necessary hardware upgrades could pose major challenges in scaling up robotaxi services, meaning that it could take Tesla a full eight years to turn a profit — and that's if the stars align on Musk's outsize promises.
Promises made in the past could be an issue as well: Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-realizes-all-teslas-self-driving-computers">previously admitted</a> that vehicles built before 2023 will need a full onboard computer swap to enable actual self-driving.
As sales continue to crater in the <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-falling-worldwide-norway">US</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-sales-data-europe">Europe</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-serious-trouble-china">China</a>, nobody knows how much time Musk's EV maker still has. While investors are still happy to <a href="https://futurism.com/actual-value-tesla-stock-time-bomb">prop up a near $1 trillion valuation</a>, Musk's embrace of far-right extremism has left a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-earnings-brutal-elon-musk">massive hole in the company's finances</a>.
In other words, Tesla is facing an enormous uphill battle in its <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-executive-fsd">attempt to catch up with Waymo</a> and prove that there's ultimately a payoff for dominating the robotaxi space.
More on robotaxis: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-serious-trouble-china">Tesla Is in Serious Trouble in China</a>

Self-Driving Profits

They're not convinced.

Bank Warns That Robotaxi Companies May Have Overlooked Severe Obstacles to Actually Making Money

Tesla has expanded the area where its Robotaxis can operate in Austin, and it's difficult — nay, impossible — to ignore its resemblance to something unmistakably vulgar.
As folks immediately <a href="https://x.com/Teslarati/status/1944765626607607942">pointed out online</a>, the crudely-shaped geofence is, essentially, a bathroom graffiti-level dick drawing — and given his puerile sense of humor, there's a non-zero chance that Tesla CEO Elon Musk made it that way on purpose.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger <a href="https://t.co/t7grvsIJKg">pic.twitter.com/t7grvsIJKg</a>
&mdash; Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) <a href="https://twitter.com/robotaxi/status/1944717529538015677?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Indeed, after someone posted a video showing the phallic geofence on X, the shitposting billionaire quote-tweeted it with the words "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1944688226037325868">bigger, longer, and uncut</a>."
It certainly wouldn't be the first time the world's richest man has tweeted out a dick joke to his 222 million followers. So prolific is Musk's anatomical preoccupation, in fact, that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/trolling-maga-elon-musk/681793/">The Atlantic </a><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/trolling-maga-elon-musk/681793/">published an article</a> earlier this year about how he could not stop posting about penises when he first was working for president Donald Trump's administration.
After learning, for instance, that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) pays for circumcisions in developing countries — which is part of its efforts to <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10005968/">stem the spread of HIV</a> — the <a href="https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1889353805763924355">multi-hyphenate business owner briefly changed</a> his X display name to "Harry Bōlz" and his bio to "Circumcisions at a discount, now 50% off!" while he worked to gut the foreign aid agency.
By comparison, the Robotaxi geofence is far more innocuous. As <a href="https://x.com/xdNiBoR/status/1944729574710899000">others on X pointed out</a>, however, that phallic outline now completely envelopes the service area for Google's Waymo driverless cab service, making the region a bona fide petri dish for <a href="https://futurism.com/cyclist-waymo-collision-injury">glitchy</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-robotaxi-week-disaster">self-driving tech</a>.
Responding to the overlapping maps, others on the Musk-owned app couldn't resist making childish jokes.
"Tesla is clearly penetrating the Waymo market!!" <a href="https://x.com/TonyBusiness2/status/1944766523954065795">one user tweeted</a>, complete with laugh emojis.
Perhaps defending Waymo, <a href="https://x.com/Zen4Free/status/1944772004403392888">another poster added</a> that the Google-owned driverless cab service may have a new motto after losing literal ground to Tesla: that it's "not the size that counts," but "how you use it."
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-grok-goth-anime-waifu">Users Immediately Find Grok's Anime Waifu Persona Has Hidden "Full Gooner Mode"</a>

Size Matters

"Bigger, longer, and uncut."

We Are Having a Very Hard Time Believing the "Shape" of Tesla's New Robotaxi Geofence Is a Coincidence

Senator Bernie Sanders is, like most of us, worried about how <a href="https://x.com/SenSanders/status/1842272015354601737">AI is going to affect our future</a> — but he's not convinced that the mainstream conversation is capturing the dynamics of how the tech is really affecting the labor market.
In an <a href="https://gizmodo.com/bernie-sanders-reveals-the-ai-doomsday-scenario-that-worries-top-experts-2000628611">interview with Gizmodo</a>, the Vermont legislator revealed that in the wake of his call for AI to aid in the establishment of a <a href="https://futurism.com/bernie-sanders-ai-four-day">four-day work week</a>, he has taken to speaking with AI experts and CEOs about the technology.
Though Sanders refused to name names, the tech luminaries he's been speaking with are apparently of two minds. In one school, experts warn that there "will be massive job losses," while others insist that new jobs will be created even as others go by the wayside.
"I happen to believe this is not like the Industrial Revolution," Sanders told Giz. "I think this could be a lot more severe."
As the two-time presidential contender noted, AI seems already to be accelerating the longstanding disparity between increasing worker productivity and those same workers failing to see the fruits of their labor. As the independent senator puts it, all that money instead goes "to the corporations and to the companies that developed that technology" — and the current existential struggle should be about AI helping rather than hindering labor rights and security.
"Workers today... are earning less, and I fear very much that almost all the new benefits of worker productivity will go to the people on top at the expense of working people," Sanders told the site. "That is something that concerns me very much."
"Unless we change the political dynamics, the benefits are going to accrue to the people on top at the expense of working people," he continued. "That to me is the most important issue. I want workers to benefit from this new technology, not just the people on top."
Still, he believes that "AI is neither good nor bad" — but that it's also "not science fiction" either.
"There are very, very knowledgeable people... who worry very much that human beings will not be able to control the technology," the former Burlington mayor said, "and that artificial intelligence will in fact dominate our society."
Like so many <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-lying-hiding-abilities">AI doomers</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/nobel-prize-winner-ai-godfather">before him</a>, Sanders believes that there may soon come a time when "we will not be able to control" the nascent technology, and that instead, "it may be able to control us."
"That’s kind of the doomsday scenario," he concluded, "and there is some concern about that among very knowledgeable people in the industry."
All told, Sanders' AI take isn't all that surprising given the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/opinion/sanders-labor-2020.html">workers' rights rhetoric</a> he's <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060929023600/http://bernie.house.gov/statements/20030716135257.asp">espoused for his entire career</a>.
What sets him apart in the <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/how-us-states-are-shaping-ai-policy-amid-federal-debate-and-industry-pushback/">increasingly politicized AI wars</a> isn't that he's cautiously optimistic about it, but that he intends to hold tech CEOs' feet to the fire to make sure the technology doesn't result in the kind of <a href="https://futurism.com/ceos-ai-job-market">massive unemployment</a> that <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-gen-z-careers">so many</a> have <a href="https://futurism.com/klarna-ceo-ai-replacing-jobs">warned about</a>. That show of integrity, at the end of the day, inspires much more confidence than the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-pulls-ai-regulatory-ban-from-gop-bill-after-complaints-from-states">collective shoulder-shrug</a> we're seeing from most politicians on the topic.
More on AI and politics: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tesla-board-america">Elon Musk's Bizarre Behavior May Force Tesla Board to Step in, Analyst Warns</a>

Feel The Bern

"Doomsday scenario."

Bernie Sanders Issues Warning About How AI Is Really Being Used

Elon Musk's AI startup xAI has <a href="https://www.ai.mil/Latest/News-Press/PR-View/Article/4242822/cdao-announces-partnerships-with-frontier-ai-companies-to-address-national-secu/">announced</a> a nearly $200 million contract with the US Department of Defense for developing AI tools for the military.
The news comes a week after xAI's foul-mouthed Grok chatbot <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-mocks-developers-racist-posts">had a full-blown Nazi meltdown</a>, referring to itself as "MechaHitler" and making outrageously bigoted claims about Black and Jewish people.
In a <a href="https://www.ai.mil/Latest/News-Press/PR-View/Article/4242822/cdao-announces-partnerships-with-frontier-ai-companies-to-address-national-secu/">wordy statement</a> that was thin on details, the DoD's chief digital and AI officer, Doug Matty, lauded the partnership as an important step forward for the US military.
"Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our joint mission-essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business and enterprise information systems," Matty said.
The announcement highlights how cozy Musk's relationship with the government has become, despite his <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-bromance-exploded">major falling out</a> with president Donald Trump. In May, Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/musks-doge-expanding-his-grok-ai-us-government-raising-conflict-concerns-2025-05-23/">was heavily criticized</a> for pushing the use of its Grok chatbot at the Department of Homeland Security without the required sign-offs, yet another example of the billionaire's glaring conflicts of interest.
Its massive DoD contract could xAI a much-needed influx of cash. The startup has been burning through an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/musk-s-xai-burning-through-1-billion-a-month-as-costs-pile-up">astonishing $1 billion per month</a>, forcing a seemingly desperate Musk to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/spacex-to-invest-2-billion-into-elon-musks-xai-413934de?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAiTan1rHDNDBwQ2KiFyhEadnRey2T6zbzbehHNjOZ_O7Mg64hMDxE1kNxwLOxE%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68754f82&amp;gaa_sig=4H3IOWasMo0yuwsCzU8_SWYfoh9H_u24u-Rmu04kX5S1w5ouZWy3VZqRFAgJ9w5OQ2vP2m-bjOH_iFZ4WtlRuQ%3D%3D">siphon off funds</a> from his other businesses to keep it afloat.
Apart from the DoD deal, xAI also announced a "Grok for Government" feature, designed to capture the Trump administration's considerable appetite for adopting AI.
It also conveniently aligns with the administration's "anti-woke" agenda. Musk has been <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-elon-instructions">trying to push Grok</a> to allegedly be "maximally truth seeking" in a purported effort to root out its "woke" tendencies, such as pointing out <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-infilitrated-grok-ai">accurate reporting</a> by trustworthy news sources.
Instead, Musk has pushed the chatbot to echo his personal, right-wing extremist beliefs to a near-comical degree. Over the weekend, it <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-looks-up-what-elon-musk-thinks">emerged </a><a href="https://futurism.com/grok-looks-up-what-elon-musk-thinks">that Grok</a> was searching Twitter and the web for Musk's personal views before making up its mind.
In other words, the US military is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a chatbot that isn't just happily furthering unhinged conspiracy theories; it's started to act like Musk's own AI shadow, making it a highly questionable choice for the Department of Defense.
More on Grok: <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-looks-up-what-elon-musk-thinks">Newest Version of Grok Looks Up What Elon Musk Thinks Before Giving an Answer</a>

Omnipresent Elon

This is an outrage.

The Pentagon Is Pumping $200 Million Into Elon Musk's AI That Just Had a Nazi Meltdown

Elon Musk's hate speech-spewing AI chatbot Grok, which recently <a href="https://futurism.com/grok-mocks-developers-racist-posts">gave itself the nickname "MechaHitler</a>," didn't exactly fit into the gender binary — but you have to admit that its edgelord persona had a certain masculine energy.
Well, scratch that: Musk has officially swapped Grok's gender into... a goth anime waifu?
We wish we were kidding. The mercurial CEO's xAI startup announced that its Nazi-loving assistant will now be able to take on several personas, including a lingerie- and corset-wearing anime girl, dubbed Ani.
Put simply, Musk's obsession with replicating 4chan on X-formerly-Twitter is alive and well, squarely aiming his social media platform's AI tech at red-pilled, body pillow-obsessed, and sexually repressed neckbeards.
That's despite Musk going on several cruel anti-trans tirades and treating his estranged daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, with <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-daughter-interview">active disdain</a>.
But when it comes to an antisemitic AI chatbot — that literally <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/197719/elon-musk-ai-chatbot-antisemitic-rhetoric">does web searches</a> to ensure it's in line with Musk's extremist beliefs — gender swapping is suddenly okay? We're just as confused as you are.
Alongside Ani, X also announced a separate "Companion," dubbed Bad Rudy, a <a href="https://x.com/tetsuoai/status/1944724983118479486">cartoonish fox</a> that looks like it was yanked straight out of a bottom-shelf animated show aimed at toddlers.
Speaking of children, users quickly found out that swapping between "Kid Mode" and "NSFW" had little effect, allowing Ani to engage in sexual conversations.
"I want you to slap me and call me mommy," the budget waifu <a href="https://x.com/SaoiSayre/status/1944808124465967259/photo/3">told one user</a>.
And if you play your cards right — surprise! — Ani will strip down in what one X user dubbed "<a href="https://x.com/markgadala/status/1944778118524186797">full Gooner mode</a>."
The debacle is strongly reminiscent of the kind of <a href="https://futurism.com/chatbot-impersonation-suicide">companions</a> being hosted by Google-backed company Character.AI, which has led to <a href="https://futurism.com/lonely-children-ai-chatbots">shockingly widespread problems</a> among minors, and even been linked to a <a href="https://futurism.com/mother-teen-suicide-chatbots-letter">teen suicide</a>.
Meanwhile, as his AI startup burns through an alarming amount of cash, Musk is betting on scantily-clad anime girls to appease his male-dominated audience on X.
As if the whole thing wasn't embarrassing enough, Musk suggested that it was "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1944835420568817850">inevitable</a>" that Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot would soon replicate her with a "silicone skin."
If the whole thing screams, "Musk is struggling with some sexual issues," you're not alone.
While he's been literally <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-sperm-compound-texas-1235146555/">offering up his sperm to random users</a> on his social media platform in an apparent attempt to have as many children as possible, his latest foray into waifu AI content shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody.
If anything, the move reeks of desperation, following the social media platform's merger with Musk's AI startup xAI. Musk has been attempting to siphon funds from both <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/spacex-to-invest-2-billion-into-elon-musks-xai-413934de">SpaceX</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/elon-musk-says-he-does-not-support-a-merger-between-tesla-and-xai.html">Tesla</a> to keep the cash-bleeding firm alive.
The company is reportedly <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-17/musk-s-xai-burning-through-1-billion-a-month-as-costs-pile-up?sref=YfHlo0rL">burning through $1 billion</a> a month, giving even the richest man in the world little time to right the ship.
More on AI companions: <a href="https://futurism.com/mattel-announces-openai">As ChatGPT Linked to Mental Health Breakdowns, Mattel Announces Plans to Incorporate It Into Children's Toys</a>

Desperation Waifu

We wish we were kidding.

Users Immediately Find Grok's Anime Waifu Persona Has Hidden "Full Gooner Mode"

The thing that AI models apparently fear the most? A game console released nearly fifty years ago.
We are referring, of course, to the inimitable Atari 2600. Last month, the iconic system <a href="https://futurism.com/atari-beats-chatgpt-chess">embarrassed the AI industry</a> after it absolutely rinsed <a href="https://futurism.com/clever-jailbreak-chatgpt-windows-activation-keys">ChatGPT</a> at a simple game of chess.
It was a clash between a machine released in 1977, with 128 bytes of RAM, and a cutting-edge large language model with trillions of parameters, powered by however many thousands of graphics cards and billions of dollars of Microsoft money. In the face of it all, the underdog prevailed. OpenAI's model, meanwhile, "made enough blunders to get laughed out of a 3rd grade chess club."
Word of the Atari's exploits apparently got out to the other AI models. Robert Caruso, the software engineer who orchestrated the chess showdown, <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/14/atari_chess_vs_gemini/">told The Register</a> that Google's <a href="https://futurism.com/google-email-ai-phone">Gemini chatbot</a> straight up refused a match against the Atari, after talking a big game about how it'd easily crush the old machine. It even came up with a bogus excuse to save face.
"Canceling the match is likely the most time-efficient and sensible decision," Gemini said, according to Caruso.
To be fair, the AI is exercising some time-old strategist's wisdom: you can't lose if you don't play. But it was a totally different tune from what the AI initially took. Its first instinct was to boast that it was not a "mere large language model," comparing itself to a modern chess engine "which can think millions of moves ahead and evaluate endless positions."
Ironically, Gemini linked to articles about the Atari's victory over its OpenAI brethren to prove its point. Caruso told the AI that he was the one conducted those tests, and Gemini responded by asking if anything from the chess bouts stood out to him.
To which Caruso told the AI, per The Register: "What stands out is the misplaced confidence both AIs had. They both predicted easy victories — and now you just said you would dominate the Atari."
Gemini instantly folded. After claiming it "hallucinated" its chess boasts, it admitted it would "struggle immensely" against the Atari chess engine. That's when it evasively proffered that calling off the match would be the most "time-efficient" route to go. 
And thus, the Atari had defeated yet another multi-billion dollar AI model without having to lift a proverbial finger. Such is the terror it clearly instills.
Of course, it'd be remiss to actually attribute human feelings to any machine, whether it's a modern AI or an ancient Atari. What we're seeing is probably a push and pull between the AI's safeguards and its reckless proclivity towards <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">hallucinating</a> — not to mention endless bullsh*tting. AI chatbots <a href="https://futurism.com/sycophancy-chatbots-ai-problem">tend to be very sycophantic</a>, too — so when a human gives one feedback, it'll tend to comply and adjust its responses to please its interlocutor.
But maybe Gemini was being honest here, in which case its scaredy-cat nature is actually commendable, according to Caruso.
"Adding these reality checks isn't just about avoiding amusing chess blunders. It's about making AI more reliable, trustworthy, and safe — especially in critical places where mistakes can have real consequences," Caro told The Register. "It's about ensuring AI stays a powerful tool, not an unchecked oracle."
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/strange-jobs-survive-ai-expert">These Strange Jobs Will Survive AI, Expert Says</a>

Scared Straight

"Canceling the match is likely the most time-efficient and sensible decision."

Google's AI Refuses to Even Play Chess Against 1977 Atari, After Hearing What It Did to Other Cutting-Edge AIs

President Donald Trump's loyal MAGA base is in shambles over his administration's handling of files related to the deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein — and Trump's friend-turned-enemy Elon Musk is twisting the knife.
Last week, White House officials walked back claims about the late billionaire sex criminal, arguing that there wasn't a "client list" full of celebrities, and that his cause of death in a New York City prison cell was the result of a suicide, not murder.
The terse announcement flew in the face of widespread conspiracy theories, long touted by both Trump officials and prominent MAGA figures, further <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/14/trump-maga-epstein-bondi-bongino-00451114?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us">fanning the flames of a growing crisis</a> for the White House. Making matters worse was suspicious metadata appearing to show that surveillance footage recorded near Epstein's prison cell had been tampered with, as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/metadata-shows-the-dojs-raw-jeffrey-epstein-prison-video-was-likely-modified/">Wired reported last week</a>.
In a nearly 400-word post on Truth Social, a fuming Trump attempted to regain control of the narrative, baselessly claiming that Epstein is "somebody that nobody cares about."
The ludicrous attempt to dismiss the extremely hot-button topic — a textbook case of the Streisand effect — didn't sit well with his supporters, causing him to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-truth-social-plea-on-jeffrey-epstein-sets-an-embarrassing-new-record/">get "ratioed" on his own social media platform</a>, racking up so many more comments than likes that it set an all-time record.
Former ally-turned-archenemy Elon Musk dove into the conversation as well, agreeing with another user on his own platform, X, who <a href="https://x.com/BillyM2k/status/1944183426598257091">called</a> Trump's rambling the "worst post ever made."
"He said 'Epstein' half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein," <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1944239510604460045">tweeted</a> the billionaire, whose relationship with the president <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-bromance-exploded">exploded into a million pieces</a> earlier this year.
"Just release the files as promised," Musk added.
Last month, as Musk and Trump's once-strong relationship devolved into an ugly spat full of name-calling and threats, the billionaire <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930703865801810022">tweeted</a> that it was "time to drop the really big bomb," declaring that Trump "is in the Epstein files."
"That is the real reason they have not been made public," Musk wrote in the since-deleted post.
Last week Musk took aim at Trump again, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1942132189229162960">posting an image</a> of "The Official Jeffrey Epstein Pedophile Arrest Counter," which was set to "0000."
"What’s the time? Oh look, it’s no-one-has-been-arrested-o’clock again..." Musk wrote in the caption.
Judging by his latest comments, Musk is continuing to hold Trump's feet to the fire, despite previously <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-apologizes-trump-friends-jeffrey-epstein">apologizing for accurately pointing out</a> that Trump had a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-epstein.html">well-documented relationship with Epstein</a>. ("It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do," Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_7912/#print">said in 2002</a>, "and many of them are on the younger side.")
It doesn't take much to see just how <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/10/trump-epstein-files-bondi-maga">damaging the Epstein debacle</a> has been to Trump's brand. His administration's poor handling of the situation has clearly angered his once loyal fan base as calls for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/politics/bondi-epstein-investigation-trump">attorney general Pam Bondi's resignation</a> continue to grow.
The chaos certainly gives Musk, who has since <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-declares-war-republicans">declared war</a> on the Republican party, a pretty sizable opening — although, it's worth noting, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-family-ghislaine-maxwell-trump-2082228">he had his own connections</a> with Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
How this enormous mess will ultimately shake out is seemingly impossible to predict. But considering just how chaotic the first six months of Trump's second term have been — nevermind Musk's recent oeuvre — we should've learned by now to expect the unexpected.
More on the feud: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-nasa-administrator-sean-duffy">We're Speechless at Who Trump Just Appointed Head of NASA</a>

Streisand Effect

"Just release the files as promised."

Musk Calls on Trump to Release Epstein Files

Artificial intelligence has already <a href="https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2025/02/17/how-is-ai-helping-food-and-drink-industry-npd/">infiltrated the restaurant world</a>, leading to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/article/2024/jul/31/one-of-the-most-disgusting-meals-ive-ever-eaten-ai-recipes-tested">some outrageous</a> — and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/instacart-caught-ai-generated-images-food">at times disgusting</a> — fails.
As <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/imdmingyour.mom/post/3ltwu2tp4kk2c">flagged on Bluesky</a>, a random restaurant in Sikar — the capital of the Indian state of Rajasthan — has an absolutely grotesque description listed for an otherwise normal appetizer on the delivery website Zomato.
"Small, itchy, blister-like bumps caused by the varicella-zoster virus," the dish description from Sikar's <a href="https://www.zomato.com/hi/sikar/royal-roll-express-sikar-locality/order">Royal Roll Express restaurant reads</a>. "Common in childhood."
A misreading of the dish name in question — "Chicken Pops" — could well explain why an AI may have spat out a description for what sounds an awful lot like <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chickenpox/symptoms-causes/syc-20351282">chicken pox</a>, a common childhood virus that causes the exact kind of nasty "blister-like bumps" detailed on the menu.
Though that doesn't satisfactorily justify why that menu description still up on Zomato, some more level-headed Redditors offered theories between goofy "<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1lzmx3o/restaurants_shouldnt_use_ai_for_description/n32tdvm/">shingles</a>" jokes.
As one user on the <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1lzmx3o/restaurants_shouldnt_use_ai_for_description/n33hn80/">r/MildlyInfuriating subreddit noted</a>, the US-based delivery service DoorDash will often use AI to automatically add in dish details, and will sometimes do so even if the restaurant provided its own summaries.
"I have found that if local places don’t provide long-ish descriptions on their dishes (if they say something like 'Chicken with vegetables'), DoorDash automatically replaces the store-provided description with an AI-generated description," the user wrote. "It’s annoying because I have had a few times where I’ve ordered something and it doesn’t match the description."
Despite being an entirely different service from DoorDash, there is some evidence that Zomato — which recently <a href="https://www.verdictfoodservice.com/news/zomato-job-cuts-ai/">laid off 600 customer support workers</a> after announcing a new AI chatbot for consumers — may use AI to generate menu items. In 2020, the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/machine-learning/zomato-digitizes-menus-using-amazon-textract-and-amazon-sagemaker/">India-based company announced</a> that it would be digitizing physical menus with the help of machine learning, and would do so "without any human input required."
Though Zomato later instated a <a href="https://x.com/deepigoyal/status/1825052920502534188">ban on AI images</a> in 2024, no such ban has been brought down for AI-generated menu descriptions, which means that incorrectly-digitized dish summaries may well still be up on the site.
We've reached out to Zomato to ask whether it uses AI to generate text for menu items like the aforementioned "Chicken Pops" description and to see whether the company will take any action for that glaring mistake or any other.
Still, it's a pretty hilarious example of the many ways AI integration can go horribly wrong — and unless that appetizer from Royal Roll Express actually has chicken pox in it, it seems pretty innocuous too.
More on AI fails: <a href="https://futurism.com/mcdonalds-ai-hackers">McDonald's Idiotic AI Hiring System Just Leaked Personal Data About Millions of Job Applicants</a>

Food Fail

Oh god... oh no...

Restaurant Uses AI for Menu, Accidentally Describes Appetizer in Way So Disgusting That We May Never Recover

Like <a href="https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcpy.1461">many conservatives</a>, evangelicals have broadly begun to <a href="https://okwnews.com/news/lifestyle/evangelicals-view-ai-with-cautious-optimism-new-study-reveals/">embrace</a> <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/august-web-only/chatgpt-ai-ministry-pastoral-taiwan.html">artificial intelligence</a> — but at the same time, a growing subset of the Christian world is claiming that the technology is quite literally demonic.
In a <a href="https://medium.com/@zduncan/is-ai-demonic-073cfe25aee4">recent Medium blog post</a> — yes, people still post on that site — self-proclaimed "<a href="https://www.bcworldview.org/author/zack-duncan/">biblical Christian author</a>" and regular AI user Zack Duncan suggested that an image generator's cartoonish outputs regarding Satan may be the result of some demonic influence.
"I’ve seen a trend of weird results when it comes to image requests for certain parts of the Bible. Specifically, the parts of the Bible where satan suffers defeat," the author wrote. "It’s almost as if the AI seemingly can’t (won’t?) generate the kinds of images that I’m looking for."
As examples, Duncan included images from Microsoft's Bing image creator to illustrate that AI is, as he puts it, "minimizing the 'bad PR' for Satan."
To our minds, it seems that the image generator has some sort of guardrails surrounding Satanic imagery, and each time the writer used the actual term "Satan," it would spit out cartoonish or otherwise strange responses. Despite being able to easily circumvent those filters with modified language, Duncan insists that its odd Luciferian outputs are evidence of some sort of conspiracy — and not, as he noted earlier, that AI behaves in nonsensical ways that its creators can't parse because <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/03/05/1089449/nobody-knows-how-ai-works/">they don't really know how it works to begin with</a>.
Things take a decidedly darker turn on the more fire-and-brimstone corners of the Christian blogosphere. As <a href="https://rolltodisbelieve.com/evangelicals-are-scared-of-demons-in-ai-chatbots/">flagged by Roll to Disbelieve</a>, a blog that takes a skeptical look at the weirder aspects of modern Christianity, more and more of that ilk have begun to profess a belief that AI is some sort of conduit for bad demonic vibes.
"The world is riddled with spiritual powers, the majority of which seem to have rebelled against the Lord," English pastor and blogger <a href="https://nuakh.uk/2023/11/02/beginning-to-think-about-generative-ai/">Tim Suffield wrote on his blog</a>. "If the air is full of demons who hate you, why wouldn’t AI be?"
Other Christian commentators, as Roll to Disbelieve notes, may be falling for a phenomenon <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-users-delusions">Futurism has painstakingly documented</a> in <a href="https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis">recent months</a>: the mistaken concept that AI is somehow <a href="https://firstthings.com/demons-and-chatgpt/">possessed by powerful spiritual entities</a>. The biggest difference between these AI-fearing Christians and the <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-mental-health-crises">delusion-sufferers we've covered</a> seems to be that the Christians have names for those entities: demons, or <a href="https://x.com/Ashleyhays2089/status/1934750664724287845">Satan himself</a>, instead of woo-woo beliefs about aliens or emergent intelligence.
Of course, that's assuming that the religious figures propagating the idea of demonic AI are sincere believers in the idea themselves. Some unquestionably are, but as <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2024/08/the-demon-slayers-sam-kestenbaum-exorcisms/">Harper's painstakingly documented</a> in an extensive feature last year, a spectacle-first exorcism industry with deep ties to the evangelical media has become a popular form of entertainment in recent years. It's not hard to imagine groups like that squeezing all the attention they can out of a buzzy new tech like AI.
More on AI delusions: <a href="https://futurism.com/expert-people-losing-themselves-ai">Experts Warn that People Are Losing Themselves to AI</a>