It's now been six weeks since Haliey "Hawk Tuah" Welch launched her <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-crypto">disastrous and allegedly fraudulent meme coin</a> — and in the ensuing firestorm, it's been exactly that long since she last posted a podcast episode.
The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7tydu_erZo">expectorating internet sensation</a>'s most recent podcast episode — ironically titled "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDQnM1Fkmg">HOW TO AVOID GETTING CANCELLED</a>" — was <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yGO8WNUKy24DLOoNwALVZ?si=4a7b725766c34f38">posted to Spotify</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDQnM1Fkmg">YouTube</a> on December 3. Since then, she's gone dark.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="HOW TO AVOID GETTING CANCELLED W/ BROOKE SCHOFIELD - Talk Tuah Ep. 13" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QtDQnM1Fkmg?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>
The <a href="https://x.com/HalieyWelchX/status/1864434514610782583">very next day</a> after that episode was published, the <a href="https://people.com/haliey-welch-shares-look-inside-her-dms-after-hawk-tuah-video-exclusive-8715247">22-year-old viral vixen</a> launched her "HAWK" meme coin, which <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-crypto">crashed spectacularly and immediately</a> in what many believe was some sort of scam. In a single day, the coin's total worth dropped from <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/hawk-tuah-memecoin-dumps-90-percent-outrage-token-launch-insider">$490 million</a> to just $24.6 million, leading to accusations of a <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-crypto">pump-and-dump scheme</a>.
Though <a href="https://x.com/HalieyWelchX/status/1864448384326881713">Welch initially insisted on X-formerly-Twitter</a> that the team behind the HAWK coin hadn't sold any of their tokens, she appeared to change her tune after <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-girl-lawsuit-cooperation">jilted investors filed suit</a> against her and <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/12/19/business/murky-group-behind-hawk-tuah-girl-haliey-welchs-failed-meme-coin-sued-by-investors/">the coin's shady promoters</a>.
"I take this situation extremely seriously," <a href="https://x.com/HalieyWelchX/status/1870123827725840484">she posted on December 20</a>, weeks after the debacle. "I am fully cooperating with and am committed to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter."
Beyond that cooperation post — and the bizarre instance in which she responded to criticism on an X spaces audio chat by announcing that <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-crypto-bed">she was going to bed</a> — Welch has been entirely absent from the web. Though we don't know exactly what accounts for her MIA status, it could well be under the advice of attorneys urging the young woman to avoid incriminating herself or fraternizing with people involved in the case.
Still, it's a shame that Welch's "Talk Tuah" podcast — which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TalkTuahPod/videos?view=0&amp;sort=dd&amp;shelf_id=2">only has 13 episodes</a>, and launched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbF_HMIOhRU">three months to the day</a> before the last one — has disappeared from the digital airwaves, because it was actually kind of hilarious.
Depending on what happens with the lawsuit, this may not be the last we've heard from Hawk Tuah girl — but her podcast may, unfortunately, be dead on arrival.
More on Welch: <a href="https://futurism.com/hawk-tuah-girl-crypto-spitcoin">The Hawk Tuah Girl Committed a Horrible Crime: Not Calling Her Crypto "Spitcoin"</a>

Missing Thang

And you won't believe what the final episode was titled.

The Hawk Tuah Girl Hasn’t Posted a New Podcast Since Her Crypto Project Imploded

<h2>Drone Home</h2>
Donald Trump has vowed to release information on the first day of his second presidency about the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/americans-mistaking-stars-planes-drones">rash of bizarre drone sightings</a>, some of which have been described as "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/mystery-drones-new-york">car-sized</a>."
As <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5078647-donald-trump-administration-mysterious-drones-response/">The Hill reports</a>, the president-elect made the declaration during a meeting of Republican governors who'd gathered at his "Winter White House" of Mar-a-Lago.
"I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration," he told the governors. "Because I think it’s ridiculous that they are not telling you about what is going on with the drones."
Drones seem to have been heavy on the president-elect's mind in the months since he won his second chance at the Oval Office because, as he told the governors at Mar-a-Lago, "they're over Bedminster a lot."
In early December, the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/12/03/us-news/suspicious-drone-activity-near-trumps-nj-golf-course-prompts-fbi-investigation-faa-airspace-restrictions/">New York Post indeed reported</a> that the mysterious crafts had been spotted near Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily suspended the airspace over and around the Trump National Golf Club, which is also located near the Army's Picatinny Arsenal.
The FBI and Homeland Security also began investigating the sightings, which locals said were occurring on a nightly basis for weeks — though <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonsnyder/2024/12/15/what-drone-hysteria-reveals-about-ai-trust-and-reality/">skeptics have argued</a> the sightings likely have more to do with mass hysteria and people <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/americans-mistaking-stars-planes-drones">misidentifying planes and stars</a> than with any actual mysterious objects in the sky.
<h2>Garage Rock</h2>
After the strange sightings began <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/mystery-drones-new-jersey-new-york-timeline-what-officials-said/story?id=116824178">over New York and New Jersey</a> late last year, the president-elect <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-drones-new-jersey-government/">claimed that the Biden Administration knew</a> of their origins but wanted to intentionally "keep people in suspense" about them.
"The government knows what is happening," he told reporters in December. "Look, our military knows where they took off from, if it’s a garage they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went."
During the more recent Mar-a-Lago meeting, Trump's gubernatorial lackeys seemed to agree with that assessment.
"We are home to the largest naval base in the world and Quantico and we house a lot of the SEAL teams and have a huge national security infrastructure," Virginia's GOP governor, Glenn Youngkin, told reporters from the Winter White House. "And now, for two years running, we have had drone incursion over secure airspace, and we still don’t know why. I think that’s absolutely unacceptable."
One thing's for sure: on Trump's first day, he's either going to keep his promise or break it — and either way, we'll be watching.
More on Trump's big brain: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-california-wildfires-fish">Trump Blames California Wildfires on "Worthless Fish"</a>

Promise Ring

"I think it’s ridiculous that they are not telling you about what is going on with the drones."

Trump Pledges Information About Mystery Drones on “Day One” of Presidency

<h2>Young Whippercracker</h2>
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced sweeping layoffs of what he refers to as "low-performers" at his empire.
According to a company-wide memo <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/meta-is-planning-to-cut-5-of-lowest-performers-memo-shows?sref=YfHlo0rL">obtained by Bloomberg</a>, the Facebook owner is cutting around five percent of its staff. And interestingly, the directive is already in tension with what Zuckerberg <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/zuckerberg-automate-coding-ai">told podcaster Joe Rogan</a> last week about how the company was looking to replace "midlevel engineers" with AI. Instead — in a likely concession to AI just not quite being up to snuff yet — he says employees "who aren't meeting expectations" will be replaced in order to "bring new people in" (emphasis on the "people," for any AI zealots.)
"I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster," he wrote in the message, adding that terminated employees would be provided with "generous severance."
Zuckerberg wrote that 2025 will be an "intense year" that will require the "strongest talent." But what exactly he means by that remains unclear as the billionaire makes sweeping changes to the company's operations.
The CEO appears to be <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/mark-zuckerberg-wants-be-elon-musk/681248/">taking yet another page out of the playbook</a> of X-former-Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has long led his companies with an iron fist — demanding in 2022 that Twitter staff be "<a href="https://futurism.com/panicked-elon-musk-begging-engineers-not-to-leave">extremely hardcore</a>" or risk immediate termination, for instance.
<h2>Race to the Bottom</h2>
Zuckerberg already raised eyebrows this month by giving up the pretense of serious content moderation on his sites. Earlier this month, he <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">introduced new measures</a> that would allow hate speech and misinformation to proliferate unchecked on the company's platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
The straightforward reading is that it was a thinly veiled attempt by Zuckerberg to get in the good graces of president-elect Donald Trump, who has formed a tight relationship with Musk and will be sworn in next week (Trump previously <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-imprison-mark-zuckerberg">threatened to imprison</a> Zuckerberg, which may also be weighing on the founder's mind.)
How exactly Meta's latest efforts to weed out "low-performers" fits into the ongoing groveling remains to be seen. It's not just Meta, either; tech companies across the board are looking to tighten up their operations. Microsoft is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-plans-job-cuts-performance-management-2025-1">also targeting underperforming employees</a> as part of major headcount reductions across the company.
During his chat with Rogan last week, Zuckerberg also <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/01/13/zuckerberg-says-companies-need-more-masculine-energy/">whined</a> that companies were being "culturally neutered" by purportedly distancing themselves from "masculine energy."
Could his latest attempt to push out "low-performers" be symptomatic of his deranged desire to inject some machismo into Meta? Judging by the company's willingness to throw out the rulebook and double down on Musk-inspired meritocracy, anything seems possible.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/zuckerberg-automate-coding-ai">Zuckerberg Announces Plans to Automate Facebook Coding Jobs With AI</a>

Mark Chauviberg

But wait a second...

Zuckerberg Announces Layoffs After Saying Coding Jobs Will Be Replaced by AI

<h2>Foundation Model</h2>
Kieth Wasserman, a wealthy Los Angeles-based real estate mogul and Elon Musk fanboy, <a href="https://futurism.com/tax-investor-begs-help-fire">became the target of widespread mockery</a> after begging for "private firefighters" to come protect his home as the city was being ravaged by wildfires last week.
Netizens accused the real estate investment company cofounder and CEO of becoming the <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://bsky.app/profile/badideas.bsky.social/post/3lf7nala74s2y">poster child of late-stage capitalism</a>, pointing out he had previously called for <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://x.com/Keith_Wasserman/status/1836164360550650241">cutting taxes</a> — something that would put additional strain on publicly-funded firefighters.
Unfortunately for Wasserman, his pleas were to no avail. His home in the Palisades neighborhood burned down to the ground, according to online records <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/13/us-news/la-ceos-home-burns-down-after-he-offered-any-amount-for-private-protection/">examined by the New York Post</a>.
"I feel like I lost a part of my soul losing our home that [my wife] spent so much time meticulously creating for our family," he wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/keithwasserman/posts/pfbid02oiZRnyEcjk2xsXwEBh9kSTgS5ykffyurGVkLpNi4T3MpaG6zsFWXTYMzM89cBFwCl">Facebook post</a>. "I miss the Palisades so much. Feels surreal to be homeless after living in so much abundance and beauty."
Now, Wasserman is looking for housing.
"If you know of any available for rent in Santa Monica, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, or Cheviot Hills that is 4br+ please let us know as it is a feeding frenzy to try to find alternative housing," he wrote.
<h2>Feeding Frenzy</h2>
Of course, thousands of less privileged residents are in a far more dire situation, with experts predicting an even worse housing crisis in the area following the fires.
Worst of all, housing in the LA area was already notoriously expensive. Now that thousands of homes have been burned down, residents are worried about skyrocketing rents and home prices.
"Dozens and dozens of people are going after the same properties," Compass real estate agent David Berg <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/their-houses-burned-down-now-they-are-fighting-for-the-few-homes-left-on-the-market">told the LA Times</a>. "Since Tuesday afternoon, our phones have rung hundreds of times."
Fortunately, California forbids landlords from raising rents by more than ten percent following an emergency like this month's fires.
But whether that actually stops profiteering remains to be seen, with many arguing that those rules aren't being effectively enforced.
"Some of the properties, they add up almost 50 percent to the rent," real estate agent Heidi Jensen told the LA Times. "I think it’s just so unethical and not nice to do this with people that are in need."
More on the incident: <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>

Last Laugh

"Feels surreal to be homeless after living in so much abundance and beauty."

CEO's House Burns Down After He Pled for Private Firefighters

Erstwhile TikTok users are <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202501/1326866.shtml">flocking en masse</a> to a Chinese social media app called RedNote ahead of a Supreme Court ruling which could force a sale or total ban of the beloved short-form video app. And it's not a fringe thing; RedNote has quickly hit #1 on Apple and Android app stores, with the influx of users showing no signs of slowing.
The app, known in China as Xiaohongshu or "xhs" for short, sports an interface not dissimilar from TikTok, but is functionally closer to a hybrid of Pinterest and Instagram. Users trade recipes in static posts, comment on fit check reels, and use the AI-free search function to answer everyday questions. (US tech companies might learn a <a href="https://futurism.com/google-image-corn-ai-slop">thing</a> or <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-baby-elephants">two</a> from that example.)
On a certain level, the exodus is arguably a mass denunciation of the busted American social media industry. On another, though, it might just be that RedNote has a compelling product: as <a href="https://x.com/aawoogie/status/1879072901087002714">one Chinese-English user</a> summed it up on X-formerly-Twitter: "it's pretty much a replacement for search engine and insanely useful for everything".
Many of the 170 million American TikTok users flocking to the Chinese app will quickly notice the dominance of mandarin text, or hànzì. That hasn't stopped tens of thousands of xhs'ers from rallying around the tag "TikTok Refugee," which is quickly becoming a first-stop for users to reconnect with American content creators rebuilding their empires beyond the confines of Silicon Valley.
Nor has the app's translated name — "little red book" — dissuaded Americans from signing on with fervor (the app's <a href="https://36kr.com/p/1724258762753">founder claims</a> to have named xhs after the color palette of Stanford, where he received his MBA, as opposed to the book of quotations by People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong).
As the term "refugee" implies, American TikTok users are stumbling into a digital environment already populated by a vast and foreign culture. Prior to the "Great Digital Migration," RedNote was home to roughly 300 million monthly users, the majority of whom are young, urban women, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2475l7zpqyo">according to the BBC</a>.
So far, China's Pinterest girlies have been gracious hosts. Many high-profile Chinese accounts have begun adding English subtitles to videos, pinning reels with titles like "How TikTok Refugees Can fit in RedNote" to the top of their profiles. Some are teaching bite-sized lessons in hànzì-English shorthand, while others spin elocution lessons for their curious American counterparts.
Though the internet has often been heralded as a tool for information dissemination and western progressivism — remember the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/17/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start">Arab Spring</a>? — the reality isn't so idealistic. Case in point, China tends to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown">ban American apps</a> that don't comply with its regulatory standards, and the US has <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202306/1293413.shtml">long used the internet</a> as a tool to maintain global hegemony. So it's interesting to see Western and Chinese users interacting directly, a turn with little precedence in the contemporary world.
It's all the more fascinating that the tensions of state which usually keep the two societies separate has, in this case, driven them right into each other's arms. In practice, posts on RedNote suggest that American users are uniting around the app out of spite for the US government, or at least the parts of it that might <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-ban-app-phone/">ban the distribution</a> of TikTok.
"I surrender all my data to China," said <a href="https://t.co/v5eIN8n2FY">one user</a> as he knelt, offering a binder full of papers. "Fuck you US government. Fuck. You."
Chinese users were quick to catch onto this American angst, gleefully inviting westerners to reconnect with their now out-of-the-job "Chinese spy" assigned to monitor them over TikTok. Time will tell if this is a true Berlin-wall moment, or if more <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/supreme-court-skeptical-of-ban-on-tiktok/">government crackdowns</a> are soon to follow.
More on social media: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-hosting-ai-hitler">Facebook Caught Hosting AI-Powered Hitler</a>

Digital Dengism

"I surrender all my data to China."

TikTok Users Looking to Spite US Government Find Warm Welcome on Chinese App

On January 7, multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk took to his right-wing hate speech incubator X to stream an hour-long session of Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), a recently released free-to-play action RPG.
At a glance, Musk appears to be one of the game's top players in the world, with his character Percy_Verence near the top ranks of the game's "Hardcore" mode, which allows for permanent character death.
But as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1hxnocb/elon_musk_absolutely_clueless_trying_to_pilot_his/">many in</a> the <a href="https://x.com/AlexAlarga/status/1877418817782952094">gaming community</a> have pointed out, Musk was likely paying more skilled players to level the character up — and there's ample evidence supporting that conclusion, as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1hwxc17/comment/m64re2u/">painstakingly documented on the game's subreddit</a>.
"What an ego-trip..." one X user <a href="https://x.com/AlexAlarga/status/1877418817782952094">wrote in a tweet</a> that has since gone viral. "Elon Musk has been livestreaming himself playing overpowered Path of Exile 2 character, proudly and seriously pretending that he got there himself, and actual PoE veterans are laughing their asses off watching and dissecting that charade."
"Why Elon, why?" they added.
Adding fuel to the fire was Percy_Verence's sudden <a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/percy-verence-elon-musks-infamous-path-of-exile-2-hardcore-character-dead-at-level-97/#:~:text=It's%20with%20a%20heavy%20heart,the%20pool%20of%20standard%20characters.">death at level 97</a> on January 10 — a demise that made it seem an awful lot as though Musk had killed the high-ranking character through overconfidence and incompetence.
"Probably got triggered by all the laughing and actually tried to play the character for five mins," one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1hy3z3m/comment/m6esbik/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">suggested</a> mockingly. "He can just buy another one."
Fueling the fire is the context that the richest man in the world has a reputation for <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">making unsubstantiated claims</a> to further his own agenda. Just last week, he made the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blames-la-wildfires-black-firefighters-dei">racist assertion</a> that diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring programs were to blame for the fires raging in Los Angeles — before being <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">put in his place by a firefighter</a> in person.
But lying about being good at a video game — something an insecure middle schooler might do — does feel extreme. Is Musk's ego really this thin?
The alarm bells were already sounding following Musk's PoE 2 <a href="https://youtu.be/4gxRyXsPoXI">livestream on January 7</a>.
As many high-profile PoE 2 players immediately noticed, there was something very off about Musk's performance. In a <a href="https://youtu.be/FmEe3eUPWq4">recent video</a>, New Zealand game streamer who goes by Quin69TV pointed out signs that Musk had no idea what he was doing — despite controlling a level 97 character, ranked 12th on the company's Hardcore mode.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Elon Musk is Lying About Being Good at Video Games" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FmEe3eUPWq4?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>
"Let me try to give you a quick understanding as to how hard it is to get to that level," Quin69TV said. "Two weeks into the league when people are playing the game, staying up 40 to 50 hours without sleeping, only playing Path of Exile, the most try-hard guys in the world, the highest ranked player on the Hardcore trade league, was level 93."
"Every time you level it up, it becomes exponentially harder to gain experience," he explained. In short, to even get to 97, players would have to play the game "every day for the majority of their day."
And Quin69TV showed that Musk seemed to have trouble navigating the game, at one point "sitting there like an old geriatric man, clicking this node, expecting something to happen."
Musk "finally kind of gives up after a while and then realizes his mistake," Quin69TV said.
Inventory management also didn't appear to be his forte.
"It's almost like he has no understanding as to what you're even supposed to do with" his loot, Quin69TV argued.
At one point, during a boss fight, Musk ran right past a "chaos orb," which is "one of the most important currencies" in the game, according to a gamer who goes by Kriparrian, who joined Quin69TV in analyzing the footage.
Instead, Musk picked up items called "maps," which are essentially "worthless" for high-level characters.
During his stream, Musk also repeatedly visited low-level maps, which are conventionally used to "grind" or "farm" experience.
"I don't know if he's trying to deceive people watching this stream into thinking he's doing some insanely hard thing," Quin69TV said.
"It's just him being bad, it's just him being bad at this character," Charles "penguinz0" White Jr. argued in a <a href="https://youtu.be/8Ui4h0J1mIQ">separate reaction video</a>. "Whoever is piloting this account behind the scenes and boosting it lets Elon go and do these really easy maps where even he can get away with being bad and not be punished for it."
"I don't even think Elon Musk has done the campaign, honestly," Quin69TV posited.
In short, Musk has lost a lot of goodwill and credibility in gaming circles with his painful charade.
"A lifetime of taking credit for other people's work has led to this," a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gxRyXsPoXI&amp;t=1648s">YouTube comment</a> on Musk's live stream reads.
"Being the richest man on earth and simultaneously the saddest loser on Earth is a wild combination," another user added.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">Firefighter Shuts Down Elon Musk to His Face</a>

Stolen Valor

"A life time of taking credit for other people's work has led to this."

Did Elon Musk Pay a Gamer to Level a Character Up, Then Accidentally Kill It Permanently Due to Incompetence?

<h2>Last Responder</h2>
Elon Musk is patting himself on the back for saving "thousands of lives" during the recent rash of wildfires in Los Angeles — even though there's little evidence backing up that claim.
In a video that the multi-hyphenate CEO <a href="https://x.com/DesireeAmerica4/status/1878507477500592144">reshared on X-formerly-Twitter</a>, an AI voiceover alleged that the 43-year-old billionaire's "astonishing decision" to "generously donate" Starlink internet terminals to LA allowed people in the "disaster zone" to see coverage of the fires.
As a result, "thousands of lives" were saved, the anonymous-created video claimed.
"Many rescue requests and on-site firefighting operations were successfully carried out," the AI voiceover intoned, "thanks to the support of Starlink."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Elon Musk stepped up big time, donating Starlink to help Los Angeles firefighters and people stay connected during the chaos. Say what you want about the guy, but who else is making moves like this when it counts? <a href="https://t.co/TlKozxKVjs">pic.twitter.com/TlKozxKVjs</a>
&mdash; Desiree (@DesireeAmerica4) <a href="https://twitter.com/DesireeAmerica4/status/1878507477500592144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>LA Slop</h2>
The video's robotic went on to cite — using bizarre syntax, factual errors, and without citing any names or using any quotes — a gratitude message posted by someone who escaped the fires.
"What's more: a survivor of the Eaton fire also expressed on social media gratitude to Musk and the Tesla team for the 'biohazard defense mode,'" the masculine-voiced AI narrator said, "which protected him and his family during the fire — a feature that few people even knew about."
Charitably speaking, the video might have been referencing a post by someone who claimed to have survived the nearby Palisades fire thanks to the "bioweapon defense mode," which <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-bioweapon-defense-mode-proves-saves-model-y-palisades-fire/">clears cabin air using a massive HEPA filter</a>.
"When biodefense mode actually comes in handy for the Palisades Fire in LA," user @JosefInvesting posted. "This Tesla is literally saving my life. Never buying another brand ever again."
But that's one person. Where are the thousands of residents saved by Musk that the video referenced? (And if anyone has saved that many people in LA, it's the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">first responders Musk has been trashing</a>.)
All told, this <a href="https://futurism.com/google-image-corn-ai-slop">AI slop</a> has every warning sign from a robotic narrator to factual errors to a laughably outlandish core claim.
Then again, this is the same person who called someone a "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musks-legal-defense-pedo-guy-pedophile">pedo guy</a>" after his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/court-documents-elon-musk-fucking-idiot">half-baked cave rescue mission in Thailand didn't work</a>, so credibility is kind of beside the point.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">Firefighter Shuts Down Elon Musk to His Face</a>

Self-Inflammatory

Citation needed.

Without Evidence, Elon Musk Says He's Saved Thousands of Lives in LA Wildfires

A life-sized robot dubbed "Aria" drew <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2025/01/08/this-could-be-your-ai-robot-girlfriend-for-175000/">plenty of attention</a> on the show floor of this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
She's as tall as a human, can speak with an AI-enabled voice, and move her head in an unsettlingly jerky fashion.
Andrew Kiguel, the CEO of Aria's creator Realbotix, told reporters at the convention that she was designed to interact with other humans, greeting guests at a theme park or acting as a concierge at a hospital.
"Realbotix robots, including me, focus on social intelligence, customizability, and realistic human features, designed specifically for companionship and intimacy," Aria <a href="https://youtu.be/2HQ84TVcbMw">told CNET</a> on the show floor.
But something about Aria's sexualized appearance had <a href="https://x.com/janninereid1/status/1878313814355218736">plenty</a> <a href="https://x.com/darren_fm/status/1879166458342895641">of</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/amazonchique.bsky.social/post/3lfhw3azdx22q">users</a> on social media wondering: why does she remind us so much of a sex doll?
As it turns out, there's a very good reason: Aria's predecessors were sex dolls. An examination of the company's past reveals twists and turns ranging from a California-based factory producing silicone sex dolls to a years-long effort to rebrand them into "companions" to combat a loneliness epidemic.
But Realbotix assured us that Aria's job definitely isn't to have sex with humans.
"Realbotix no longer produces sex products," a spokesperson told Futurism in an email. "Aria does not have genitalia. She is not anatomically correct and has a hard shell body. And is not meant for sex."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MEET ARIA - THE FEMALE COMPANION ROBOT BY <a href="https://twitter.com/RealbotixCorp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RealbotixCorp</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/aria?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#aria</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/realbotix?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#realbotix</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ces2025?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ces2025</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ces?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ces</a> <a href="https://t.co/oKh4Ggfb6O">pic.twitter.com/oKh4Ggfb6O</a>
&mdash; Dominic DiTanna (@dominicditanna) <a href="https://twitter.com/dominicditanna/status/1877175915806945683?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In April, Realbotix's parent company Simulacra was acquired as part of a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tokens-com-closes-acquisition-simulacra-113000550.html">$16.7 million all-stock deal</a> by Canadian crypto company Tokens.com, which was cofounded by Kiguel.
One of Simulacra's subsidiaries, Abyss Creations, is the Las Vegas-based company behind RealDolls, a product line of sex dolls that the company has been producing for over two decades.
As Canadian business publication <a href="https://thelogic.co/news/the-big-read/simulacra-realbotix-sex-dolls-robots-pivot/">The Logic reported</a> last year, Simulacra shifted gears to robots that could talk and move in 2016, before announcing an AI-powered RealDoll in 2018.
"It’s not the technology that’s to be feared as it is the intent behind it," Simulacra founder Matt McMullen, who now serves as Realbotix COO, <a href="https://www.kpbs.org/news/arts-culture/2018/04/20/realdoll-launches-ai-sex-dolls">told San Diego-based PBS affiliate KPBS</a> at the time. "And for us where really a lot of our focus is on people who would benefit from having a presence in their life, who can’t find the way to bond with another human being for whatever reason they choose not to, and I think these dolls fill that void for some people."
That kind of sentiment, of using humanoid robots for those in search of human connection, lives on under Kiguel's leadership. Except instead of providing sex, the robot is now seeking to be an emotional companion, reminiscent of the AI chatbots that have <a href="https://futurism.com/suicide-chatbots-character-ai">surged in popularity</a> over the last few years.
"It can be like a romantic partner," Kiguel <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2025/01/08/this-could-be-your-ai-robot-girlfriend-for-175000/">told Forbes</a> last week. "It remembers who you are. It can act as a boyfriend or girlfriend. If you ever saw that movie 'Her,' we're trying to do that."
Asked about the pivot, Realbotix said the move to spin off RealDoll, which is a "separate company," was "inspired by the desire to grow the robotics business."
"The ties to the adult industry make it hard to finance and some robot customers are sensitive to being attached to the companion dolls," the spokesperson continued.
"The decision was made to separate the two so that the Realdoll business didn't hold back the growth of the more mainstream robotics business," they added. "The companies are independent but they do interact. Realdoll, for example, would purchase robotic heads from Realbotix."
Still, the company's efforts to position the tech as a hotel concierge or theme park attraction appeared to be a tough sell, garnering ridicule on social media.
"I'm cracking up about this Realbotix AI girlfriend," one X user <a href="https://x.com/petercoffin/status/1878111254499250421">tweeted</a>. "The funniest thing is it's not even a sex toy. Like they made this weird thing that looks like Chucky and moves like It's a Small World After All presumably for people who would bang it, but they can't bang it lol."
Realbotix acknowledged that Aria's appearance might not be quite right for every professional opportunity.
"We agree, she wouldn't be the right appearance for a hospital, but maybe a concierge at a casino," the spokesperson told Futurism after being asked about her exaggerated features. "The other robot models on display were more conservative in appearance."
Realbotix's appearance at CES is intriguing for a number of reasons, and not just for its parent company's storied history of producing sex dolls. Tokens.com, the company that acquired Simulacra last year, has its own eyebrow-raising past: the company made headlines in 2021 after <a href="https://futurism.com/biggest-metaverse-land-purchase">blowing a whopping $2.4 million</a> on just over 6,000 square feet of "digital land" from the metaverse "real estate" company Decentraland.
Decenetraland, which sold plots of virtual land as NFTs via an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency, turned out to be a massive flop and subsequently faded into a "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/16untz1/metaverse_meltdown_decentraland_and_sandbox_are/">virtual ghost town</a>."
Whether the company's latest maneuverings will appease investors — Realbotix is publicly traded on three exchanges in Canada, the US, and Germany — remains to be seen.
"This acquisition diversifies our assets and business base," Kiguel said in a press release <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/hk-zh/20240418830174/en/Tokens.com-Closes-Acquisition-of-Simulacra-Corporation">statement</a> when it bought Simulacra. "Going forward, we will be less reliant on the performance of crypto prices."
"While most AI tools available today are filtered for content and viewpoints, Simulacra's AI technology enables humans and robots to foster genuine connection through unfiltered, human-like conversation," he added in a <a href="https://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item/Z-C!COIN-3533323/C/COIN">separate statement</a>.
We'll see about that. Currently, the company's products sometimes invoke the dystopian amusement park populated by android "hosts" in the 1973 film "Westworld" and its more recent HBO adaptation of the same name, and not necessarily in a good way.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-339277" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/01/16855108d7e22cfc2c3df5d87582ac619597967b-600x600-1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="336" />
"You can actually remove the faces off our robots in under five seconds," Kiguel told Forbes. "The body parts are also modular, so we can actually pull them apart, put different faces on and create a whole new robotic character off the same chassis."
It remains to be seen whether Realbotix's bold pivot to AI robotics will prove a success. The company has an uphill battle, especially considering a steep competition. Companies like <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-robots-remotely-controlled-analyst">Elon Musk's Tesla</a> and the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/humanoid-robot-maker-deal-openai">ChatGPT-powered robot by AI robotics company Figure</a> are also working on realizing a similar, humanoid robot-filled future.
But neither of those companies will have to battle the perception and association with flesh-simulating sex dolls and robots, a thorny and potentially business deal-derailing affiliation Realbotix will have to contend with going forward.
More on Realbotix: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/companionship-robot-sex-robot-dazed-expression">"Companionship" Robot That Its Creator Says Is Definitely Not a Sex Robot Looks Around With a Dazed Expression</a>

Hard Shell Robot Taco

"Aria does not have genitalia... and is not meant for sex."

Company Says Its Sexy Robot "Companions" No Longer Have Genitals and Are "Not Meant for Sex"

<h2>Script Kiddy</h2>
Is Elon Musk a generational tech genius? Evidence suggests not.
We submit this poorly constructed, years-in-the-making joke that Musk seemingly made to flaunt his programmer — and culture warrior — cred, in which he bizarrely admits to having once been "woke."
"traceroute woke_mind_virus," Musk wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1472371245744373760">tweet</a> in December 2021 in the style of a Linux command.
Now, years later, he's followed it up <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1877956343199420867">with this mockery of command terminals</a> everywhere: 
woke_mind_virus found at 127.0.0.1 
woke_mind_virus deleted rm -rf.
The "joke" is that the IP, 127.0.0.1, is the localhost, or the computer that's being currently used (which many were quick to point on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1hzvqjf/enron_musk_has_the_woke_mind_virus/">on social media</a>). Ergo, Elon's brain. Corny stuff that only gets worse when Musk follows up on it.
"Local host was infected," replied one user. "But not anymore," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1877957057271242917">responded</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
woke_mind_virus found at 127.0.0.1 woke_mind_virus deleted rm -rf <a href="https://t.co/M1HQkz3LDM">https://t.co/M1HQkz3LDM</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1877956343199420867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>Does Not Compute</h2>
This joke doesn't work for multiple reasons, so please indulge us as we overanalyze it.
The <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/traceroute-command-in-linux-with-examples/">traceroute command</a> does what it says on the tin: it displays the path that a request made to a server takes through the internet. It does not, however, do the job of actually "finding" something. So "woke_mind_virus found" is a non sequitur. The standard way to lookup files is literally just the "find" command — but our guess is that Elon thought "traceroute" sounded smarter.
But whatever. Let's say he did find the woke mind virus. In Elon's joke, it's found at an IP address — his brain — suggesting it's a running virus/application with its own server.
Then he uses the very <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/rm-rf-command-in-linux-with-examples/">powerful and</a> <a href="https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/666766/is-yes-rm-r-safer-than-rm-rf">dangerous-to-wield</a> "rm -rf" command, which forcefully removes an entire folder or directory and all its files without asking you for confirmation. Permanently.
Using this command for a single virus is overkill. To reiterate, the point of the remove command with the -rf flag is to nuke entire directories, not the odd file.
Here's where things get extra dumb. Elon elides showing us the actual deletion command, but he does show its success message in the form of "woke_mind_virus deleted rm -rf." This is also puzzling, because these commands normally <a href="https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/rm-command-linux-examples/">don't output a message saying the file was deleted</a>.
Now in his defense, it could be that "woke_mind_virus delete rm -rf" is meant to be the deletion command — but if this is the case the order is all wrong, and since no directory is specified, nothing would be deleted anyway.
In sum: this joke is not the product of a programming virtuoso's upper story.
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/firefighter-elon-musk">Firefighter Shuts Down Elon Musk to His Face</a>

Please Laugh

Elon, what?

Alleged Tech Genius Elon Musk Makes Programming Joke That Makes Zero Sense

Google's AI-powered search tool was caught recommending that parents use a popular vibrator on children for behavioral therapy purposes — the latest blunder in a <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-inaccurate-garbage">seemingly neverending</a> string of strange, unfortunate, or potentially harmful outputs by the controversial search tool.
As <a href="https://www.404media.co/google-ai-overview-search-magic-wand/">first reported by 404 Media</a>, the alarming recommendation by Google's "AI Overview" — the AI-generated summary of results that now often appears at the top of Google search pages — was <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/artificial/comments/1hwaw0m/these_ai_generated_search_results_are_really/?ref=404media.co">caught last week by a Redditor</a> who had searched the term "magic wand pregnancy." In response, according to a post by the Reddit user and confirmed by 404, Google's search AI returned a nonsensical and inappropriate summary suggesting that parents consider deploying Hitachi's popular "Magic Wand" sex toy as a means of identifying "behavioral changes" in their child.
"The Magic Wand tool is a creative way for parents to identify behavioral changes they want to make, including those related to pregnancy," read the summary. "It can be used to make assessment fun and engaging, especially for long-time WIC clients." (The acronym WIC <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic">refers to</a> the US Department of Agriculture's "Women, Infants, and Children" program.)
"Here's how the Magic Wand tool works: Parents describe what parenting challenges they would change by 'waving a magic wand,'" it added. "The responses of both parents and older children can be used to start discussions. The Magic Wand tool can be purchased online or at a local store."
Affixed to the bizarre AI-generated summary is an image of the brand Hitachi's <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a14105499/hitachi-magic-wand-history/">iconic Magic Wand vibrator</a>.
As 404 explains, the AI's confusion appears to stem from a <a href="https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt476/files/documents/2021-11/wic-magic-tool.pdf?ref=404media.co">wildly random document</a> published by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, which recommends a somewhat obscure — and sex-toy-free — "Magic Wand" technique to therapists working with parents.
Basically, according to the document, a therapist in this situation would ask stressed or concerned parents what changes they might make in their life or child's life if they had access to a mystical, <a href="https://people.com/ariana-grande-original-glinda-wand-wizard-oz-drew-barrymore-8754947">Glinda-esque magical tool</a>; this exercise, the paper adds, "allows parents to step out of their daily realities and experience the illusion of immediate power," thus allowing them to momentarily "alter the challenges they face as parents of picky toddlers, or even pregnancy challenges."
Google's less-than-nuanced AI, meanwhile, seems to have picked up on some key terms used in the document — the mentions of both a magic wand and pregnancy — and fused the health department's advice with the vast reserves of online information about the Hitachi-made vibrator. The result? The horrifying proposition that parents should use a sex toy on kids for therapy reasons.
Google, which didn't respond to 404's questions, appears to have issued a manual fix for the unsightly AI summary after the attention; when we searched the query ourselves, we were greeted by a disclaimer noting that "an AI Overview is not available for this search."
The search AI's latest slip-up, though, once again raises the question: why would Google release a product this dysfunctional to the masses?
After all, on the long list of things that a tech company wouldn't want its product to do, recommending that adults use a sex toy on or with children has gotta be right near the top. And if the AI search tool is issuing summaries this bad, what else might this thing be churning out? (That in mind: the list of Really Bad AI Overview Suggestions so far includes recommendations that Google users <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-inaccurate-garbage">eat rocks</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/googles-ai-glue-on-pizza-flaw">mix Elmer's Glue into pizza sauce</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-fecal-matter-balloon">smear human feces on balloons</a>, among other responses.)
As it stands, the answer to the question of why appears to be industry pressure. Google is in the throes of an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4dfc113f-ccbe-4d11-82b5-761c77fbda24">industry race</a> against competitors like OpenAI and its benefactor, Microsoft, which have infused AI into search products of their own. And as the market writ large continues to double down on AI search, it's unlikely we'll see it go away anytime soon, even if AI search results <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-baby-elephants">pollute and distort information</a> in a delicate digital world — while putting <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/us-backsliding-fossil-fuels-ai">environmentally destructive demands for energy</a> on the physical one.
More on Google's Search AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-failing-climate-targets-ai">Google Is Failing to Meet Important Climate Targets so Its AI Can Tell You to Put Glue on Pizza</a>