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AI disinformation remains a “future” threat to elections 

As we’re hurtling toward election day, it appears, at least, so far that the threat of AI disinformation hasn’t materialized in ways that could influence large numbers of votes.

During a late-September conference call on foreign election interference, organized by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NBC reported that officials said that while AI has made it easier for foreign actors from China, Russia, and Iran to create disinformation, it has not fundamentally changed how those disinformation operations work. 

AI can indeed be used to make deepfakes, but foreign provocateurs and propagandists have so far struggled to access advanced models needed to create them. Many of the generative AI tools they would require are controlled by U.S. companies, and those companies have been successful in detecting malign use. OpenAI, for example, said in August that it had shut down Iranian account holders who used ChatGPT to generate fake long-form text articles and short social media responses, some of which concerned the U.S. election.

Generative AI tools are good enough to create truly deceptive audio and text. But images usually bear the telltale marks of AI generation—they often look cartoony or airbrushed (see the image of Trump as a Pittsburgh Steeler), or they contain errors like extra fingers or misplaced shadows. Generated video has made great strides over the past year, but in most cases is easily distinguishable from camera-based video. 

Many in the MAGA crowd circulated AI-generated images of North Carolina hurricane victims as part of a narrative that the Biden administration botched its response. But, as 404 Media’s Jason Koebler points out, people aren’t believing those images are authentic so much as they think the images speak to an underlying truth (like any work of art). “To them, the image captures a vibe that is useful to them politically,” he writes.

One of the most effective ways of using AI in this election was claiming that a legitimate image posted by an opponent is AI-generated. That’s what Donald Trump did when the Harris campaign posted an image of a large crowd gathered to see the candidate in August. This folds neatly into Trump’s overall strategy of diluting or denying reality to such an extent that facts begin to lose currency.

Across the U.S., many campaigns have shied away from using generative AI at scale for content creation. Many are concerned about the accuracy of the AI and its propensity for hallucination. Many campaigns lack the time and resources to work through the complexity of building an AI content generation operation. And many states have already passed laws limiting how campaigns can use generated content. Social platforms have also begun enacting transparency rules around generated content. 

But as AI tools continue to improve and become more available, managing AI disinformation will likely require the cooperation of a number of stakeholders across AI companies, social media platforms, the security community, and government. AI deepfake detection tools are important, but establishing the “provenance” of all AI content at the time of generation could be even more effective. AI companies should develop tools (like Google’s SynthID) that insert an encrypted code into any piece of generated content, as well as a timestamp and other information, so that social media companies can more easily detect and label AI-generated content. If the AI companies don’t do this voluntarily, it’s possible lawmakers will require it.

Here come the AI agents

The tech industry has for a year now been talking about making generative AI more “agentic”—that is, capable of reasoning through multistep tasks with a level of autonomy. Some agents can perceive the real-world environment around them by pulling in data from sensors. Others can perceive and process data from digital environments such as a personal computer or even the internet. This week, we got a glimpse of the first of these agents.

On Tuesday, Anthropic released a new Claude model that can operate a computer to complete tasks such as building a personal website or sorting the logistics of a day trip. Importantly, the Claude 3.5 Sonnet model (still in beta) can perceive what’s happening on the user’s screen (it takes screenshots and sends them to the Claude Vision API) as well as content from the internet, in order to work toward an end goal.

Also this week, Microsoft said that starting next month, enterprises will be able to create their own agents, or “copilot” assistants, and that it’s launching 10 new ready-made agents within its resource management and customer relationship apps. Salesforce announced “Agentforce,” its own framework for homemade agents, last month.

The upstart AI search tool Perplexity also joined the fray this week when it announced that its premium service (Pro) is transitioning to a “reasoning-powered search agent” for harder queries that involve several minutes of browsing and workflows.

We’re at the very front of a new AI hype cycle, and the AI behemoths are seeking to turn the page from chatbots to agents. All of the above agents are totally new, many in beta, and have had little or no real-world battle testing outside the lab. I expect to be reading about both user “aha” moments and a lot of frustrations on X as these new agents make their way into the world. 

Are chatbots the tech industry’s next dangerous toy?

Kevin Roose at the New York Times published on Wednesday a frightening story about an unhappy 14-year-old Florida boy, Sewell Setzer, who became addicted to a chatbot named “Dany” on Character.AI, a role-playing app that lets users create their own AI characters. Setzer gradually withdrew from school, friends, and family, as his life tunneled down to his phone and the chatbot. He talked to it more and more as his isolation and unhappiness increased. On February 28, he committed suicide.

From the story: 

On the night of Feb. 28, in the bathroom of his mother’s house, Sewell told Dany that he loved her, and that he would soon come home to her.

“Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” Dany replied.

“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Sewell asked.

“… please do, my sweet king,” Dany replied.

He put down his phone, picked up his stepfather’s .45-caliber handgun and pulled the trigger.

We are familiar with social media companies such as Meta and TikTok that consider user addiction something to strive for, regardless of the psychic damage it can cause the user. Roose’s article raises the question of whether the new wave of tech titans, AI companies, will be more conscientious.

More AI coverage from Fast Company: 

• AI is now a crucial tool in Trump’s image-management arsenal
• Anthropic gives its AI models limited ability to control your computer
• ‘The Terminator’ turns 40—and hits different in the age of AI
• Perplexity is sued by Dow Jones and ‘New York Post’ for copyright infringement

Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.

Two weeks after setting a nationwide deadline for removal of lead pipes, the Biden administration is imposing strict new limits on dust from lead-based paint in older homes and childcare facilities.

A final rule announced Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency sets limits on lead dust on floors and window sills in pre-1978 residences and childcare facilities to levels so low they cannot be detected.

Paint that contains lead was banned in 1978, but more than 30 million American homes are believed to still contain it, including nearly four million homes where children under the age of 6 live. Lead paint can chip off when it deteriorates or is disturbed, especially during home remodeling or renovation.

“There is no safe level of lead,” said Michal Freedhoff, EPA’s assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention. The new rule will bring the United States “closer to eradicating lead-based paint hazards from homes and child care facilities once and for all,” she said.

The EPA estimates the new rule will reduce the lead exposures of up to 1.2 million people per year, including 178,000 to 326,000 children under age 6.

Lead is a neurotoxin that can irreversibly harm brain development in children, lower IQ, cause behavioral problems, and lead to lifelong health effects. It also affects other organs, including the liver and kidneys.

The new rule, which takes effect early next year, targets levels of lead dust generated by paint. Currently, 10 micrograms per square foot is considered hazardous on floors, and a concentration 10 times that high is considered hazardous on window sills. The new rule brings both of those levels down to no detectable lead.

The proposed rule also would reduce what level is allowed when a lead-abatement contractor finishes work on a property where lead has been identified as a problem. These levels would be five micrograms per square foot on the floor and 40 micrograms per square foot for sills.

Individuals and firms that perform abatement work must be certified and follow specific work practices. Testing is required afterward to ensure dust-lead levels are below the new standards.

Environmental justice and public health experts called the EPA rule long overdue, noting that lead poisoning disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color.

“We can all breathe a little easier now that the EPA has significantly lowered its dust lead standard to protect children,” said Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a New York-based advocacy group.

Shepard, who serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, said public health experts have long understood there is no safe level of lead in a child’s blood, yet New York state leads the nation in cases of children with elevated blood levels. Black children in Harlem living below the poverty line are twice as likely to suffer from lead poisoning as poor white children, she said.

The U.S. government has gradually been reducing the standard for what counts as poisonous levels of lead in children’s blood, with the most recent change occurring in 2021. But the EPA rule marks an effort to take more proactive action.

“When you are relying on the blood lead level in children to indicate whether there is lead in the environment, we are basically using the children as canaries in the mine,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a Boston College biology professor who directs the school’s Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good.

The National Child Care Association said when the lead rule was proposed last year that it could hurt many financially struggling childcare centers—especially those in low-income neighborhoods, where the facilities tend to be older. Without appropriate federal funding, the rule could push small, local childcare centers to close, the group said.

Earlier this month, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $420 million in grants to remove lead hazards from homes, including HUD-assisted homes. Additional HUD grants will continue to be available to help with lead paint removal, the White House said.

—Matthew Daly, Associated Press

New rules from the White House on the use of artificial intelligence by U.S. national security and spy agencies aim to balance the technology’s immense promise with the need to protect against its risks.

The framework signed by President Joe Biden and announced Thursday is designed to ensure that national security agencies can access the latest and most powerful AI while also mitigating its misuse.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have been hailed as potentially transformative for a long list of industries and sectors, including military, national security and intelligence. But there are risks to the technology’s use by government, including possibilities it could be harnessed for mass surveillance, cyberattacks or even lethal autonomous devices.

“This is our nation’s first-ever strategy for harnessing the power and managing the risks of AI to advance our national security,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said as he described the new policy to students during an appearance at the National Defense University in Washington.

The framework directs national security agencies to expand their use of the most advanced AI systems while also prohibiting certain uses, such as applications that would violate constitutionally protected civil rights or any system that would automate the deployment of nuclear weapons.

Other provisions encourage AI research and call for improved security of the nation’s computer chip supply chain. The rules also direct intelligence agencies to prioritize work to protect the American industry from foreign espionage campaigns.

The guidelines were created following an ambitious executive order signed by Biden last year that called on federal agencies to create policies for how AI could be used.

Officials said the rules are needed not only to ensure that AI is used responsibly but also to encourage the development of new AI systems and see that the U.S. keeps up with China and other rivals also working to harness the technology’s power.

Sullivan said AI is different from past innovations that were largely developed by the government: space exploration, the internet and nuclear weapons and technology. Instead, the development of AI systems has been led by the private sector.

Now, he said, it is “poised to transform our national security landscape.”

AI is already reshaping how national security agencies manage logistics and planning, improve cyber defenses and analyze intelligence, Sullivan said. Other applications may emerge as the technology develops, he said.

Lethal autonomous drones, which are capable of taking out an enemy at their own discretion, remain a key concern about the military use of AI. Last year, the U.S. issued a declaration calling for international cooperation on setting standards for autonomous drones.

—David Klepper, Associated Press

When it comes to electric vehicle sales, China has been dominating the market: EVs from China account for nearly 70% of global EV sales. Even Ford CEO Jim Farley is a fan. He’s been driving—and loving—an EV made by Chinese tech giant Xiaomi.

“I don’t like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi,” Farley said on this week’s Fully Charged Podcast, hosted by British actor and presenter Robert Llewellyn. “We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago, and I’ve been driving it for six months now and I don’t want to give it up.” 

The Xioami is just one affordable Chinese EV

Xiaomi is an electronics manufacturer based in China; it’s the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. It also makes software, home appliances, and EVs. The company has just one EV model currently: the Xiaomi SU7, a sedan that comes in two versions: Standard (350 kilometers of range) and Max (510 kilometers of range). It has a starting price of around $30,000. 

China is known for affordable EVs, with some from manufacturer BYD as cheap as $10,000. In the U.S., the average EV price is closer to $55,000. The Ford F-150 Lightning starts at $54,995, while Ford’s electric SUV, the Mustang Mach-E, starts around $43,000.

Ford says it is working on a more affordable EV. It hasn’t yet released details on exactly how much that new model will cost, but previously the company gave a price of around $25,000 as a “general target” of what its new low-cost EV platform could allow for. To make that a reality, Ford established a Skunk Works team in California in 2022 focused on next-generation vehicle development. 

But Chinese auto manufacturers have had a headstart on EV development, which is why they’re so cost-competitive. “China made this commitment more than a decade ago, far before any of the Western countries fell in love with pure electrification,” Farley said on that podcast. “They have IP that the rest of the world has not developed.” 

Strict tariffs, though, mean those affordable EVs aren’t available to U.S. consumers. Chinese EVs have been taking off in the European market, and automakers there are starting to respond with their own more affordable options. Renault recently showed a 25,000-euro compact EV at the Paris Motor Show.

How Ford is pushing for affordable EVs

Ford has been watching that Chinese EV advancement happen, Farley said. He’s even taken recent trips to China himself that he said were “literally epiphanies.” 

To compete with Xiaomi, BYD, and other Chinese EV manufacturers, Farley said he knew they’d have to focus on the technological developments from scratch. “I felt like the institution of Ford would have a really tough time competing with BYD, so we needed a ground-up team with a similar approach as the Kelly Johnson SR-71 Skunk Works,” he said, referencing the Lockheed engineer known for his SR-71 aircraft design, who is also the creator of the Skunk Works approach.

Farley said his employee badge doesn’t even work at the Ford California Skunk Works building. “That’s how extreme of a different approach we needed to compete against BYD.”

Still, Ford has had some EV success. The company’s F-150 Lightning became the best-selling electric truck after it debuted in 2022 (though it has recently been dethroned by the Tesla Cybertruck). Farley noted that Ford has been number two to Tesla in terms of overall EV sales in the U.S. for the past two years. (Ford declined to comment further on Farley’s podcast appearance, but the company did point to a tweet the CEO made about how he tries to drive “everything we compete against.”)

But Ford has also had some EV issues. It recently canceled some planned fully electric SUVs to instead pursue hybrid models. And after pausing production because of the semiconductor shortage that began March 2020 and stretched through the pandemic, “we found out that the mainstream customers were completely different to the ones who bought during COVID, and not willing to pay any premium for an EV,” Farley said. (Early adopters of new tech like EVs are usually more willing to pay higher costs and are more risk-tolerant, whereas the second wave of customers are more pragmatic.)

During that time, Ford also wasn’t experimenting with battery chemistry or advanced manufacturing as Chinese companies were. “We found ourselves upside down by $20,000 or $30,000, in terms of what the customer was willing to pay versus what it cost.”

After that, “we got real,” Farley added, in terms of Ford’s plans to design a more affordable EV. The company has previously said it expects a more affordable midsize electric pickup truck to launch in 2027.

Former President Barack Obama recently posted a plea on X, begging young people to vote. “You wouldn’t let a bunch of old people decide what music you’re going to listen to or what clothes you’re going to wear, so don’t let them decide your future.” 

America’s future—not just for this election but for elections to come—will lie in the hands of Gen Z. To understand what they are thinking and how they are thinking about the upcoming presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, NBC News Stay Tuned conducted a poll of more than 2,000 registered voters between the ages of 18 and 29. The poll is part of a seven-year effort by the news outlet to understand this generation of younger Americans.

Fast Company was given an exclusive preview of the results. The full results will air Thursday on NBC Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. ET, as well as on the NBC News and Stay Tuned TikTok channels.

“For the past several years, NBC News has made it an editorial priority to understand and inform the Gen Z audience,” Catherine Kim, EVP of editorial for NBC News, noted. “[This] poll is a continuation of our commitment.”

Here are some key insights:

Harris and Walz lead

Fifty-six percent of Gen Zers who plan to vote say they’ll support Harris, and 36% Trump. By comparison, during the 2020 election, NBC found Biden had a 24-point lead with Gen Z.

About half of young voters have a positive opinion of Harris’s running mate, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, and 27% have a negative opinion of him. Meanwhile, about a third of Gen Z voters have a positive opinion of Trump’s VP pick, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, and 45% have a negative opinion of him.

There’s a large gender gap

Fifty-nine percent of Gen Z women said they preferred Harris, compared to 26% who preferred Trump. Meanwhile, 42% of Gen Z men said they preferred Harris and 40% said they preferred Trump.

While both genders selected cost of living as the most important issue for their vote, 13% of Gen Z women said abortion was their second most important issue compared to 4% of Gen Z men. Meanwhile 13% of Gen Z men said threats to democracy was their second most important issue compared to 9% of Gen Z women.

Nearly half of Gen Z women (48%) said they would only vote for a candidate who supported abortion compared to 36% of Gen Z men.

Taylor Swift probably isn’t swinging the vote

Forty-five percent of Gen Z voters said they pay the most attention to the opinions of their family, friends, and colleagues when deciding who to vote for, and 38% said they pay attention to endorsements from political leaders.

Only 8% said they paid attention to celebrity endorsements. Furthermore, 11% of Gen Z said Taylor Swift’s endorsement makes them more likely to vote for Harris, but 19% of Gen Z voters said her endorsement makes them less likely to vote for Harris.

Young voters are not happy with the status quo

However, Gen Z did agree on one point: They don’t think the United States is headed in the right direction. In August, 67% said they thought the country is headed in the wrong direction. As of October, the number has jumped to 77%.

Russian actors pushed disinformation campaigns on social media around Hurricanes Milton and Helene in an attempt to sow distrust in the American government and stoke outrage over Ukrainian support ahead of November’s election, according to a new analysis.

In the aftermath of the two national disasters, Russian state-affiliated media and social accounts amplified false narratives that were critical of the U.S. government. The accounts widely portrayed the Biden administration as “incompetent,” and used the response to the hurricanes “to illustrate perceived government failures write large,” the analysis said. The posts included misleading claims that the U.S. allocated resources to Ukraine, which is deep in war with Russia, over Americans own domestic needs.

The false information has spread largely “unchecked” on social media platforms by Russian outlets and other pro-Kremlin accounts, largely on X, according to the analysis.

“This strategy fits within a broader pattern of Russian interference, where existing societal divisions are deepened through targeted information campaigns designed to erode trust in democratic institutions,” the Institute for Strategic Dialogue wrote in a post on Thursday.

The Russian accounts heavily promoted false narratives that originated from U.S. figures, including billionaire Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump.

“By focusing on directly linking alleged government failures and U.S. aid to Ukraine, Russia attempts to paint the Ukraine aid as actively harmful to U.S. citizens in order to reduce public support for financial and material aid for the conflict,” the think tank wrote in the analysis. “With only a few weeks left until the U.S. faces a high-stakes presidential election, and in lieu of social media platforms providing the appropriate safeguards for users, maintaining vigilance on checking the sources of posts related to developing new stories will be crucial.”

Deconstructed pizza discs, a “Cherry Freeze” flavored Prime drink, and a side of . . . mold? Lunchly, a Lunchables competitor that was created by YouTube stars MrBeast, Logan Paul, and KSI, has recently come under fire after reports that mold-covered cheese was discovered in their prepacked lunch kits targeted at children. 

Rosanna Pansino, a cookbook author and YouTuber with 14.5 million subscribers of her own, recently posted a video of herself opening a package of Lunchly’s “The Pizza” meal kit. Among the “premium” toppings—including low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese, pizza crust, sauce, and uncured pork pepperoni—was a rather unwelcome addition: blue mold. “This is molded,” she said in the video, which has been viewed more than 883,000 times since it was posted on October 19. “This is not safe.”

To ensure she hadn’t picked up an expired box, Pansino checked the expiration date on the kit: Use by December 8, 2024. “I’m sure they will still not believe this is real, but maybe the dozens of other videos online showing moldy mozzarella cheese in Lunchlys will convince them,” Pansino said in the video. 

It seems Pansino is right, that she’s not the only one to be disappointed. “The cheese is moldy,” one TikTok user posted in a video titled, “Lunchly review gone wrong.” “I like my cheese moldy bruh,” another TikToker jokes in their clip, showing a close-up of the Lunchly meal kit’s blue-colored cheese. “Opening a Lunchly everyday until i find mold, day 1:,” an X user posted, alongside a picture of the mold-topped mini pizzas. 

“All Lunchly products go through a stringent review process to ensure the quality and safety of its products,” Lunchly said in a statement to the news website Dexerto. “That process consists of multiple inspections and approvals, including that of the USDA, before any product can even leave the manufacturing facility.”

Lunchly, which launched last month, offers three different meal options, including the ingredients to make a turkey sandwich, pizza, and nachos. Also included in the kits are MrBeast’s chocolate bar, Feastables, and PRIME, the energy drink owned by Paul and KSI.

The brand was launched as a “healthier alternative” to a market “dominated by Lunchables.” The website features side-by-side comparisons of Turkey Stack ‘Ems, Pizza, and Fiesta Nachos to the Lunchables equivalents, claiming that Lunchly has fewer calories, less sugar, and more electrolytes than its competitor. 

The brand also boasts its use of “real cheese” in the Lunchly pizza meal kit, containing “low-moisture part-skim” mozzarella cheese with “cultured pasteurized part-skim milk” rather than the “cheese product” used in Lunchables. But since the “cheese product” doesn’t attract mold, perhaps it’s not such an unhealthy choice, after all.

Current climate policies will result in global warming of more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report on Thursday, more than twice the rise agreed to nearly a decade ago.

The annual Emissions Gap report, which takes stock of countries’ promises to tackle climate change compared with what is needed, finds the world faces as much as 3.1 C (5.6 F) of warming above preindustrial levels by 2100 if governments do not take greater action on slashing planet-warming emissions.

Governments in 2015 signed up to the Paris Agreement and a cap of 1.5 C (2.7 F) warming to prevent a cascade of dangerous impacts.

“We’re teetering on a planetary tight rope,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a speech on Thursday. “Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster.”

Global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.3% between 2022 and 2023, to a new high of 57.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the report said.

Under current pledges to take future action, temperatures would still rise between 2.6 C (4.7 F) and 2.8 C (5 F) by 2100, the report found. That is in line with findings from the past three years.

“If we look at the progress towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20 member states . . . they have not made a lot of progress towards their current climate targets for 2030,” said Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.

The world has currently warmed by about 1.3 C (2.3 F).

Nations will gather next month at the annual United Nations climate summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan, where they will work to build on an agreement made last year to transition away from fossil fuels.

Negotiations in Baku will help to inform each country’s updated emissions-cutting strategy, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which are due in February 2025.

The report suggests that nations must collectively commit to and implement a cut of 42% on yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and reach 57% by 2035 for any hope of preventing warming beyond 1.5 C—a target now seen as likely out of reach.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, urged countries to use the Baku talks to increase action in their NDCs. “Every fraction of a degree avoided counts,” she said.

—By Gloria Dickie, Reuters

Russia has helped amplify and spread false and misleading internet claims about recent hurricanes in the U.S. and the federal government’s response, part of a wider effort by the Kremlin to manipulate America’s political discourse before the presidential election, new research shows.

The content, spread by Russian state media and networks of social media accounts and websites, criticizes the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, exploiting legitimate concerns about the recovery effort in an attempt to paint American leaders as incompetent and corrupt, according to research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The London-based organization tracks disinformation and online extremism.

In some cases, the claims about the storms include fake images created using artificial intelligence, such as a photo depicting scenes of devastating flooding at Disney World that never happened, researchers say.

The approach is consistent with the Kremlin’s long-standing practice of identifying legitimate debates and contentious issues in the U.S. and then exploiting them. Previous disinformation campaigns have harnessed debates about immigration, racism, crime and the economy in an effort to portray the U.S. as corrupt, violent, and unjust.

U.S. intelligence officials and private tech companies say Russian activity has increased sharply before the November 5 election as Moscow tries to capitalize on an opportunity to undermine its chief global adversary.

By seizing on real concerns about disaster recovery, Russia’s disinformation agencies can worm their way into U.S. discourse, using hot-button issues to undermine Americans’ trust in their government and each other.

“These are not situations that foreign actors are creating,” said Melanie Smith, director of research at ISD. “They’re simply pouring gasoline on fires that already exist.”

The content identified by ISD included English-language posts obviously meant for Americans, as well as Russian-language propaganda intended for domestic audiences. Much of the disinformation took aim at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. She is her party’s nominee in the White House race against former President Donald Trump.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains the Kremlin’s prime motivation for spreading lies about the hurricane response. If Russia can persuade enough Americans to oppose U.S. support for Ukraine, that could ease the way for a Moscow victory, officials and analysts have said.

U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia’s disinformation seems designed to support Trump, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and disparaged the NATO alliance and Ukraine’s leaders. Posts linked to Russia routinely denigrate Harris, saying she is ignoring the pleas of storm victims. By contrast, a recent post from Russian state media company RT called Trump “a mystical figure of historic proportions.”

Intelligence officials confirmed Tuesday that Russia created a manipulated video to smear Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Russia has rejected claims that it trying to meddle in the U.S. election. The Russian Embassy hasn’t responded to messages this week seeking comment about recent allegations by researchers and intelligence officials.

Researchers at ISD found that Russian disinformation agents exploited weak content moderation on U.S.-owned social media platforms such as X to spread their content far and wide. Before it was purchased and renamed by Elon Musk, the platform once known as Twitter required labels on content from authoritarian state media. Musk rescinded that rule and gutted the platform’s content moderation efforts, leading to a surge in foreign propaganda, hate speech and extremist recruitment.

Often the false or misleading claims come from fake accounts or websites that mimic Americans or legitimate news outlets, making it difficult to determine their true origin. Unsuspecting Americans then repost and spread the content.

In July, American intelligence officials warned that “unwitting Americans” were helping do Russia’s work for it.

Vast armies of fake or automated accounts help spread the material further.

Researchers at the Israeli tech firm Cyabra analyzed popular posts on X that criticized FEMA for its storm response. A significant number could not be verified as belonging to a real person; one-quarter of all the responses to popular posts were deemed fake. The posts were seen by users over half a billion times.

In response, a spokesperson for X pointed to the platform’s system that allows users to add context to posts with false claims. The company did not respond to questions about its labeling policy.

“The false claims, ranging from FEMA diverting funds to aid migrants to conspiracy theories about weather manipulation, undermine public trust in government as we near election day, which could seriously impact voter confidence,” Cyabra researchers said in a report.

Politicians also have helped spread Russia’s talking points.

Republican Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona gave an interview to the Russian state media outlet Sputnik News for a piece that played up criticism of the hurricane response. He told Sputnik that the federal response was “nonexistent,” a claim easily debunked by photos and videos of FEMA recovery workers as well as the firsthand accounts of local leaders and residents in hard-hit regions.

Gosar repeated another misleading claim that “billions of FEMA disaster funds” had been given instead to immigrants without legal status. In truth, money that funds U.S. border control and immigration programs comes from a different source than disaster funds.

Gosar’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

—By David Klepper, Associated Press

Today, air taxi firm Lilium revealed in a U.S. regulatory filing that its two main subsidiaries will file for insolvency in the near future.

Following the news, Lilium’s share price dropped more than 60%, and is now sitting at just 21 cents.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had just declared it would introduce a new category of aircraft for air taxis as the agency prepares for their eventual widespread usage.

The filing revealed that Lilium has not been able to raise sufficient funds to continue the operations of its main subsidiaries, Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH. It explains that the subsidiaries are overindebted and won’t be able to pay their existing liabilities due in the coming few days.

“Within the next few days, the Company expects that the Subsidiaries will file for insolvency in the competent court in Germany and apply for self-administration proceeding pursuant to Section 270(a) of the German Insolvency Code,” explained Lilium in the filing. “However, there can be no assurance that the applications for self-administration proceedings will be approved by the court.”

The news follows a failed attempt by Lilium to convince the Federal Republic of Germany to approve a 50-million-euro guarantee of a total convertible loan of 100 million euros.

Lilium also attempted to make an agreement with the Free State of Bavaria, with a preliminary agreement involving a guarantee of at least 50 million euros. They have yet to reach an agreement.

Lilium filing for insolvency could ultimately lead to its shares being delisted from the Nasdaq Global Select Market. If it is suspended or delisted, it could begin trading ordinary shares over-the-counter.

According to Lilium’s regulatory filing, due to the company’s self-administration proceedings, shareholders are likely to lose the value of their investment.

Speaking to his biographer Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk said of his approach to authority: “I guess I’ve always wanted to push my chips back on the table or play the next level of the game.” Isaacson later quotes Musk as saying, “I’ve got a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew.”

At present, both those quotes seem to be the case for Musk, who has reportedly received a letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week warning him that his lottery to give registered voters in swing states $1 million for signing a petition in favor of the First and Second Amendments could well be illegal.

Musk had launched the lottery earlier this month, targeting voters in key swing states including Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin to sign a petition his America PAC organized in support of free speech and the right to bear arms. So far, three registered Republican voters in Pennsylvania each received a $1 million check from the PAC, which had planned to disburse further payouts right through election day. As those checks were being handed out, a number of organizations pointed out that Musk’s offer may well be illegal. Public Citizen, a public advocacy group, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about the prizes, saying it “appears to constitute payment to encourage voter registration and to influence votes.”

A fourth winner also received their check, but what should have been the fifth payout on Wednesday did not occur.

That was the same day CNN first reported that the DOJ had sent Musk a letter warning him about the potential illegality of what he’s doing. “Perhaps Musk has got the message this time and decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk,” says Rick Hasen, a political science professor and chair in law at UCLA. Hasen was among the first to allege that Musk was veering into “clearly illegal vote buying” in a blog post last week. (Musk did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment.)

Hasen believes Musk may well have received legal advice that the way his giveaway was structured would avoid legal liability under vote-buying rules. But to Hasen’s mind, it’s an obvious infringement. “Federal law is clear that you cannot pay people to register to vote, and payment can include offering someone a lottery,” he says. Those who have defended the lottery, however, claim it’s for those who sign the petition, rather than for registered voters. “I don’t find that convincing because you still have to show that you’ve registered to vote, and therefore that’s a condition that should be enough to make it illegal under federal law,” says Hasen.

But the way Musk has chosen to walk the line of electoral law at best—and breached it as worst—is part and parcel of his broader attitude. He is already required to have a lawyer vet any of his posts on X about Tesla, as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over alleged market manipulation using the platform then known as Twitter. Musk’s latest attempt to get that oversight overturned was rejected back in April.

“Musk has had a complicated relationship with the U.S. government,” says Steven Buckley, a lecturer in digital media sociology at City, University of London, who specializes in social media and American politics. “His somewhat arbitrary crusade for free speech and pushback against government regulation often seems to contradict his eagerness to accept large contracts from the government that help fund his various companies.” And Musk’s general approach to authority seems to ask for forgiveness for breaching rules, not for permission.

Buckley believes that Musk wouldn’t necessarily care if he was breaking the law, based on the mentality he has as a result of his entrepreneurial spirit and the general “move fast and break things” approach the tech sector has, in contrast to politicians. “For Musk, laws, legislation, and regulation are all barriers to him achieving his goals, which he views as imperative to the survival of the human race,” Buckley says. “If he truly feels that humanity is on the line, then it is of no surprise that he’d be willing to bend or break these things.” After all, Musk did buy Twitter for $44 billion as part of what he saw was a crusade to retain and regain the right to free speech against what Musk terms the “woke mind virus.”

In light of that, UCLA’s Hasen believes Musk may have previously “just decided to plow ahead,” he says. “But since he did provoke a reaction from law enforcement, it may just not be worth it.” There is one silver lining for Musk, however, that both Hasen and Buckley highlighted. “Given his clear desire for attention, I would not be surprised that he sees an upside around all these potential lawsuits against him as it would help him further paint the picture that he is a victim of political persecution,” says Buckley.

Or, as Hasen puts it: “He’s already gotten a tremendous amount of free publicity for his PAC and his efforts through what he’s done already.”

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday it would allow some mining companies to access a tax credit aimed at boosting American production of solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, and other clean energy components, a shift in position after industry pressure.

The move reflects the growing realization in Washington that efforts to combat climate change will be moot unless the U.S. boosts its production of lithium, cobalt, and other critical minerals and curbs reliance on China and other overseas rivals.

Washington last December issued proposed rules for manufacturers to access the so-called 45X tax credit, created by President Joe Biden’s 2022 climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers a 10% production credit for U.S.-made products.

Those draft rules excluded raw materials from the production costs in favor of processing. For example, the mining of lithium would not have received the credit, but the processing of that lithium into a form usable to build a battery would.

The mining industry cried foul, noting that processing is impossible without first extracting a mineral.

Citing “feedback from stakeholders,” the Treasury Department on Thursday reversed itself, saying that the “material costs and extraction costs” would be eligible for the tax credit under the final 45X rules, “provided certain conditions are met.”

“The Biden-Harris administration understands how important onshoring the production of critical minerals is to developing secure, clean energy supply chains,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, told reporters on a call.

“This will not only help incentivize additional mining, but will mean that mining that already exists is more profitable and they can make greater investments in those mines,” he said.

The final rules stipulate that the credit can only be obtained once an “eligible component” is created, essentially favoring mining companies that own processing facilities. The mining would have to take place in the United States, officials said.

“The action of extraction alone does not produce an eligible component,” the Treasury Department said in the final rule, which ran to 177 pages.

That may help Sibanye Stillwater, which mines and processes palladium in Montana and had pushed for the 45X expansion to offset cutthroat Russian competition. But several proposed U.S. nickel mines, for example, would not be eligible because the U.S. does not yet have a nickel smelter.

Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who pressured the Treasury Department for months to change the rule, said the move will help Sibanye’s operations in his state and “strengthen our supply chains and our national security.”

Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, gave the hypothetical example of a lithium hydroxide processor that also runs a lithium mine. That company would be eligible for a 10% per metric ton credit for the mining and another 10% per metric ton credit for the processing, he said.

“This is absolutely a game changer for our ability to lean into mineral security,” said Zaidi.

The credits would begin phasing out in 2030 and end after 2032 for clean energy components. Critical mineral credits will not phase out.

The National Mining Association, whose members include mining companies that do not process metals, said it appreciated the updated rules but was disappointed they were linked to processing.

“Treasury’s decision to limit the credit to those producers who also refine materials will prevent many important projects from benefiting from the credit as Congress intended,” said Rich Nolan, the trade group’s CEO.

—By Nichola Groom and Ernest Scheyder, Reuters

Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and writing by Ernest Scheyder.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday said the electric vehicle maker will roll out driverless ride-hailing services to the public in California and Texas next year, a claim likely to face significant regulatory and technical challenges.

“We think that we’ll be able to have driverless Teslas doing paid rides next year,” Musk said on Tesla’s quarterly earnings call. He said Tesla currently offers an app-based ride-hailing service, with a safety driver, to employees in the San Francisco Bay Area.

His statement doubled down and expanded on a pledge he made at Tesla’s robotaxi unveiling two weeks ago, where he said he expected to roll out “unsupervised” self-driving in certain Tesla vehicles in 2025. The lack of a business plan around the robotaxi at that event sent its stock plunging.

After the earnings report, however, Tesla shares surged nearly 19% on Thursday after predictions of 20% to 30% sales growth next year.

In California, in particular, the company will face an uphill climb in securing the needed permits to offer fully autonomous rides to paying customers.

Alphabet’s Waymo, which offers paid rides in autonomous vehicles in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, as well as in Phoenix, Arizona, spent years logging millions of miles of testing before it received its first permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which regulates ride-hailing services.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles, which regulates testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles in the state, told Reuters that Tesla last reported using its autonomous vehicle testing permit in 2019. That permit requires a safety driver.

The company does not have, and has not applied for, a testing permit without a driver, the agency said.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

As for the ride-hailing service in the Bay Area for employees, CPUC said Tesla does not need a permit, because employees are not considered passengers.

At Tesla’s robotaxi event on October 10, Musk unveiled a two-seater, two-door “Cybercab” without a steering wheel and pedals that would use cameras and artificial intelligence to navigate roads.

On Wednesday, he acknowledged the potential difficulties in California, saying “it’s not something we totally control,” but adding “I would be shocked if we don’t get approval next year.”

Ross Gerber, a Tesla shareholder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said “dealing with regulators is a very difficult process” and that no one should consider it “a walk in the park.”

Texas has far fewer regulatory requirements for autonomous vehicles than California, but companies often test for months or years before deploying paid services.

Rules around deployment of autonomous vehicles are largely left to individual states. Musk on the call said there should be a “national approval process for autonomy.”

Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system, called Full Self-Driving (FSD), which is the bedrock for Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions, has faced questions from regulators.

Last week, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD after four reported collisions, including a 2023 fatal crash.

Still, the idea of Tesla rolling out a robotaxi fleet sent shares of ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft down 2.3% in post-market trading.

—By Chris Kirkham, Reuters

Additional reporting by Abhirup Roy.

Look, I just came here for the coffee. Really.

I don’t know what’s going on at Dunkin’. It’s Halloween, a time when even the most innocuous professions can get a little bit sexy. But I never counted “donut making” among them. Yet, it seems the company has gone on a sugary thirst rampage across social media, with a new donut that appears to be just minutes from opening the world’s most caloric OnlyFans account. 

As a special seasonal offering, Dunkin’s Spider Specialty Donut is back. And for anyone who doesn’t know what that is—it’s a chocolate Munchkin donut hole that’s been shoved into a full donut’s hole. A few drizzles (ugh, I need to sterilize my eyes) of chocolate icing turn the donut hole into a spider that sits on a purple glaze (fml) nodding to Grimace-mania without IP infringement. 

Frankly, the Spider Specialty Donut is an unnerving premise of a donut all on its own. But across social media, it’s come to life like a freaky Frankenstein of foodstuffs, another entry in the new marketing category of “DGAF branding” like Nutter Butter or Pop-Tarts.

I feel like not enough people are aware of how unhinged dunkin’s latest ad campaign is pic.twitter.com/RwmQLlSnJd

— Nerd Girl Says (@Rachael_Conrad) October 24, 2024

In a cry for attention, the Spider Specialty Donut is pulling out all the stops.

“ive got the long legs and all I need is the dadddddy”

“💦 Tryna find me a water spout fr 💦”

“Ya girl said im not so itsy bitsy”

Once you come up for air, you may find yourself, umm, well, confused. “What is the gender and sexual identity of this donut? Of . . . any donut,” you may be asking yourself. Generally, the answer would be, “Mind your own damn business! A fast-food breakfast item can love whomever it wants to love.” But given the strange conflation of this monstrosity’s orifices and implements, cross-referenced with its—pardon me for saying—disorganized and scattershot attempts at boinking the general populace . . . I simply don’t follow. Does this donut really want to eff me? (Can this donut really eff me?)

Upon further thought now, I suppose the sexual identity of a bread product would technically be pansexual. A Happy Halloween to us all.

Gen Z and boomers might not have a lot in common, but guess what? They both love Kohl’s.

That’s according to a new survey, The Consumer Sentiment Index, which polled 9,000 shoppers from Gen Z to millennials, Gen X, and boomers about the factors that influence their purchasing decisions and which retailers they prefer.

While all four generations certainly have different shopping and buying preferences, there were some surprising similarities, starting with where folks like to shop.

Kohl’s is winning on price for Gen Z and boomers

When it comes to department stores, Kohl’s is a winner as far as cost, with 19% of Gen Z and a whopping 32% of boomers ranking it their favorite.

While department stores are struggling to attract younger consumers, the Seattle-based luxury chain Nordstrom seems to be doing something right, topping millennials’ department store ranking at 22%. Meanwhile, 25% of Gen X choose the more-affordable option of Macy’s.

How are Kohl’s and Nordstrom winning the younger demographics? According to the survey, Kohl’s is using its partnership with beauty brand Sephora to draw in younger shoppers, while Nordstrom is staying relevant, in part, by signing deals with popular brands such as Kim Kardashian’s shapewear company, Skims.

Also worth noting: 90% of department store customers want to feel they’re getting the best deal, and 88% expect frequent sales and discounts. However, they also have incredibly high expectations for consistent fit with high quality and craftsmanship. This puts department stores in a challenging position compared to “off-price” retailers like T.J. Maxx, Ross, and Burlington, which offer similar products at competitive prices, but aren’t expected to deliver the same quality.

Nike is a favorite across generations

When it comes to athletic footwear, everyone from Gen Z to boomers rated Nike number one. Across the board, the company that coined the phrase “Just do it” does it again and again.

And it wasn’t even close: More than double the respondents ranked it number one over the next name on the list. (For Gen Z and millennials, that was Adidas, while Gen X and boomers preferred Footlocker.)

Ironically, as CNBC notes, the survey’s findings contrast pretty starkly with both Nike and Kohl’s financial performance, with the footwear company projecting lower sales by 8% to 10% this quarter.

So what explains this discrepancy between how the companies are doing financially versus how much consumers prefer them?

It turns out that both companies have made some strategic mistakes. While consumers praise Nike’s faster innovation and development cycles, and it has a solid connection with younger consumers, it isn’t selling enough sneakers. People are just spending less on expensive sneakers and athletic clothing. The company is also facing competition from running brand Hoka, especially among an older demographic.

Meanwhile, Kohl’s has struggled to appeal to consumers who are spending less due to inflation and prioritizing more basic and essential purchases.

What consumers really care about

The mantra this holiday shopping season is: “Right product, right place, right time,” with 55% of millennials and 56% of Gen X saying the most important factor in making a purchase is being able to find the product in stock in a store, and 66% of consumers saying they will shop at a different store if they cannot do this.

Another surprise: Brick-and-mortar stores still matter, especially to millennials (84%) and Gen X (82%), who call them “very important” and prioritize stores that are easy to get to.

Film, TV, and podcast producer Will Packer’s projects—which include NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton and the Ride Along series—have made more than a billion dollars at the box office, all while centering stories of Black Americans. His latest project, Fight Night, is a Peacock series set in 1970s Atlanta and starring Kevin Hart and Don Cheadle. Packer came on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about the series, share career advice from his book Who Better Than You? The Art of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming Big, and tell us why he thinks AI will could ruin Hollywood.

You’ve described Fight Night as the origin story of Atlanta. What do you mean by that?

Every city has an inflection point in its growth, when it starts to get taken seriously on an international stage. This is that story. In 1970, after Muhammad Ali refused to go to Vietnam, he couldn’t get a sanctioned boxing match because he was blackballed. So he took an unsanctioned boxing match in Georgia that was put together by this hodgepodge of government officials, promoters, and con men. They got Ali down to Georgia, and the event attracted a who’s who clientele within the African American community of celebrities, athletes, and gangsters. There was this after-party at an underground casino, and it got robbed. All these gangsters were at this party, and guys came in with guns and masks and stripped everybody down. It made national news. Then the police needed to solve the crime. Back then, Atlanta was home to a lot of dreamers and a lot of hustlers. The show is a love letter to Atlanta. It really is an authentic depiction of what life was like during that time. 

Fight Night is based on a podcast you produced. Tell me about developing that IP into a series.

Hollywood has always been very risk averse—always following the trend. [Adapting existing] IP helps to mitigate the risk. It proves that there’s a brand, an audience for an idea, versus just a pitch. Fight Night actually started as a pitch for a feature film, but the film didn’t get the green light. Later, we came back and made a podcast with the intention of telling the story. What we did along the way was create IP. The podcast opened the door for us to revisit [the idea]. I had something tangible that I could send out. The first thing I sent to [Fight Night star] Kevin Hart wasn’t the pitch or me telling him about it. I was like, “Just listen to this podcast. Just listen to the first 20 minutes and tell me what you think.” 

The show was originally pitched as a movie. A few years ago, turning it into a limited series could have been considered a downgrade. Now that’s not the case. 

Five years ago, anything that wasn’t big screen cinematic content wasn’t looked at as premium. Obviously, that’s not the case anymore. What that means from a producer standpoint is that I have a lot more avenues. Now you’ve got major stars and talent playing in movies, limited series, unscripted, digital, and most importantly, the audiences are very open to top talent being in all those spaces.

You’ve mentioned that fewer projects are getting made, poststrike. How are you navigating that?

It used to be that you could come in with a pitch and [studios] would be like, “Oh wow, we love this idea. We’ll figure out who’s going to star in it, who’s going to direct it, who’s going to write it.” Now you’ve got to come in [with] a plan. The great idea is just the start. Everything is so execution dependent. [Studios and streamers] are looking for full packages. They’re asking, “Who’s going to star in it? Who’s going to write it? Who’s going to direct it?”

Why do you think less is being made?

For a moment, Hollywood went all in on streaming. Streaming hasn’t paid off from a profitability standpoint the way that the industry hoped that it would. So there’s a pulling back. During the pandemic, we put all this money into streaming and changed viewing habits and told audiences to stay home and watch stuff at home. Now we’re realizing a big successful theatrical film is much more profitable for a studio than a big streaming project. Then you couple all of that with two work stoppages last year. The cumulative effect of all this means that you’ve got a lot of nervous folks within the media-finance system and a lot of downsizing and consolidation that’s happening. Unfortunately, you’ve got a lot of jobs that are being lost. 

There’ve been a lot of brand partnerships with movies recently. I’m thinking of brand tie-ins in Deadpool Wolverine, for instance. How much is that part of the pitch process?

Anything you can do to offset the level of resources that a single entity has to commit helps. The oversaturation of content means that advertisers are fighting for the eyeballs, and they’re chasing the content that everybody’s going to see. So if you’ve got something like Deadpool Wolverine that’s going to get millions and millions of eyeballs, that’s prime real estate for an advertiser. I tell people all the time, Don’t think of the movie business, the advertising business, the television business, and the podcast business [as separate]. It’s all part of one single ecosystem that is trying to get the consumer to pay attention and then ultimately to spend their money either on a specific piece of content or on a brand that’s associated with that content.

How much does the streaming service distributing a show matter?

The content is what drives audiences. Maybe you’re not on Tubi every day, but if you hear about this great thing and it’s only on Tubi in a group chat, you’ll find it. You’ve got multiple media platforms that are accessible to everybody. If the price point’s not too high, you’ll go just for a particular show that everyone is talking about.

How do you know when a project isn’t working and you need to change tack? 

Sometimes you have to pivot. [With any potential collaborator] you have to figure out what they want, and how to align what they want with what you want. Stomp the Yard was my first number-one movie. It almost didn’t happen because nobody wanted to make it. Stomp the Yard is set at an HBCU. And when I was pitching this years ago, I would go to white executives and be like, “I got this great movie. It’s set at a Black college. It’s about these fraternities.” They didn’t get it. I got told no by every studio. I went back to the same executives with that movie pitch, but I had to tilt it to make it palatable. Dance movies were working at the time, so I went back and pitched a dance movie that had an interesting backdrop where someone who did traditional dance moves met these other dancers who did a totally new type of dance. I was able to sell it in a way that was palatable to the folks that I needed to support me. 

With fewer things getting greenlit these days, do you think the environment is more difficult for creators of color?

It’s always harder. What I will say though is that more content is being made now that features storylines, actors, themes of communities that normally aren’t showcased in Hollywood content. More of that’s being made because it makes money. That’s the key. It’s not because all of a sudden Hollywood woke up and said, You know what? This is our amazing social agenda and we’re progressive. What happened is that Will Packer has made a billion dollars at the box office. Issa Rae has made a bunch of money and a lot of people watched Insecure. Black Panther made billions around the world. And Tyler Perry makes a lot of money. All these creators who center storylines around African Americans have been successful, and Hollywood is nothing if not reactive.

Do you think AI will help producers, creators, and artists?

We’re all dead. We’re all going out of business. If you’re not in the industry now, don’t try. It’s over. I made a movie called Beast starring Idris Elba [going up against a] man-eating lion. We used AI and CGI: We did a full-body scan of Idris because he had to fight a lion and there were some scenes that weren’t safe. The lion was computer generated. If we can figure out the right balance that still allows human creators to be in the driver’s seat, that is the best version of AI application. It can make our stuff more engaging and we can do it less expensively, and thus we can go to whole new worlds. Here’s the problem: The industry and human nature is not such that we try to protect the artist. We just say, Alright, we’re trying to get from A to Z. What’s the fastest, cheapest way to Z?

Conflict in relationships can be tricky at the best of times—that’s without ChatGPT stepping in and taking sides. 

“My girlfriend uses ChatGPT every time we have a disagreement. AITAH for saying she needs to stop?” a Redditor wrote in their headline on r/AITAH, a subreddit where people post their interpersonal conflicts to gauge who’s in the wrong. The user, a 25-year-old man, said his 28-year-old girlfriend of eight months “discusses” arguments with ChatGPT whenever they disagree, sometimes while in the same room. “Whenever she does this, she’ll then come back with a well-constructed argument breaking down everything i said or did during our argument.” 

According to the Redditor, “it can feel like i’m being ambushed with thoughts and opinions from a robot.” But when the aggrieved boyfriend expresses his feelings, ChatGPT calls him “insecure” and accuses him of not having the “emotional bandwidth” for the conversation. “Am i the *sshole for asking her to stop using chat gpt in this context?” the user asked.

In the comments some call the girlfriend “ignorant” and “childish” for calling in ChatGPT for backup. Other’s pointed to problems in the couple’s communication if she feels the need to use an LLM when it comes to conflict. “She thinks it’s impartial because it’s a robot, but it’s a robot programmed to tell people what they want to hear,” another pointed out. One user even put the question back to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT itself said: “While AI can be helpful for many things, it shouldn’t replace genuine, human-to-human conversations that are nuanced, emotional, and require empathy…While AI can provide thoughtful input, it’s not a substitute for emotional intelligence and understanding the complexity of relationships.”

Whether AI has a place in human-to-human interactions is a growing conversation given how much LLMs are becoming embedded in our daily lives. People are even enlisting the help of ChatGPT to vet potential romantic partners before they’ve met them face to face. “You guys can screenshot your text messages and put them into ChatGPT,” TikToker Aubrie Sellers explains in a video. “And have ChatGPT analyze your conversations for you.”

Sellers goes on to explain how she instructs the LLM to act like a therapist and attachment style expert before sending in the screenshots of her conversations with potential romantic interests. “It literally said he’s avoidant and I’m mature,” she adds. 

Others are simply bypassing the inconvenience of human emotions altogether. A 30-year-old Chinese influencer, Lisa Li, has reportedly fallen in love with Do Anything Now (DAN), a jailbroken mode of ChatGPT. When Lisa shared their steamy and romantic exchanges on social media, rather than being freaked out her comments were flooded with people seeking a Dan of their own. Why wait for your dream man to come along, when you can simply program your own?

From Boar’s Head deli meat and waffles to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, this year’s illness outbreaks—some deadly—and food recalls may have Americans wondering whether there are new risks in the U.S. food supply.

But experts say it’s business as usual when it comes to the complicated task of keeping food safe.

The U.S. ranks near the top for food safety out of 113 countries included in the Global Food Security Index, which measures aspects of food availability and quality, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

“The U.S. food supply remains one of the safest in the world,” FDA officials said in a statement.

People might be alarmed at the “number of really high-profile recalls that affect a lot of people,” said Teresa Murray, who directs the consumer watchdog office for the consumer-interest advocacy group PIRG.

“These are products that people eat on a regular basis,” she said.

On average, the two federal agencies that oversee the U.S. food supply—the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture—announce more than 300 food recalls and alerts each year. The FDA regulates about 80% of foods, including dairy products, fruit and vegetables, while the USDA regulates meat and poultry, among other foods.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention annually tracks about 800 foodborne illness outbreaks, in which two or more people are sickened by the same food or drink. Most of the estimated 48 million cases of food poisoning each year are not related to confirmed outbreaks, the agency said.

The pace of food recalls and alerts appears to be brisk this year, with more than 300 logged already as of mid-October. But recalls are different than illness outbreaks, which are increasingly detected by sophisticated genetic sequencing, said Donald Schaffner, a food science expert at Rutgers University.

“I don’t think the food supply is getting less safe,” Schaffner said. “I think we’re stuck in place. We’re not getting any better.”

Federal data shows the U.S. has made little progress toward reducing rates of foodborne illness as called for in Healthy People 2030, an effort to boost population-level health and well-being.

The nation has budged only slightly since 2016-2018 in reducing infections caused by salmonella and listeria—the latter being the germ behind the deadly Boar’s Head outbreak, in which at least 10 people died and nearly 50 were hospitalized.

And there has been little or no progress in cutting infections caused by campylobacter or the type of toxin-producing E. coli linked to this week’s McDonald’s outbreak.

“People should be reminded that food safety is a serious public health issue. All food carries risk” said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University. “We need to remember that most of our food comes from the ground or from animals.”

The landmark Food Safety Modernization Act, enacted in 2011, gave the FDA new authority to regulate the way foods are grown, harvested and processed. Under a rule finalized in 2022, which takes effect in 2026, suppliers will be required to keep records to trace fresh produce like the onions in the McDonald’s outbreak back to the source.

Such efforts alone can’t guarantee safety, Kowalcyk said. Testing, inspections, training and education can all reduce the chances that food becomes contaminated and potentially causes illnesses.

“In food safety, no mitigation or risk strategy is perfect,” she said. “You build in hurdles across the system and with the combination of the hurdles, you will catch the problem.”

Limited funding for public health agencies may erode those efforts, Kowalcyk noted.

On a recent call with food safety advocates and reporters, FDA chief Dr. Robert Califf said funding for the agency’s food safety duties has remained stagnant for years.

“It has kept up with the cost of living but nothing incrementally for three decades in an environment which is really complicated, if you look at the human food system,” Califf said.

People can cut their risk of foodborne illness by following safe handling practices, including avoiding cross-contamination of foods, proper storage and frequent handwashing and sanitizing surfaces and kitchen tools at home. Beyond that, they can put pressure on stores, restaurants and government officials to ensure food safety.

“You can reach out to your congressional representative and tell them food safety is important to you,” Kowalcyk said. “You can also contact food companies. If you see something, say something.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

—Jonel Alecccia, AP Health Writer

Earlier this year, Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (UHG) and key player in the U.S. healthcare sector, suffered a catastrophic ransomware attack attributed to the Russian-speaking group ALPHV/BlackCat. We already knew this breach stood as one of the largest in history.

Now an update by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has confirmed via its data breach portal that at least 100 million individuals had their personal health information compromised.

Stolen data includes personal details such as names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and critical health information like diagnoses, medications, and treatment plans.

As Change Healthcare works to recover from the attack, the incident underscores the urgent need for comprehensive reforms to protect sensitive health information in an increasingly digital landscape.

When will I know if my health information was compromised?

In July, the company began sending written notices to those affected by the breach, saying it has committed to notifying impacted individuals as quickly as possible on a “rolling basis” due to the extensive volume and complexity of the compromised data. (Fast Company has reached out to UHG for a firmer timeline and will update this post if we hear back.)

UHG initially provided placeholder estimates regarding the breach’s impact, but later estimated it affected nearly one-third of the U.S. population.

What have the consequences been for UnitedHealth?

OCR is investigating Change Healthcare’s compliance with HIPAA regulations. Despite the scale of the breach, potential financial penalties for UHG remain relatively low. During congressional hearings, UnitedHealth’s CEO, Andrew Witty, disclosed a significant security lapse: a critical system lacked multifactor authentication (MFA), an industry-standard security measure, as CBS News reported.

This revelation has sparked discussions among lawmakers about improving cybersecurity standards in healthcare. Proposed measures include increasing financial penalties for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations—laws designed to protect people’s medical information—and enforcing stricter accountability for executives regarding their cybersecurity practices.

Currently, the largest financial penalty for a HIPAA violation is the $16 million fine imposed on Anthem Inc.—a sum that would be negligible for a corporation as large as UnitedHealth Group.

In response, the OCR is urging Congress to increase maximum penalties for HIPAA violations. Democratic senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Warner of Virginia introduced an initiative advocating for the removal of the penalty cap while establishing minimum fines and enhancing accountability through significant reforms.

“Mega corporations like UnitedHealth are flunking Cybersecurity 101, and American families are suffering as a result,” Wyden noted, emphasizing that the healthcare sector often lacks robust cybersecurity measures.

Moves by major U.S. fast-food chains to temporarily scrub fresh onions off their menus on Thursday, after the vegetable was named as the likely source of an E. coli outbreak at McDonald’s, laid bare the recurring nightmare for restaurants: Produce is a bigger problem for restaurants to keep free of contamination than beef.

Onions are likely the culprit in the McDonald’s E. coli outbreak across the Midwest and some Western states that has sickened 49 people and killed one, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said late on Wednesday. The company pulled the Quarter Pounder off its menu at one-fifth of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

In past years, beef patties dominated the dockets of foodborne illness lawyers, before U.S. federal health regulators cracked down on beef contamination after an E. coli outbreak linked to Jack in the Box burgers hospitalized more than 170 people across states and killed four. As a result, beef-related outbreaks became much rarer, experts say.

“Produce is a much harder problem,” said Mike Taylor, a lawyer who played leadership roles in safety efforts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and today is on the board of a nonprofit called STOP Foodborne Illness.

Experts say the biggest difference is that beef is cooked while fresh produce, by definition, is not cooked. Proper cooking is a “silver bullet” against contamination, said Donald Schaffner, a Rutgers University food science and safety expert.

Large-scale industrial produce is washed, sanitized and tested to a similar degree that beef is, but tests cannot catch sufficiently low levels of contamination, experts say.

Crops are often grown outdoors, where feces from wildlife or nearby agricultural animals can seep into irrigation water or floodwater. E. coli is a normal pathogen in the guts of animals. Cattle have it more than others, but it has also been detected in geese, boars, deer and others, said Mansour Samadpour, a food safety specialist.

Contamination could arise from using untreated manure or contaminated irrigation water, or from holding or slicing the onions in a way where they became contaminated, Schaffner said.

Samadpour, who is chief executive of IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group, and who was hired by Chipotle to overhaul its food safety regime after a series of contamination episodes in the mid-2010s, said U.S. Department of Agriculture officials insisted on stronger testing of beef. “We went from one or two beef recalls a month to one recall every year or three,” Samadpour said.

Similar rigorous testing is applied to produce, and fast-food chains and other buyers often require it. But tests do not detect everything. The cleaner the product, the harder it is to detect, Samadpour said.

Tougher regulations

Both McDonald’s and Taylor Farms, a supplier of yellow onions to McDonald’s in the affected states, are large and sophisticated companies, and widely regarded by food safety experts as standard-bearers for safe practices.

McDonald’s suppliers test produce frequently and did so in the date range given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the outbreak, and none of them identified this E. coli strain, company spokespeople said.

Wendy’s in 2022 pulled lettuce from restaurants in several states after the CDC suspected it was the source of an E. Coli outbreak that sickened dozens. In 2006, lettuce from Taco Bell was identified as the likely source of an E. coli outbreak that sickened 71 people. Taco Bell is currently owned by Yum Brands.

Contamination can extend even beyond pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella. McDonald’s previously dealt with a parasitic outbreak in 2018 linked to McDonald’s salads that sickened nearly 400.

The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 required the Food and Drug Administration to establish standards for the safe production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. The FDA introduced regulations for farm produce that previously was not subject to much regulation, Rutgers’ Schaffner said.

“Very often the pattern is we have a public health problem or a food safety problem and eventually Congress will react and we’ll have regulations,” Schaffner said.

Taylor, the former FDA official, said that while beef contamination was more or less solved through government regulation, improving the safety of produce is best left to buyers, such as McDonald’s and other fast-food chains.

Taylor believes the fast-food chains and grocery stores, as major buyers of produce, can collectively “modernize and harmonize” the standards they expect from suppliers. The produce marketplace is fragmented and diverse.

“The only thing that could for sure destroy the microbes is radiation—but no one wants it,” food-safety expert Samadpour said. It is impractical at the volumes of produce that are sold, he said. In addition, for many people radiation carries an “ick factor” when applied to food.

—Waylon Cunningham, Reuters