Elon Musk Might Die of Old Age Before He Can Make It to Mars, Expert Suggests

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Elon Musk's plans to fly to Mars grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

Mulling Martians

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's plans to turn humanity into a "multiplanetary" species grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, experts are skeptical about the billionaire's bold plan to take humans to Mars.

In an interview with the newspaper, aerodynamics expert Christopher Combs of the University of Texas said that it may take between 15 and 20 years for it to be safe enough for humans to travel to Mars. Should it take that long, the multi-hyphenate business owner will be in his 60s or 70s by the time he's able to reach the Red Planet.

"SpaceX has a history of designing iteratively, and we kind of expect things to go wrong the first few tries — if you have to wait two years between iterative attempts, that really stretches out your development cycle," Combs told the newspaper. "Can they be perfect the first time?"

Of particular concern are the logistics of getting to the Red Planet, which only has a single window every 26 months where that planet and ours are aligned closely enough to send spacecraft with the least amount of fuel. With future launches having to occur on that timeline, there will only be nine windows for SpaceX's Starships to go to Mars in the next 20 years.

Time Windows

At the age of 53, Musk will ultimately have to pull off at least one crewed Mars mission within the next 20 years to get there himself — and given that the next such window opens in the fourth quarter of this year, he's clearly not going to be able to launch anything to Mars again before late 2026.

To be fair, Musk himself has made public comments about the fuzziness of the Mars travel timeline as it relates to his own lifespan.

"If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely, you know, gonna be dead before we go to Mars," Musk said during a 2020 conference. "I would like to not be dead by the time we go to Mars — that’s my aspiration here."

As per recent tweets, Musk is still hoping to send an uncrewed Starship spacecraft to the Red Planet during the next Earth-Mars transfer window in 2026 and claims humans will hitch rides there within the next eight years. Unlike Combs, astrophysicist Peter Hague thinks after crunching the numbers that it can be done.

"2031 for humans is credible," Hague tweeted. "If not 2033. This is happening and you’ll get to see it."

Which expert is more correct remains to be seen. SpaceX still has a lot to prove — and Musk is only getting older.

More on Musk and Mars: Elon Musk Makes Embarrassingly Stupid Claim: If Trump Loses, Humanity Will Never Make It to Mars

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Scientists Gene Hack Bacteria That Breaks Down Plastic Waste

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

The scientists edited to the bacteria to prove which enzyme it used to degrade PET plastics into bioavailable carbon.

Bottom Feeders

We may have a way of literally eating away at our planet's pollution crisis.

As part of a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers have shed additional light on a possibly game-changing bacteria that grows on common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, confirming that it can break down and eat the polymers that make up the waste.

Scientists have long been interested in the plastic-decomposing abilities of the bacteria, Comamonas testosteroni. But this is the first time that the mechanisms behind that process have been fully documented, according to study senior author Ludmilla Aristilde.

"The machinery in environmental microbes is still a largely untapped potential for uncovering sustainable solutions we can exploit," Aristilde, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, told The Washington Post.

Enzyme or Reason

To observe its plastic-devouring ability, the researchers isolated a bacterium sample, grew it on shards of PET plastics, and then used advanced microscopic imaging to look for changes inside the microbe, in the plastic, and in the surrounding water.

Later, they identified the specific enzyme that helped break down the plastic. To prove it was the one, they edited the genes of the bacteria so that it wouldn't secrete the enzyme and found that without it, the bacteria's plastic degrading abilities were markedly diminished.

That gene-hacking trick formed a full picture of what goes on. First, the bacteria more or less chews on the plastic to break it into microscopic particles. Then, they use the enzyme to degrade the tiny pieces into their monomer building blocks, which provide a bioavailable source of carbon.

"It is amazing that this bacterium can perform that entire process, and we identified a key enzyme responsible for breaking down the plastic materials," Aristilde said in a statement about the work. "This could be optimized and exploited to help get rid of plastics in the environment."

PET Project

PET plastics, which are often used in water bottles, account for 12 percent of global solid waste, the researchers said. It also accounts for up to 50 percent of the microplastics found in wastewater.

That happens to be the environment that C. testosteroni thrives in, opening up the possibility of tailoring the bacteria to clean up our sewage before it's dumped into the ocean, for example.

But we'll need to understand more about the bacteria before that can happen.

"There's a lot of different kinds of plastic, and there are just as many potential solutions to reducing the environmental harm of plastic pollution," Timothy Hollein, a professor of biology at Loyola University Chicago who was not involved with the study, told WaPo. "We're best positioned to pursue all options at the same time."

More on pollution: A Shocking Percentage of Our Brains Are Made of Microplastics, Scientists Find

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Top Tesla Exec Abandons Ship Just Days Before Major "Robotaxi" Event

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Tesla chief information officer Nagesh Saldi is now leaving the company less than a week before it's supposed to unveil its robotaxi.

Peace Out

One of Tesla's long-serving executives is abandoning ship.

As Bloomberg reports, Tesla employees were informed that chief information officer Nagesh Saldi, who has held his position for six years, is leaving the automaker.

The news comes less than a week before Tesla is reportedly set to unveil a long-rumored "Cybercab" prototype at its (rescheduled) robotaxi event in Los Angeles, an event that many hope will answer major questions about the company's risky pivot to operating a driverless taxi service.

Saldi joined Tesla from the computing giant HP in 2012. After a major restructuring at the company in 2018, he was promoted to CIO, a role that is typically responsible for an organization's information and computer technologies.

As CIO, Saldi reported directly to Musk. One of the latest major projects he was involved in was the expansion of Tesla's data centers in New York and Texas, according to Bloomberg, which are part of the automaker's AI infrastructure to develop its autonomous driving tech, including its Full Self-Driving driver assistance system.

Why Saldi left, however — and whether it was of his own accord or by being fired by his boss Elon Musk — is unclear. Nevertheless, the timing of the move will invite additional scrutiny into the state of the company's leadership, as the ranks of its c-suite dwindle.

Management Massacre

Saldi's departure adds to an alarming number of top execs who have left Tesla this year.

Three departed in the course of a tumultuous two weeks in April: senior vice president Drew Baglino, vice president of public policy Rohan Patel, and vice president of investor relations Martin Viecha, who announced his departure during an earnings call.

The next month, head of human resources Allie Arabalo also left, soon followed by Tesla's head of product launches Rich Otto, who publicly trashed Musk's leadership for the brutal layoffs he carried out.

As it stands, Tesla officially lists just three executives: CEO Elon Musk, chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja, and senior vice president of automotive Tom Zhu. For a company with over 100,000 employees, that's strikingly few leaders.

All the CEO's Men

The seeming leadership crisis comes at what could be a pivotal moment for the company. Sales have slowed, but Musk has ramped up his commitment to launching a robotaxi service.

This is despite many believing that Tesla's autonomous driving tech isn't advanced and reliable enough for the job, as evidenced by the controversies surrounding Full Self-Driving. The challenge is only heightened by the hurdle of rolling out an entirely new vehicle to serve as the taxis.

Good thing, then, that Musk has surrounded himself with plenty of people to advise him. Right?

More on Tesla: Tesla Won't Have Much to Show at "Light on Details" Robotaxi Event, Investor Warns

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Fun New Mouth Swab Will Tell You When You’ll Die

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Scientists have devised a fascinating way to determine when you may die.

Known as "CheekAge," this new biological clock-reader developed by the company Tally Health is, according to a press release, a far less invasive version of so-called "epigenetic clock" technology scientists have been using for the past decade to help determine how fast people are aging.

While there are some "super-agers" who age particularly well, most folks' aging rates generally follow both genetic trends personal to them and their own lifestyle factors, including smoking, drinking, stress, and diet.

Paired with epigenetic factors — those that are "imprinted" on our DNA from ancestral factors ranging from proximity to environmental pollution to the full-body stress of dealing with institutional racism — scientists can, with a fairly high level of certainty, determine how fast you're going to age.

Put differently: scientists can tell you when you're going to die. In the past, however, the process involved either taking blood tissue samples or being subjected to a battery of tests that more resembled a physical assessment than anything else.

Seeking a less-invasive solution, researchers at the New York-based longevity company Tally Health not only came up with a new methodology but are likely intending to sell it to the public.

After sifting through data from a longitudinal aging study out of Scotland that measured elderly patients' DNA expression (otherwise known as "methylation") over time, the Tally Health team determined that they had acquired enough of a trove of biomarkers to create their own epigenetic clock criteria.

In a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, the Tally experts explained how they created what they're calling a "second-generation clock," which can detect DNA methylation most associated with mortality from cells obtained via a cheek swab.

"The fact that our epigenetic clock trained on cheek cells predicts mortality when measuring the methylome in blood cells suggests there are common mortality signals across tissues," boasted Maxim Shokhirev, the study's first author and head of computational biology and data science at Tally Health. "This implies that a simple, non-invasive cheek swab can be a valuable alternative for studying and tracking the biology of aging."

Because the research was funded and undertaken by a for-profit company, there is also clearly a financial benefit to this research.

Specifically, it appears that Tally Health is already selling its cheek swab tests, though it's unclear if the methodology boasted in this new paper is the same that's included in the $250 box kit advertised on its website, but we've reached out to the company for clarification.

More on aging: Scientists Figure Out Exact Ages Your Face Will Start Aging Like Milk

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Absolutely Deranged Study Says Swallowing Makes You Happy and Is Why You Overeat

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Groundbreaking, surprising research reveals that the joy of swallowing, not just taste or aroma, drives our eating habits.

Every now and again, we get news of a scientific breakthrough that makes us want to put our heads through drywall — and this is one of them: researchers have determined that the happiness we derive from swallowing is what keeps us eating more (and more) of it, not from food's aroma, or taste, as you might expect.

Yes, you read that correctly: You keep eating more because your brain loves to swallow.

Start with why you're excited to eat in the first place. A constellation of indicators driven by flavor, aroma, and hunger cause us to take that first bite. But after that?

In what may be the greatest ad for Ozempic nobody could've seen coming, a paper with the catchy title of "Serotonergic modulation of swallowing in a complete fly vagus nerve connectome" was published last month in the journal Current Biology, to figure out the neurological process that keeps us, for lack of better poetry, NOMing back for more.

While reasonable hypotheses such as "Have you ever only eaten 1/15th of a cheesesteak?!" and "What kind of serial killer-grade psychopath only eats one french fry?!" went tragically untested, a substantial conclusion was somehow reached:

We identify a gut-brain feedback loop in which Piezo-expressing mechanosensory neurons in the esophagus convey food passage information to a cluster of six serotonergic neurons in the brain. Together with information on food value, these central serotonergic neurons enhance the activity of serotonin receptor 7-expressing motor neurons that drive swallowing.

By which they mean: The moment food moves from your grill past your gullet — technically, your esophagus — your brain releases a hit of serotonin, a.k.a. the "feel-good" hormone.

Seeking to figure out how your stomach interacts with your brain when you're digesting food, an international consortium of scientists set out on this adventure, armed with an electron microscope aimed at the larvae of fruit flies — who have somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 nerve cells — after splitting them into "razor-thin slices." This is how they were able to get a closer look to see how their nerve cells work in tandem with one another during the digestive process.

For a visual reference, please enjoy the art used for the University of Bonn press release, which somehow accurately conveys the entire thing:

Masterful. But that's not all! The researchers did indeed find something significant, which was what they called a "stretch receptor" in the esophagus — a nerve signal that's fired off to the brain when the esophagus is processing food. If this all sounds utterly useless at face value, we're relieved to tell you that somehow, it's not. In fact, it could be extremely useful information. Per the Bonn press release:

"If [that "stretch receptor"] is defective, it could potentially cause eating disorders such as anorexia or binge eating. It may therefore be possible that the results of this basic research could also have implications for the treatment of such disorders."

In other words, if this research does path to humans like the researchers suspect it does, then there could be implications involving helping identify — and maybe, one day, reactivating — those receptors which may be broken in those with eating disorders, helping solve those problems.

It's yet another example of the kind of human behaviors we believe are a matter of choice, when they're just part and parcel of brain chemistry.

Until then, the next time you're being chided for having that extra french fry, just remember: It's not nearly as much a matter of self-control as you've probably believed it to be. If nothing else, take it as a way to be more forgiving to yourself. After all, there are far more bitter pills to (ahem) swallow. The only problem is that they might make you want to eat more of them.

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NASA’s Lunar Space Station Just Took a Massive Step Towards Launching

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

A core component of NASA's Gateway lunar space station just passed a grueling round of pressure tests, a big win for the project.

Under Pressure

NASA announced yesterday that its forthcoming Gateway lunar space station — an outpost designed to house astronauts in the Moon's orbit — just passed a critical milestone.

According to the agency, Gateway's Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) successfully passed a grueling round of "static load testing," defined by NASA as a "rigorous stress test of how well the structure responds to the forces encountered in deep space."

In other words, HALO won't crumble or crack under the extreme conditions it'll face in lunar orbit.

"Static load testing is one of the major environmental stress tests HALO will undergo," NASA continues in its announcement, adding that HALO, which is currently in Italy, will be transferred to Arizona "once all phases of testing are complete." There, NASA contractor Northrop Grumman will add HALO's finishing touches.

HALO is one of "four pressurized Gateway modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for missions to the lunar South Pole region," per NASA's announcement.

It's an exciting mile marker for Gateway, which stands to mark the first sustained human presence on and around our Moon — one of the core goals of NASA's ongoing Artemis program, and perhaps a stepping stone in humanity's efforts to send humans to Mars.

Looking Ahead

While the stress test was a key breakthrough for the Gateway mission, it's still a ways off from lift-off.

The outpost will launch in pieces, and the first components to take flight — HALO and the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) — are slated for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in December 2027 at the earliest. By conservative estimates, Gateway is not expected to be inhabited until 2028.

It's an ambitious plan and there's always a chance of delays. In the meantime, it's heartening to see NASA's Gateway, piece by piece, move forward.

"Gateway is humanity's first lunar space station supporting a new era of exploration and scientific discovery as part of NASA's Artemis campaign that will establish a sustained presence on and around the Moon," said NASA of the achievement, "paving the way for the first crewed mission to Mars."

More on the Artemis missions: NASA's Moon Launcher Is in Big Trouble

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NASA Wants to Grow Trippy Houses Made Out of Mushrooms on the Moon

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

NASA is planning on growing habitable structures out of fungus — also called mycotecture — for space colonies on the Moon and then Mars.

Home Sweet Fungus

NASA is seriously contemplating growing future habitable structures out of mushrooms for space colonies on the lunar surface and eventually Mars, according to Al Jazeera. The space agency recently awarded a $2 million contract to a research group at NASA's Ames Research Center for the further study and development of "mycotecture."

The reason why NASA is investigating fungi is because it's extremely expensive to launch traditional construction materials into space.

Sending up fungal spores and mixing them with "local" lunar material such as water and regolith to make bricks would be vastly cheaper, according to Cleveland, Ohio architect Chris Maurer who spoke to Al Jazeera about his partnership with NASA.

Promising NASA research has also shown that these mushroom building blocks can deflect most space radiation, provide insulation from extreme temperatures, and can be grown very quickly in one to two months — a futuristic and highly efficient alternative to more conventional materials.

Room to Grow

Growing a mushroom house on the Moon would start with a special package landing on the alien surface, containing a sink and other household essentials, according to Al Jazeera. The interior of the package would then inflate while a mixture of fungal spores, water and algae grow an exterior shell that eventually hardens, establishing a new habitable structure.

While early experiments on Earth have proven successful, there could still be unforeseen complications in space.

The research mushroom group, led by NASA Ames senior research scientist Lynn Rothschild, is planning to send a concept model of mycotecture structures into space as part of the planned 2028 launch of a commercial space station called Starlab.

"In a general sense, there are technological risks," Rothschild told Al Jazeera. "Will the structure be strong enough? Will it really provide the insulation that we think? What will the material properties be? Will it really grow well?"

If all goes well, future colonies on the Moon and Mars will be popping up like mushrooms after a warm rainy day.

More on Moon colonization: Experts Warn Against Strip Mining the Moon

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NASA’s Lunar Rover Prototype Looks Like If a Tractor and a Golf Cart Had a Baby

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

In preparation for the first crewed Moon mission in 50 years, NASA is prototyping a new Moon rover that looks a lot like a tractor/golf cart.

Keep Roving

In preparation for the first crewed lunar mission in half a century, NASA is prototyping a new Moon rover — and it looks like some pretty distinctly Earth-bound vehicles.

Announced in a NASA press release, the new Ground Test Unit (GTU) is currently in development at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

As photos of the prototype in action show, it's already been taken for a joyride by some big names: astronaut Kate Rubins, the first person to ever sequence DNA in space, and Apollo 17 pilot-turned-senator Harrison "Jack" Schmitt.

Those photos also show that the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) looks, for some reason, a lot like a mix between a tractor and a golf cart — and the agency didn't mention why, exactly, it was built to look that way.

Private Partnership

Though there's little explanation about those visual references, NASA did explain how this LTV prototype, which will never be sent to the Moon, was built.

Earlier this year, the American space agency contracted three private companies — Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab — to create components for the GTU.

"The Ground Test Unit will help NASA teams on the ground, test and understand all aspects of rover operations on the lunar surface ahead of Artemis missions," NASA engineering lead Jeff Somers explained in the press release. "The GTU allows NASA to be a smart buyer, so we are able to test and evaluate rover operations while we work with the LTVS contractors and their hardware."

Designed to carry two astronauts, the GTU also has additional capabilities allowing for it to be operated remotely, which makes it sort of sound like it can be "summoned" a la Tesla.

Because we're curious, Futurism has reached out to NASA to ask if either tractors or golf carts were used as references for this GTU prototype — and we're hoping the answer will be yes to both.

More on NASA's lunar ambitions: Scientists Outraged at Canceled NASA Moon Mission Plead Congress to Reconsider

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Deranged Mayor Promises "No More Fat People" With Free Ozempic Shots

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

While seeking re-election, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro is making a huge campaign promise: free Ozempic for all.

As Quartz reports, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said that he lost 66 pounds after taking the popular weight-loss injectable manufactured by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

"I took a lot of Ozempic, that little medicine that is helping everyone lose weight," Paes told Brazilian newspaper Extra, as translated by Quartz. "Its patent will expire next year, and it will be available as a generic and I will introduce it to the entire public health system."

As a note, the latter claim is not exactly true. Though there have been challenges to speed up the pace of generics in Brazil, the patent for semaglutide, the main ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, isn't slated to expire in the country until 2026.

After claiming he'd "introduce" the generic into the city's public health system without discussing how he would undertake such an endeavor as the leader of an individual municipality, the longtime Rio mayor then made an even bolder claim.

"Rio will be a city where there will be no more fat people," Paes declared. "Everyone will be taking Ozempic at family clinics."

Problematic fatphobia aside, Rio de Janeiro's population is a whopping 13.7 million people, making his claim a massive stretch.

Understandably, Paes' controversial comments opened him up to criticism from opponents in the mayoral election, which is set to occur on October 6.

Mayoral candidate Alexandre Ramagem, posted a carousel on his campaign's Instagram showing voters complaining online about lacking basic medical necessities in the face of Paes' comments. Fellow mayor hopeful Tarcísio Motta, meanwhile, said the comments were fatphobic and "disrespectful to the diversity of bodies" in Rio.

Hitting back, Paes insisted he isn't fatphobic and said he's only interested in the health of the city's populace.

"When the patent is broken, which should happen in 2025 or 2026, it will reduce the cost enormously," the longtime mayor said, referencing the 1,000 Brazilian Reals or roughly $182 it currently costs Brazilians to access the weight loss drug. "Why not make it available to the population?"

"We’re not going to give it away for vain reasons," he continued. "It’s not to make six-packs."

As usual, a politician is politicking — but in Rio, the personal seems to have become political.

More on Ozempic: People Are Apparently Microdosing Ozempic

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Google Is Stuffing Annoying Ads Into Its Terrible AI Search Feature

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Ad Attack

Google's notoriously wonky AI Overviews feature — you know, the one that repeatedly makes up facts and literally tells users to eat rocks — is about to get a whole lot more annoying.

On Thursday, the tech giant announced that its AI-generated search summaries will now begin to show ads above, below, and within them, as a way of demonstrating that the technology is capable of actually making money.

It will also serve to assuage concerns that AI chatbots could eat into search ad revenues, which are Google's biggest cash cow.

Now, if you search how to get a grass stain out of jeans, as seen in an example in Google's blog post, you'll get an AI summary which contains a carousel of relevant website links, plus a heavy helping of "Sponsored" ads for stain removers. Revolutionary stuff.

"People have been finding the ads within AI Overviews helpful because they can quickly connect with relevant businesses, products and services to take the next step at the exact moment they need them," Shashi Thakur, vice president of Google Ads, wrote in the blog post.

Perhaps signaling its commitment to weaving its search engine with AI tech most of all, the company is also rolling out a separate product for mobile users called AI-organized Search results pages, which will be full-pages — right now limited to recipe searches — that are entirely populated with content curated by an AI.

Here Comes the Sludge

The move is all well and good for the company's investors. But for others, this is just introducing more AI slop that's watering down an increasingly less useful search engine.

Like AI chatbots in general, Google's AI Overviews have earned a reputation for being unreliable and making up facts. Notable gaffes include recommending putting glue on pizza and smearing poop on a balloon — and its bad rep is no doubt heightened by the fact that the AI summaries are forced to the top of a search engine that practically everyone uses.

And while this will protect Google's revenue stream, it does little for the websites who are losing clicks because their content is being mediated through an AI model. A Google spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the company won't share ad money with publishers whose material is cited in the AI overviews.

As a small concession, however, Google will start including inline links to those sources. Rhiannon Bell, Google Search's VP of user experience, claims that tests showed that compared to the old design, which relegated links to the bottom of the summaries, this new one sends more traffic to the cited websites, per Bloomberg.

In any case, it's looking like Google is in the AI search game for the long haul.

More on Google: Google Paid $2.7 Billion to Get a Single AI Researcher Back

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Vast Majority of CEOs Ready to Make Remote Workers’ Lives As Miserable As Possible

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

The battle over remote work continues — and it looks like CEOs are overwhelmingly willing to take extreme measures to get folks back to the office.

Giving an Edge

The battle over remote work continues — and it looks like chief executives are overwhelmingly willing to take extreme measures to get folks back to the office.

A recent report from the global research and accounting firm KPMG shows that 89 percent of corporate CEOs at US companies are willing to dangle incentives like "favorable assignments, raises, and promotions" for employees who head back to the office full-time.

As Inc and Axios point out, that overwhelming figure suggests that CEOs may also be willing to withhold those same benefits from employees who choose to stay home. In other words, folks who are willing or able to get back into the office will likely have a serious advantage over those who don't want to be back in the office — or, perhaps more importantly, can't due to location, health, or family reasons.

It's a staggering figure, and one that comes at a tumultuous moment in the ongoing battle between remote or hybrid workforces and C-suite executives insisting that it's time for employees to get back to the office full-time — despite overwhelming evidence that remote work doesn't affect productivity.

RTO Cullings

The KPMG report also found that 79 percent of CEOs expect that within three years, corporate roles ceded to remote setups during the pandemic will once again be in the office full-time. Per the report, just a few short months ago, only 34 percent of CEOs predicted a mass return-to-office shift.

On that note, the report's findings come after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced last month that employees must return to the office for all five days a week, or otherwise risk being sacked. And while Jassy's decision might have some chief executives feeling inspired, it's worth noting that the decision was met with outrage from much of Amazon's workforce.

Many of them have since looked for work elsewhere.

"At first, I didn't quite believe it," one such Amazon employee, a mother who says she was hired with the understanding that there would be no full-time return-to-office mandate, recently told Fortune. "I've been updating my resume and portfolio, and rage applying to new jobs on LinkedIn."

Some CEOs have admitted to using return-to-office mandates as a guise for layoffs, expecting the decision to lead to some degree of a voluntary exodus.

Whether the executives' gambit to attract workers to come back to the office will pay off in the long run remains to be seen. If there's one certainty, it's that a mandate likely won't go over easy.

More on the future of work: CEO Alarmed to Discover That Laying Off 1,500 Workers Had Consequences

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Astronauts Hear Strange Sounds Coming From Boeing’s Cursed Starliner

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

Over the weekend, stranded NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore encountered strange sounds coming out of Boeing's much-maligned Starliner.

Strange Music

Over the weekend, stranded NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore heard bewildering sounds coming out of Boeing's much-maligned Starliner, which carried him to the space station for what was supposed to be an eight-day trip that's now got him stuck on the orbital outpost until next year after equipment failures on the shuttle.

"I’ve got a question about Starliner," he told mission control in Houston over the radio. "There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker... I don’t know what’s making it."

While NASA later confirmed that the source of the noise was mostly benign, it's more of the type of story that Boeing has definitely been hoping will go away.

Its spacecraft, which has been docked at the International Space Station since early June, has already been plagued with technical issues. Helium leaks affecting its propulsion systems forced NASA to reevaluate the mission, concluding last month that it wasn't safe enough for Wilmore and colleague Sunita Williams' return. Instead, to the chagrin of Boeing, they'll return on a future SpaceX trip.

While investigating the unusual situation, Wilmore held his microphone up to Starliner's speakers.

"Alright Butch, that one came through," Houston told Wilmore. "It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping."

"I'll do it one more time, and I'll let y'all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what's going on," Wilmore radioed. "Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out."

Bumps in the Night

The strange sounds, as shared by meteorologist Rob Dale, manifest as an ominous knocking noise.

Fortunately, unlike Boeing's trouble with Starliner's propulsion system, it doesn't sound like it was anything particularly serious this time — though the explanation does read as fairly amateurish on Boeing's part.

In a statement to Ars Technica on Monday, NASA said that the "feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner."

"The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback," the statement reads.

It's not the first time astronauts have encountered strange noises coming from their spacecraft. For instance, China's first astronaut Yang Liewei noticed strange sounds that sounded like "knocking an iron bucket with a wooden hammer" during his voyage in 2003. The noise later turned out to be decreasing air pressure triggering changes in the structure of the vessel.

Starliner is scheduled to make its return without Williams and Wilmore on board as early as Friday. The two astronauts are instead getting a ride from Boeing's competitor SpaceX in February — an unfortunate end to a disastrous first crewed test flight.

More on Starliner: Boeing Execs Yelled at NASA Leaders When They Didn't Get What They Wanted

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Astronauts Hear Strange Sounds Coming From Boeing's Cursed Starliner

Huge Tesla Fan Says X Has Shadowbanned His Posts After He Complained About Defective Cybertruck

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

It seems like it's finally dawning on Tesla fan Lamar MK that CEO Elon Musk wants nothing to do with him or his content.

It seems like it's finally dawning on Tesla devotee Lamar MK that CEO Elon Musk wants nothing to do with him or his content.

The fan has practically made the EV maker's Cybertruck his entire personality — despite getting absolutely screwed by the company several times now.

He's already received two subsequent Cybertrucks that turned out to be absolute lemons.

Now, he says the videos he's been uploading to Musk's echo chamber X-formerly-Twitter are getting suspiciously overlooked, suggesting his presence is being secretly downgraded behind the scenes.

"I post all my videos to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and they get decent amount of views," Lamar MK tweeted. "I post those same videos to X and they barely get 100 views, it’s like zero reach."

"Either nothing is wrong, or I’m just shadow-banned to have no reach on here," he wrote in a follow-up. "Elon Musk. Please fix this."

Lamar MK has a long track record of bouncing between gushing about his Tesla and complaining that the EV maker is refusing to help him when his truck breaks down.

The trucks Lamar MK has received so far have suffered from a charging cable that refused to disengage, sagging headliner trim, a barrage of red blinking error messages, and getting locked out.

Tesla has done the bare minimum in response, often leaving him stranded for weeks on end.

But even after being treated like dirt, Lamar MK has been adamant in his Tesla fandom.

Most recently, the fan claimed that the "Cybertruck represents the most significant innovation and technological advancement the world has seen since the introduction of the iPhone."

Needless to say, it's a harebrained assertion given all the failures he's experienced personally, nevermind the truck's growing reputation as a failure. In a matter of less than a year, the truck has already been recalled four times.

Now that it's dawned on him that Musk's social media platform likely doesn't give a damn about the content he's been posting, though, he's finally starting to ask some questions.

"Given this situation, I'm questioning the value of my premium subscription, as it doesn't seem to enhance the exposure of my posts," he wrote in a Sunday tweet, referring to the platform's $ 8-a-month subscription service. "My content performs well on other platforms, so the issue isn't the quality or appeal of my videos."

When somebody suggested that X-formerly-Twitter may be throttling accounts that paint Tesla in a bad light — or at least acknowledge the many issues plaguing the brand's vehicles — Lamar MK yet again bent over backward.

"I personally avoid calling people names out of respect, but at the same time, I'm actively promoting the Tesla and the Cybertruck, which honestly leaves me feeling a bit confused," he tweeted. "I guess they don’t like me, lol. Maybe I’m just too honest!"

Meanwhile, users on Reddit cringed at Lamar MK's naivete.

"This is getting embarrassing. He needs to move on," one user wrote, referring to Musk. "He’s not returning your texts dude, you’re nothing to him."

"Jesus, this is one clingy guy," another user wrote. "Just move on, dude."

More on Lamar MK: Tesla Megafan Receives Two Subsequent Cybertrucks That Completely Fail

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NaNoWriMo Slammed for Saying That Opposition to AI-Generated Books Is Ableist

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

NaNoWriMo, a nonprofit writing organization that hosts an annual novel write-a-thon, has released a strange new platform on AI.

NaNo Oh No

A nonprofit writing organization that hosts an annual month-long novel write-a-thon has released its new position on artificial intelligence — and writers are clowning on its incredibly goofy suggestions.

The National Novel Writing Month group, better known by the abbreviation "NaNoWriMo," has included in its "Community Matters" section a statement suggesting that criticisms of AI use in writing are classist and ableist.

"We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology," the position statement reads, "and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege."

If you're confused as to why a writer-led writing organization is issuing statements in favor of the technology that many are concerned will take creatives' jobs while plagiarizing their work, you're far from alone.

"Miss me by a wide margin with that ableist and privileged bullshit," one user wrote. "Other people’s work is NOT accessibility."

Hefty Resignations

Two New York Times bestselling authors who sat on NaNoWriMo's various boards took their criticisms even further.

"This is me DJO officially stepping down from your Writers Board and urging every writer I know to do the same," Daniel José Older, a young adult fiction author best known for his "Outlaw Saints" series, tweeted. "Never use my name in your promo again in fact never say my name at all and never email me again. Thanks!"

Fellow YA author Maureen Johnson followed suit, telling the group in a tweet that she too was stepping down from its Young Writers' Program because she "want[s] nothing to do with your organization from this point forward."

"I would also encourage writers to beware," she continued, "your work on their platform is almost certainly going to be used to train AI."

In an update to its AI statement, NaNoWriMo acknowledged that although there are "bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically" and that "situational" abuses of the technology go against its purported "values," the organization still "find[s] the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic."

"We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse," the statement continues.

This "hand-wavey" statement, as one user put it, will likely do little to assuage writers' concerns about this seeming endorsement issued under the banner of social justice — except, perhaps, make NaNoWriMo look all the more foolish.

More on AI "writing": Sleazy Company Buys Beloved Blog, Starts Publishing AI-Generated Slop Under the Names of Real Writers Who No Longer Work There

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Police Searching for Teslas Near Crimes to Seize Their Camera Footage

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

Police officers are scanning for Teslas that may have recorded nearby crimes on their external cameras.

Commandeering Cops

Police officers are scanning for Teslas that may have ambiently recorded nearby crimes on their external cameras — and even going as far as to attempt to tow the vehicles away to inspect the footage.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, a Canadian tourist almost had his Tesla confiscated by the Oakland Police Department because it may have witnessed a nearby homicide.

The incident highlights a troubling new trend in mass surveillance, with the EVs' "Sentry Mode" serving as a public-facing extension of law enforcement — whether Tesla owners want to be involved or not.

President of the Richmond Police Officers Association Ben Therriault told the Chronicle that officers usually attempt to ask for the owner's consent first, but sometimes resort to towing the vehicles anyway.

"I respectfully request that a warrant is authorized to seize this vehicle from the La Quinta Inn parking lot so this vehicle’s surveillance footage may be searched via an additional search warrant at a secure location," officer Kevin Godchaux wrote in his search warrant affidavit, as quoted by the newspaper.

In the Crosshairs

Unsurprisingly, civil rights groups are calling foul. Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Saira Hussain told the Chronicle that police using Teslas "as a resource" puts "third parties — people who are not involved at all — in the crosshairs of investigations."

According to Tesla, Sentry Mode is designed to act as an "intelligent vehicle security system that alerts you when it detects possible threats nearby" — and as it turns out, it's not just threats to the vehicle itself.

Police have made ample use of the footage recorded by Tesla cameras in their investigations, according to the Chronicle's reporting, from burglaries to homicides.

And they're willing to go a long way to obtain the footage. For instance, one fatal shooting led to an Oakland police officer obtaining a search warrant to tow three vehicles, including a Tesla Model X, according to the paper.

The trend raises some thorny ethical questions. Should drivers really be put into a position where their vehicles serve as witnesses to a crime? Are the EVs serving as a crutch for otherwise ineffective law enforcement?

It's a troubling reminder of the pervasiveness of mass surveillance tech — and police are willing to take full advantage.

More on Tesla: Huge Tesla Fan Says X Has Shadowbanned His Posts After He Complained About Defective Cybertruck

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Gold Nuggets Can Be Formed With Electricity, Scientists Claim

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

Electric discharges underground cause gold atoms to accumulate, which eventually forms gold nuggets, the researchers suggest.

Spark of Gold

Electric currents in the Earth may be responsible for the formation of gold nuggets, new research suggests.

As detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the theory could explain why large chunks of gold — sometimes weighing more than a hundred pounds — appear in quartz veins when there's seemingly little traces of the metal in the surrounding earth.

"The standard explanation is that gold precipitates from hot, water-rich fluids as they flow through cracks in the earth's crust. As these fluids cool or undergo chemical changes, gold separates out and becomes trapped in quartz veins," study lead author Chris Voisey, a geologist at Monash University in Australia, told Forbes. "While this theory is widely accepted, it doesn't fully explain the formation of large gold nuggets, especially considering that the concentration of gold in these fluids is extremely low."

Main Squeeze

The answer lies in the unremarkable but ubiquitous mineral that gold nuggets are found in: quartz.

Quartz crystals are piezoelectric, which means they can generate an electric charge when put under mechanical stress, like getting squeezed. Being underground, they're potentially subjected to these forces from every direction.

The most formidable stress inducers, though, would be earthquakes, of which hundreds occur each day.

The researchers hypothesized that the regular application of such tectonic forces could generate electricity in quartz veins strong enough to pull gold out of the fluids in the earth's crust. Over time, this accumulates to form full-blown nuggets.

"Quartz is the only abundant piezoelectric mineral on Earth, and the cyclical nature of earthquake activity that drives orogenic gold deposit formation means that quartz crystals in veins will experience thousands of episodes of deviatoric stress," the researchers wrote in the study.

Pay Dirt

To test the theory, the researchers placed quartz crystals in a water solution containing dissolved gold, which they subjected to earthquake-like stresses. As they predicted, the quartz generated enough voltage that gold nanoparticles accumulated on top of the crystals.

"In essence, the quartz acts like a natural battery, with gold as the electrode, slowly accumulating more gold with each seismic event," Voisey told Forbes. "Our discovery provides a plausible explanation for the formation of large gold nuggets in quartz veins."

Other scientists in the field have been intrigued by these findings.

"The piezoelectric theory is interesting because it would help to further concentrate any nanoparticles, but also explain why early quartz veins in fault zones are typically barren: you need the quartz veins to be there before you can induce the piezoelectrical effect," Taija Torvela, a geologist at the Univeristy of Leeds, UK, who wasn't involved in the study, told The Guardian.

Taija suggests that understanding this effect could be used to target gold deposits — though to be practical, "we would need to know if there are any markers, detectable on Earth’s surface, that this process would leave behind."

More on current events: Scientists Say They've Detected a Strange Source of Electricity at the Bottom of the Ocean

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Suspected Russian Spy Whale Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

RIP Hvaldimir

In 2019, a purported "Russian spy beluga" stole our hearts — and now, we must mourn its early demise.

The 2,000-pound sea creature, later dubbed Hvaldimir, was found by Norwegian fishermen with a camera mount harness that read "Equipment of St. Petersburg," resulting in intrigue and speculation.

Over the last five years, Hvaldimir has been the subject of several viral stories, from the time it retrieved a GoPro to playing fetch.

But over the weekend, the jolly beluga was found dead — and animal activists are in disagreement about how he died.

"It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Hvaldimir’s passing," Norwegian non-profit Marine Mind, which has been tracking the whale's whereabouts, wrote in an Instagram post. "This morning, after receiving a sighting report from a local, our team arrived to find Hvaldimir floating peacefully in the water."

"It is not immediately clear what caused his death," he continued, and a "necropsy will be conducted to determine his early passing."

Suspicious Circumstances

The events surrounding the whale's death remain shrouded in mystery — which is only fitting considering his much-debated "Russian spy" past.

Hvaldimir was estimated to be around 14 to 15 years old, only roughly half of the average lifespan of a beluga whale.

Last year, marine science student and whale tracker Emma Luck noted that Hvaldimir's appearance had changed dramatically, tweeting that "you can see how much weight he has lost."

In May of last year, scientists raised concerns that the whale was possibly not eating enough fish.

While Marine Mind founder Sebastian Strand told AFP that there were no signs of visible injuries, nonprofit One Whale founder Regina Raug referred to "holes pouring with blood from his body" in an Instagram video.

"We got to visit Hvaldimir today ourselves and see him and say goodbye, and there was no question that he was dying from something very unnatural and heartbreaking," she said.

Fortunately, we'll hopefully soon hear more.

"The autopsy is conducted by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, and the conclusion will be public in two or three weeks," the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries told People in a statement.

Speculation aside, it's an unfortunate end to a much-beloved creature.

"Over the past five years, he touched the lives of tens of thousands, bringing people together in awe of the wonders of nature," Marine Mind wrote in its Instagram post. "Rest in peace, Hvaldimir. You will be deeply missed, but never forgotten."

More on Hvaldimir: The Suspected Russian Spy Whale Isn't Looking So Good

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Trump Posts AI-Generated Image of Kamala Harris as Joseph Stalin, But Instead It Just Looks Like Mario

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image of Kamala Harris designed to invoke Joseph Stalin — but she actually looked much more like Mario.

MAGA's AI onslaught continues.

This weekend, doubling down on accusations that presidential contender Kamala Harris is a Marxist communist (she isn't), former president Donald Trump took to Truth Social to boost a clearly AI-generated image of Harris donned in communist attire, Stalinesque mustache and all.

It wasn't the first time that Trump has used AI to attack Harris. Last month, days after falsely accusing his rival of using AI to fake the appearance of large crowds greeting her at a campaign stop — and, in the process, arguing that a presidential candidate using AI to create fake images should warrant disqualification on "election interference" grounds — Trump posted an AI-drawn image of a red-clad Harris speaking to a herd of Soviet-like figures, a hammer-and-sickle flag waving overhead.

It is, however, the first time he's boosted propaganda that makes his opponent look like the iconic Nintendo character Mario. Here we go!

The image was taken from a Substack post by a writer who works at the Gateway Pundit, a far-right digital publisher notorious for publishing stories promoting baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump (copious evidence, and many judges he appointed, have found those claims to be false.) Trump reposted the image and a link to the Substack post — which described Harris as a "rock-ribbed socialist" — without comment.

The image is ridiculous, of course. It doesn't look at all real, and as netizens pointed out on social media, the fake Harris' fictional stache moreso invokes the vibe of Nintendo's beloved cartoon plumber than it does the feared Soviet dictator.

"The only thing this post makes me wanna do is vote for Kamala," wrote one X user, "and then play Super Mario World on my old Super Nintendo system."

"BREAKING," added comedian Jason Selvig, "Donald Trump accuses Kamala Harris of being a heroic plumber who saved Princess Peach from Bowser and his evil Koopa army."

Convincing or not, though, the image does highlight the reality that generative AI — particularly Elon Musk's guardrail-free Grok model — is increasingly being used as an easy-bake propaganda oven. After all, not all image-based propaganda is expressly designed to look real. It's often cartoonish and exaggerated by nature, and in this case, doesn't exactly look like something intended to sway staunchly blue voters from Harris' camp. Rather, this sort of propagandized image, while supporting a broader Trumpworld effort to portray Harris as a far-left extremist, reads much more like a deeply partisan appeal to the online MAGA base.

To wit, though many self-avowed Harris voters mocked the fake picture, the likes of right-wing X poster Phillip "Catturd" Buchanan latched onto it — as did his followers, who responded with quips about "Comrade Kamala" and, in several cases, AI-generated images of their own.

Trump wasn't the only far-right figure to employ AI this weekend to further communist allegations against Harris. On Monday, in response to an X post from the Harris campaign that referenced Trump's vow to be dictator on "day one" of his second term, X owner Musk used the platform he bought in 2022 to share his own AI image of Harris decked out in communist garb.

"Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one," Musk sarcastically captioned the image. "Can you believe she wears that outfit!?" The post has yet to receive a Community Note indicating the use of AI, and is also lacking a fact-check to the false allegation that Harris has vowed to be a "communist dictator on day one" (she hasn't.)

Musk's clearly faked photo drew criticism from users across X, ranging from "Happy Days" actor Henry Winkler to former United Nations deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson.

"Just straight up disinformation, with no parody label or community note, from the owner of this site and the guy with the most followers," wrote Zeteo editor-in-chief and former MSNBC commentator Mehdi Hasan. "Anyone who claimed he wouldn't use this platform to push rightwing conspiracies and help elect Trump must be feeling pretty dumb right now."

The use of AI by Trump — not to mention his richest and most influential supporter — to further highly politicized attack lines reflects the ever-increasing surreality of the 2024 election, a political contest being battled out on the back of a nearly-ten-year stretch of chaos, fake news, and the endless whir of muddied social media information. It also certainly underscores a recent argument made by The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel, who observed that the "meme-loving" MAGA aesthetic and the hyperreal tone of AI slop are, in the murky annals of social platforms like X, increasingly merging together.

On that note, like Trump's Truth Social-boosted Lenin-slash-Mario image, Musk's X post drew some support in addition to derision.

"I can believe it," wrote one X user in the billionaire's comments. "Kammunism."

More on Trump and AI: After Falsely Accusing Kamala Harris of Using AI, Donald Trump Posts AI Slop About Her on Twitter

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Trump Posts AI-Generated Image of Kamala Harris as Joseph Stalin, But Instead It Just Looks Like Mario

Government Test Finds That AI Wildly Underperforms Compared to Human Employees

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

A series of blind assessments found that human-written summaries scored significantly better than summaries generated by AI.

Sums It Up

Generative AI is absolutely terrible at summarizing information compared to humans, according to the findings of a trial for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) spotted by Australian outlet Crikey.

The trial, conducted by Amazon Web Services, was commissioned by the government regulator as a proof of concept for generative AI's capabilities, and in particular its potential to be used in business settings.

That potential, the trial found, is not looking promising.

In a series of blind assessments, the generative AI summaries of real government documents scored a dire 47 percent on aggregate based on the trial's rubric, and were decisively outdone by the human-made summaries, which scored 81 percent.

The findings echo a common theme in reckonings with the current spate of generative AI technology: not only are AI models a poor replacement for human workers, but their awful reliability means it's unclear if they'll have any practical use in the workplace for the majority of organizations.

Signature Shoddiness

The assessment used Meta's open source Llama2-70B, which isn't the newest model out there, but with up to 70 billion parameters, it's certainly a capable one.

The AI model was instructed to summarize documents submitted to a parliamentary inquiry, and specifically to focus on what was related to ASIC, such as where the organization was mentioned, and to include references and page numbers. Alongside the AI, human employees at ASIC were asked to write summaries of their own.

Then five evaluators were asked to assess the human and the AI-generated summaries after reading the original documents. These were done blindly — the summaries were simply labeled A and B — and scorers had no clue that AI was involved at all.

Or at least, they weren't supposed to. At the end, when the assessors had finished up and were told about the true nature of the experiment, three said that they suspected they were looking at AI outputs, which is pretty damning on its own.

Sucks On All Counts

All in all, the AI performed lower on all criteria compared to the human summaries, the report said.

Strike one: the AI model was flat-out incapable of providing the page numbers of where it got its information.

That's something the report notes can be fixed with some tinkering with the AI model. But a more fundamental issue was that it regularly failed to pick up on nuance or context, and often made baffling choices about what to emphasize or highlight.

Beyond that, the AI summaries tended to include irrelevant and redundant information and were generally "waffly" and "wordy."

The upshot: these AI summaries were so bad that the assessors agreed that using them could require more work down the line, because of the amount of fact-checking they require. If that's the case, then the purported upsides of using the technology — cost-cutting and time-saving — are seriously called into question.

More on AI: NaNoWriMo Slammed for Saying That Opposition to AI-Generated Books Is Ableist

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After Years of Chasing Money, OpenAI Reportedly Giving Up on Being a “Nonprofit”

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Danzig

The Financial Times reports that OpenAI is looking to shed its non-profit status once and for all after years of being

ClosedAI

ChatGPT maker OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit, only to change its mind four years later, announcing that it had become a "capped-profit" company.

Billions of dollars worth of investment rounds later, the Financial Times is now reporting that the company is finally looking to shed its nonprofit status once and for all.

The company is reportedly in talks to raise further new funds, giving it a valuation of north of $100 billion and potentially making it one of the most valuable Silicon Valley firms ever.

OpenAI has since denied the reporting, arguing in a statement to the FT that "the nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist."

"We remain focused on building AI that benefits everyone and as we’ve previously shared we’re working with our board to ensure that we’re best positioned to succeed in our mission," the statement reads.

No Cap

OpenAI founder and multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk, who rage quit the firm in 2019, has long accused it of turning a blind eye to its nonprofit origins.

Last month Musk even sued OpenAI, arguing that it had abandoned its mission to "benefit humanity" by signing a $10 billion deal with tech giant Microsoft (a previous and largely identical lawsuit filed by Musk was mysteriously abandoned in June.)

"Either turning a nonprofit into a for-profit is legal and everyone should be doing it or it’s illegal and OpenAI is a house of cards," Musk tweeted last week.

Ironically, emails published by OpenAI at the time of Musk's first lawsuit showed that he had been the one pushing OpenAI to become a for-profit entity, suggesting he was simply sour for having abandoned a massively profitable AI venture years too early.

According to the FT's latest report, OpenAI has yet to make a final decision. One option is to remove existing caps on profits for investors, which would be a nail in the coffin for its nonprofit past.

None of this should be particularly surprising at this point, considering the Sam Altman-led entity has quickly turned into one of the most hyper-capitalist ventures in recent history.

Besides, its existing "capped profit" structure clearly hasn't stopped it from raising ungodly amounts of cash — and any public benefit to the project remains elusive.

More on OpenAI: Chef Admits His Smash Hit Pizza Was Invented by ChatGPT

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