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Category Archives: Futurism

Crazed CEOs Adding AI to Home Appliances – Futurism

Can we just not? Dumb House

Wild-eyed execs have been eager to inject AI all over the workplace, drawing jeers from naysayers who think the tech is overblown, imperfectly implemented, and that ultimately it's atool being cruelly used to replace human workerswith no benefit to customers.

Well, get ready for more AI because CEOs at appliance companies want to put AI in your oven and other household items, Forbes reports, which sounds like a privacy and functionality hellscape waiting to happen.

"Generative AI in your oven? Why not?" writes tech influencer and self-proclaimed futurist Bernard Marr in a Forbes column dripping with AI enthusiasm. "After all, AI has been creeping into our homes for years (think smart lightbulbs and Alexa) but thanks to generative AI, these interactions will become even more human and more personal."

Marr says GE Appliances is pushing AI into its SmartHQ app in the form of a system to analyze the food inside your fridge and come up with recipes for meals. And appliance manufacturer Miele also wants to put AI into a smart cooking assistant that would suggest cooking instructions along with help from built-in cameras in an oven.

This all sounds wonderful, portending a future like the classic cartoon The Jetsons and their trusty smart maid, Rosie the Robot.

But there are problems with putting AI in household appliances.

It's true that Internet of Things devices have steadily crept into our homes, most notably in the form of Amazon's Echo speakers, but they have been notorious for privacy breaches. Adding more technology in the guise of AI to appliances can conceivably make privacy issues an even bigger problem. Imagine malicious hackers stealing your personal data and taking over cameras in your home gadgets.

There are also mundane problems with connected devices. They're prone to obsolescence, they fill up your phone with proprietary apps, they often stop working if the internet goes out, and they need to be reset every time there's a power outage. There are whole threads on Reddit and even a notorious Twitter account dedicated to hating smart appliances.

"The Internet of Things. I hate this crap myself. Why do kitchen appliances need an internet connection? Why do washers and dryers? Why do door locks and light switches?" rants one Redditor.

Maybe the tech will sell some pricey fridges. Whether customers will still be wowed in five years is another question entirely.

More on artificial intelligence: Disillusioned Businesses Discovering That AI Kind of Sucks

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Twitter Caught Selling Data to Government Spies While Complaining About Surveillance – Futurism

In for a penny, in for a data mine. Double Dealing

The social network formerly known as Twitterand now called X has for the better part of the past decade been involved in a lawsuit suing the US government for greater transparency on its surveillance practices on the platform.

The lawsuit continued under Elon Musk after he took over in 2022. When the Supreme Court eventually struck down the suit in January, Musk wrote that it was "disappointing."

But now, newly obtained emails have left both X and Musk,who has long claimed to be a champion of free speech, with egg on their faces. The Intercept reports that despite railing against state spying, the social media company has been quietly profiting off it this entire time selling a "firehose" of user data for the explicit purpose of being used by law enforcement.

According to the report, the data is sold to the surveillance firm Dataminr, which uses AI technology to constantly monitor public activity on social media and other parts of the web.

In doing so, its clients, often law enforcement, can receive customized real-time alerts on what's brewing online, which helps them respond to natural disasters or much more ominously spy on protests, notes The Intercept.

In emails between Dataminr and the US Secret Service it obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, the story revealed that the surveillance firm pays for special access to a "firehose" of data from Twitter. Sent in July 2023, they also confirm that practice continued under Musk.

"Dataminr has a unique contractual relationship with Twitter, whereby we have real-time access to the full stream of all publicly available Tweets," a company representative said in an email to the government agency, per the report.

In another email, the Secret Service confirmed the nature of the relationship: "the whole point of this contract is to use the information for law enforcement purposes," it read.

Besides contradicting the values of the lawsuit, the practice also goes against Twitter's own policies, notes The Intercept, which prohibit "conducting or providing surveillance or gathering intelligence."

But there's a thin technicality: the data isn't going directly to the government, but is rather being leased to an intermediary data firm, which in turn leases the data via real-time alerts to government agencies.

"While I appreciate that there may be some symbolic difference between giving the government granular data directly and making them sift through what they buy from data brokers, the end result is still that user data ends up in the hands of law enforcement, and this time without any legal process," David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Intercept.

To be clear, this is a practice that began long before Musk took over, and Twitter certainly isn't the only platform happy to pawn off your privacy to the feds. But on the other hand, this is the exact kind of two-facedness that Musk has long displayed.

More on surveillance: Alarming New Satellite Can Spy on Individual People

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Trump’s "Truth Social" Stock Is Already Crashing – Futurism

Former president Donald Trump's right-wing Twitter clone Truth Social made a measly $4.1 million in revenue for all of 2023, according to new Securities Exchange Commission documents released today. That's despite having spent more than $58 million over the same period.

The news appears to have hit the platform hard. Truth Social effectively went public under the ownership of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which merged with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp last week.

As we drafted this story, we kept having to update just now much its stock had crashed: 9 percent, then 15 percent, then 18 percent, then 22 percent, then 24. Overall, shares are down almost 34 percent over the last five days, dipping to below $50 after rallying to over $66 following the merger.

The crash, which was widely predicted by experts, highlights a massive discrepancy between Trump Media's considerable $7.5 billion valuation and Truth Social's inability to generate pretty much any kind of meaningful revenue, hence why TMTG shares are being referred to as "meme stocks."

Trump is expected to find a way to cash out and get around $3 billion richer thanks to the latest merger, but how, when or even if he'll able to do just that remains to be seen. The shares, for one, appear to be "grossly overvalued," and could well continue sliding even further, greatly cutting into his payout.

As Business Insider bluntlyput it, TMTG "makes basically nothing," despite the company claiming it was working on adding "cutting-edge products and/or services" in the future, including providing a "'home' for canceled content creators."

Historically, the anti-woke movement has struggled to squeeze profit out of conservatives and the alt-right.

There were several other Republican attempts to cash in on that fringe, including Peter Thiel-backed YouTube alternative Rumble, which hasn't gotten anywhere near its original share price when it merged with a SPAC to go public in 2022.

TMTG's rapidly declining shares and Truth Social's pitiful attempts to generate revenue are reminiscent of social media darling Reddit's post-IPO woes. The platform went public via a far more traditional offering last month at a price of $34 a share. While the company rallied at first, almost reaching $70, prices started collapsing less than a week later and has rapidly been approaching its original IPO price, wiping out any initial gains.

Just like TMTG, the company's market price has been described as "grossly overvalued."

But at least Reddit has some irons in the fire and could conceivably find new ways to entice investors via glitzy AI initiatives and new schemes to monetize its existing user base.

Truth Social, on the other hand, has little if anything going for it, undermining the viability of Trump's thinly veiled meme stock play.

In other words, investors are likely to lose big on it. In a March 25 note, the day before the TMTG merger, an auditor blasted the company, warning that the company's "operating losses raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."

More on Reddit: Reddit's Stock Is Already Collapsing

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United Begging Pilots to Take Unpaid Time Off Amid Boeing Disaster – Futurism

This does not bode well for the summer travel season. No PTO

United Airlines is now asking its pilots to take unpaid time off as things keep going wrong at Boeing, from massive production problems to that small matter of all those planes breaking.

AsCNBC reports, the late delivery of new Boeing planes, including those in its 737 and 787 fleet, is the primary driver behind the voluntary time-off ask but there's plenty of reason to believe that headline-grabbing safety issues with its existing planes are slowing things down, too.

In a memo to members viewed by CNBC, the United chapter of the pilots' union, the Air Line Pilots Association, requested that pilots take leave without pay in May and potentially through the summer.

The appeal comes not only after reports of major production delays at Boeing, but also the spate of news stories in 2024 about the company's planes malfunctioning or otherwise breaking apart during flights.

Just a few weeks after a piece of plane door blew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Oregon in January, United CEO Scott Kirby expressed frustration with the aerospace manufacturer and said the airline was considering an alternative supplier.

"I think the Max 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camels back for us," Kirby told CNBC's Squawk Box, referencing the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to ground the entire Max 9 fleet over the fuselage incident. "Were going to at least build a plan that doesnt have the Max 10 in it."

As theAssociated Press reports on the airline's reduced staffing request, Boeing was supposed to deliver 191 planes to United this year and 127 next year, but the airline now expects to only get 88 for 2024 and 64 for 2025. Most of those shortcomings involve 737s and are likely related to the forthcoming Max 10 remaining uncertified by the FAA a delay that's now become so severe thatUnited straight up told Boeing to stop building them.

"Weve asked Boeing to stop building Max 10s, which theyve done, for us, and start building Max 9s," Kirby said during a JPMorgan investor conference last month, perBloomberg. "Its impossible to say when the Max 10 is going to get certified."

With Boeing's CEO ultimately resigning over ongoing safety concerns with its planes and the company being under intense scrutiny following the alleged suicide of one of its whistleblowers, pausing those builds might have been a good move and the relationship between the airline and its primary plane manufacturer may grow even tenser if and when these problems affect the summer travel season.

More on Boeing's woes: Commander of First Boeing Astronaut Launch Issues Warning

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Tesla’s "Nightmare" Year Off to a Horrible Start: "Only One Person Responsible For This" – Futurism

"Basically Tesla cant sell its cars due to Elons behavior." Fight Nightmare

Tesla has posted its first-quarter earnings and the numbers are even worse than analysts predicted.

The Elon Musk-led company's "nightmare" year is off to a rough start, having delivered approximately 387,000 vehicles in Q1, a 20 percent drop over the last quarter. On average, as Quartz reports, analysts had predicted the company to deliver more than 457,000 units on average.

It's the first quarterly fall in deliveries in almost four years, highlighting the company's struggles in light of rising competition, slowing overall demand for EVs and disillusionment over Tesla's polarizing CEO.

As a result, Tesla's stock dropped over five percent today, indicating investors are wary of what 2024 still has in store.

Longtime Tesla bull and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called the company's impending first quarter a "nightmare" last week.

"For Musk this is a fork in the road time to get Tesla through this turbulent period, otherwise darker days could be ahead," he added at the time.

With disastrous numbers confirming Tesla is in deep trouble, the company has gone into damage control mode. In January, Tesla already warned investors of "notably lower" volume growth this year and where there's smoke, there's fire.

In its financial results note this week, the company blamed the drop in sales on efforts to increase production of an updated Model 3 and the Red Sea conflict forcing diversions and "an arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin."

Investors, however, are far more concerned by other forces at play, including fierce competition from China forcing the company to cut prices to maintain its edge.

Tesla is a "growth company with no growth," Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan wrote in a March 13 note.

Other experts have also voiced concern over Musk's deplorable behavior, which may be tarnishing the brand's reputation and causing customers to choose competing offerings instead.

Tesla investor Ross Gerber went as far as to call on Musk and his board of directors to resign.

"Its time for shareholders to assess the blame where due," he tweeted. "The [T]esla BOD should be replaced immediately with independent directors as required by law."

"Basically Tesla cant sell its cars due to Elons behavior," he added in a follow-up. "Lets stop blaming the Houthi rebels or German environmental terrorists. Or a recession that never came. Or interest rates."

"Only one person responsible for this," he added.

More on Tesla: Buyers Are Avoiding Teslas Because Elon Musk Has Become So Toxic

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Experts Say Bridge Collapsed Because It Was Struck by Giant Ship – Futurism

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat." Ship Shape

Ever since a huge cargo ship leveled Baltimores Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday tragically killing six road crew workers the internet has been filling up with deranged conspiracy theories.

But the simplest explanation is overwhelmingly the most likely: the impact caused catastrophic "structural failures"that the aging structure couldn't withstand,University of Warwick civil engineering professor Toby Mottram told the Independent.

"Its conceivable that the piers werent designed to withstand the magnitude of todays ship impacts, as vessels like the 'Dali' werent navigating the Port of Baltimore during the era," he told the newspaper.

Whether any bridge could have withstood such an impact is unclear. Reporters at the New York Times pulled out the calculators and determined that to stop the ship would have taken a third of the force"it took to launch the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo Moon missions."

Basically, an unstoppable force ran into a not-quite-indestructible object, with devastating consequences.

Still, there's been no end to the conspiracy theories. Toxic manosphere influencer Andrew Tate,for instance, asserted without evidence that the boat had been cyberattacked. Others have ludicrously suggested that diverse hiring practices were somehow responsible.

Back in reality, that's just garden-variety racism, and authorities saythere's no evidence that terrorism was involved either. The more mundane explanation of corporate greed may have played a factor, though: it emerged after the collision that the company that had chartered the ship had been sanctioned last year for silencing a whistleblower who raised safety concerns.

Summing up the dismal state of online discourse, Canadian television producer and writer Emily Andras had a pithy comment on the social media platform X-formerly-Twitter.

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat," she wrote. "The world is cray but sometimes shit still just... happens."

More on ships: Cargo Ship Spent Months With Captain's Corpse in Walk-in Freezer

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