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World Leaders Shown AI Baby Versions of Themselves at European Summit

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World leaders being shown baby versions of themselves at a global summit.

Baby Erdo?an's Mustache

It's called diplomacy, guys.

This year's European Political Community, an annual forum for European leaders founded in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, kicked off on Friday in Tirana, Albania. Europe's leaders were greeted with a ten-ish minute presentation that celebrated Europe's commitment to sovereignty and shared triumphs over evil. There were flashing lights and dance performances, and a few different video sequences. And to close out the show, as Politico reports, the Albanian government landed on the obvious editorial choice: a montage of the summit's leaders pictured as AI-generated babies, who each said "Welcome to Albania" in their country's language.

It was perfect. Did baby-fied Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, Turkey's authoritarian strongman, rock a tiny AI-generated mustache? He did indeed! Did French President Emmanuel Macron smack his gum in pleasant bemusement as he watched his AI baby self smile onscreen? You bet!

Our hats are off to Edi Rama, Albania's recently re-elected president. So far, between MAGAworld and its monarch embracing AI slop as its defining aesthetic, AI-generated misinformation causing chaos, and attempted AI mayors and political parties, this is easily the most compelling use of generative AI in politics we've seen.

Politicking

The camera televising the event repeatedly panned to the crowd, where the response from Europe's most powerful was mixed. Some laughed, while others bristled; some mostly looked confused. Which makes sense, given that this is a serious conference where, per Politico, the majority of leaders are looking to push for harsher sanctions on Russia as its war on Ukraine wages on and tense talks between Moscow and Kyiv continue without a ceasefire.

It's unclear how the AI baby bit fit into Albania's message of a peaceful, unified Europe. Though the presentation did start with childlike drawings, the sounds of kids laughing, and a youthful voiceover, so maybe it was an attempt to bring the show full circle? Or maybe, considering the heavy subject matter and fast-heating global tension and uncertainty, Rama just wanted to break the ice.

Anyway. We're sure nothing will humble you, a leader of a nation, like sitting in an auditorium and oscillating between unsure grimaces and giggling whilst staring down your AI-generated baby face.

More on AI and guys in Europe: The New Pope Is Deeply Skeptical of AI

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China’s Green Energy Surge Has Caused CO2 Emissions to Fall for the First Time

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China just surpassed a new green energy milestone, crushing the west in the process.

As countries like the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom appear to be backpedaling on climate pledges, China is showing some massive results on its quest to reverse carbon emissions.

The latest analysis of China's annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions found that they slid by 1.6 percent nationwide compared to the same quarter last year. Year-to-date emissions were down one percent compared to the same date in 2024.

Analysis by Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate publication, attributed the decline in CO2 output to green energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear infrastructure, cutting the need for coal-powered energy. It notes that the drop in CO2 output came despite a nationwide surge in energy demand.

While previous drops in China's noxious exhaust coincided with lower energy use overall, this is the first time the country could directly credit its green energy strategy for a fall in CO2 output — a huge win.

The report further found that China's clean power generation has grown faster than the current and long-term growth in electricity demand, as power-sector emissions — separate from the rest of the nation — fell two percent from March 2024 to 2025. While that's a positive sign in the short term, it could be the start of the massive structural change in China's emission trends that Carbon Brief predicted back in 2023.

That said, the publication noted the current CO2 emissions were only one percent lower than China's latest peak, which may imply that a short-term increase in energy use could offset the decline. Even if that happens, it won't erase the fact that green energy is starting to have a noticeable impact on the fast-growing nation.

China has invested gobs of cash into green energy in recent years, as part of its 14th five-year national plan, which kicked off in 2021. By 2024, green energy infrastructure made up over 10 percent of China's total GDP, surpassing even the country's real estate market.

Now nearing the end of the five-year plan, sustainability forecasting indicates that China could command more than half of all renewable energy in the world by 2030.

Though The People's Republic of China as we know it today still has a ways to go on breaking its massive dependence on coal, it's come remarkably far on energy since its inception in 1949 — growing from a semi-feudal collection of fiefdoms to a world-leader in a fraction of the time it's taken countries like the United States.

China is already the global frontrunner in electric cars, solar infrastructure, and robotics production. They're working on a world-first Thorium-powered nuclear reactor, which, when up and running, would all but eliminate the threat of a nuclear meltdown.

All this while Chinese citizens are set to become the largest consumer base on the planet — throwing a bit of a wrench into the Western stereotype of sweatshops and poverty.

More on China: All AI-Generated Material Must Be Labeled Online, China Announces

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Russian Nuclear Military Satellite Spinning Out of Control

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A Russian satellite, which US officials have linked to the country's nuclear anti-satellite weapons program, is spinning out of control.

Tumbler Dot Ru

A top-secret Russian satellite, which US officials have linked to the country's nuclear anti-satellite weapons program, is spinning out of control.

As Reuters reports, the spacecraft — called Cosmos 2553 — appears to no longer be in service, indicating a major setback for the country's efforts to develop space weapons.

The satellite has been orbiting around 1,242 miles above the planet, inside a radiation-heavy band that other spacecraft tend to avoid. Satellite tracker LeoLabs told the outlet that Doppler radar measurements indicated Cosmos 2553 was moving erratically and possibly tumbling.

"This observation strongly suggests the satellite is no longer operational," the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in an assessment last week.

Nuke Bag

Last year, Russia denied US officials' claims that Cosmos 2553 was part of a greater effort to develop a nuclear weapon capable of destroying entire satellite constellations.

Cosmos 2553's exact purpose remains murky at best. A spokesperson for the US Space Command told Reuters that Russia's stated goal of testing instruments in a high-radiation environment was inconsistent "with its characteristics."

"This inconsistency, paired with a demonstrated willingness to target US and Allied on-orbit objects, increases the risk of misperception and escalation," the spokesperson added.

While we still don't know what exactly Russia's mysterious satellite is doing over a thousand miles above the Earth's surface, its erratic movements could indicate yet another black eye for Russia's troubled space program, as well as a strange inflection point in efforts to militarize space.

Our planet's orbit is becoming an increasingly congested domain for supremacy, with several superpowers, including Russia and China, working on anti-satellite weapons that could give them the ability to plunge adversaries into darkness.

Case in point, Russia conducted an unexpected anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2021, drawing the ire of US officials. At the time, a missile smashed into a derelict Russian satellite, creating a massive debris field that threatened the lives of its own cosmonauts on board the International Space Station.

More on anti-satellite tech: US Military Alarmed by Russian Nuclear Weapon Platform in Orbit

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Nobel-Winning Scientist Says His Researchers Are Fleeing the Country Because of Trump’s Cruelty

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Around 15 of Nobel Prize-winning biochemist David Baker's graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are looking to leave the US.

Last year, University of Washington School of Medicine professor of biochemistry David Baker won the Nobel Prize for his work on designing proteins that can be used in drugs, vaccines, materials, and sensors.

But now that the Trump administration has begun to diminish the role of research and gut scientific funding, around 15 of Baker's graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are looking to leave the US, NBC News reports.

A major funding squeeze is forcing Baker and his colleagues at the Institute for Protein Design to reevaluate and cut back.

"There’s so many amazing people who want to come in, and we can’t take them," he told NBC. "The Nobel Prize was just a little blip. But things have gotten quite bleak."

Trump's war on science in the US has sparked concerns over a major brain drain, with a Nature poll of more than 1,200 scientists finding that a startling 75 percent are now considering leaving the country.

The Trump administration has gutted federal agencies, with the National Institutes of Health ringing the alarm bells following massive layoffs and budget cuts. Billions of dollars worth of contracts have been ordered to be canceled by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

"Right now, due to the funding cuts, we are unable to enroll any more participants into federally funded studies, or start new studies, or do really any new work," UW Medicine infectious disease researcher Rachel Bender Ignacio, who cut her own salary to distribute money to the rest of other staffers, told NBC.

Even politically uncontroversial lines of research, including Alzheimer's and cancer, have been swept up in a major shrinking of funding, which could lead to significant slowdowns in progress toward treatments, cures, and other interventions.

"We’ve gone through a bunch of contingency planning," University of Washington’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center director Thomas Grabowski told NBC, referring to grant decisions slowing to a crawl. "When it starts to look like multiple, multiple, multiple months, then there’s not a good answer to your question."

The university received about 1,2200 grants from the NIH, worth around $648 million, last year. This year that approval process ground to a halt, and more than 600 grants are still in limbo.

Scientists are now in the dark, awaiting some much-needed clarity from the agency, which has spent much of its resources pointlessly chasing after president Donald Trump's number-one bogeyman: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

"The fact that they’re cutting these things or putting them in limbo is really upsetting, and you know, I feel like they’re doing surgery with a chainsaw at the federal level," retired attorney Andrea Gilbert, who had undergone treatment for Alzheimer's disease under Grabowski's care, told NBC News.

More on the NIH: Trump Administration Throws Cancer Research Into Turmoil

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Cybertruck Owners Actually Love the Fact That Their Car Could Fly Apart at Any Moment

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The reason that people keep buying the Cybertruck is that they actually like the dangerous appeal of its shoddy construction.

Just twelve months since it began shipping out to customers, the Cybertruck is now on its sixth recall — this time for turning into a seven-thousand pound paperweight while driving.

And yet, people keep buying the Tesla pickup. Its owners have adopted a siege mentality against the onslaught of bad press, and perhaps against the world, which isn't very kind to the stainless steel behemoths.

What draws someone to dump $100,000 on a vehicle that reportedly bricks after going through a car wash? One explanation is that it's a sign of the extreme loyalty that Elon Musk inspires in his fans.

But there could be more to it. As an automotive expert suggests, the Cybertruck's shoddiness may actually be what endears it to its edgy buyers.

"The people drawn to [the Cybertruck] don't have quality of construction or safety at the top of mind," Ivan Drury, director of insights at the automotive inventory company Edmunds, told Wired. "That this could be a dangerous vehicle to drive is key to its appeal."

Cybertruck buyers are people "who think 'I don't care if I kill people when I drive this thing down the street,'" he added.

As of October, Tesla has sold over 28,250 Cybertrucks, according to Kelly Blue Book, making it one of the best selling EVs in the country (though this is still a far cry from the 250,000 per year that Musk once estimated).

Its selling points are varied. It's hyped as "bullet-proof" and "apocalypse proof," though your results may vary; Tesla also claims it can off-road and tow and be an all-around workhorse.

For many owners, the reality has been soberingly different. Sloppy construction, discolored body panels and getting stumped by normal truck stuff have all come to define the vehicle since its launch. There have even been reports of brand new Cybertrucks suddenly breaking down.

It's not surprising, then, that the Cybertruck has been recalled at an average of once every two months. If anything, it's surprising it hasn't been recalled more.

But that amount is already alarming. Harl Brauer, an executive analyst at iSeeCars, estimates that the Cybertruck's tally of six recalls make it "worse than 91 percent" of all other 2024 vehicles.

"We aren't comfortable making [lifetime recall] predictions on the Cybertruck at this very early stage," Brauer told Wired. "But so far it isn't doing very well."

Yet according to Drury, Cybertruck owners don't pay attention to details like that. In fact, you can more or less sum up their ethos as a giant "fuck you" to sound car-buying wisdom.

"Cybertruck customers are in it for the stares and glares — they don't care about how many times [this vehicle is] going to be recalled over 30 years," Drury told Wired. "They're buying this car for now, with zero thought to the future."

"A standard auto customer wants to know if a car will last 10 years or will be ongoing good value for money," he added. "A Cybertruck customer doesn't care about any of that. Owning a Cybertruck isn't practical; it's a boast. A boast that 'I have so much discretionary income I can afford to waste it on an impractical car.'"

More on Tesla: Warning! Do Not Expose Cybertrucks to Common Magnets

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This Entirely AI-Generated Local "News" Site Is Incredibly Depressing

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Northwestern Arkansas has a new local news site — and it's entirely AI-generated, complete with

Northwestern Arkansas has a new local news site — and it's entirely AI-generated, complete with "AI reporters" and all.

According to Nieman Lab, the digital news website called OkayNWA has been around since it first cropped up as an app last year. And unlike a lot of AI-generated local news sites, most of which fall under the umbrella of "pink-slime" journalism — automated local news content that's politically biased and often propagandized — OkayNWA isn't shy about its liberal use of AI.

"At OkayNWA," reads the website's About page, "we've embraced the cutting-edge potential of artificial intelligence to redefine how news is sourced, reported, and presented to you."

OkayNWA's self-avowed redefinition of news reporting involves scraping the web for local happenings and publishing them under the bylines of the website's "AI reporters," each of which has a different beat. "Benjamin Business," for example, is the website's "business reporting lead," while "Sammy Streets" is its "chief of street-level reporting." The website mostly publishes pretty low-stakes stuff, including information about upcoming local events, blurbs about area business openings and closings, and so on.

And according to the site's owner, the avoidance of controversial or otherwise more complex topics is intentional.

"The articles should only be about events and fun and good times," Jay Price, the app developer who launched the site, told Nieman Lab. "I don't want crime or politics, or even city council stuff."

But while it's great to have a resource for finding things like local events, the site's stated mission of redefining news and reporting raises the question: is this actually news? And how might a site like this impact the broader — and struggling — world of local reporting?

Price was inspired to start the site after he moved to Bentonville, Arkansas with no connections.

"I was trying to figure out what to do here and there was information spread all over the place," the app developer told Nieman Lab, "whether it be Facebook, Instagram, various event aggregator sites and email lists."

But even publishing blurbs about benign events, Price admitted, came with its own challenges.

"I was seeing the bots pick up news as events, and I wasn't sure what to do with it, honestly," Price told Nieman Lab. "Like, a new bar is opening this Friday. Yeah that's an event, but it's also kind of news."

But instead of conducting some on-the-ground interviews with the bar's owner and patrons, the AI takes care of the write-up, leading to questions of what gets lost in that process.

For one, local newspapers are incredibly important. Without them, local governments often aren't being held accountable, fewer people vote, and communities become more polarized.

Thankfully, as Nieman Lab notes, OkayNWA isn't the only newspaper in Bentonville — but as local newsrooms around the country continue to dwindle in size and number, it won't be surprising to see automated outfits resembling OkayNWA crop up to fill those voids. And to that end, though local news does cover stuff like bar openings and live music events, it also includes hard-hitting reporting about topics like crime, politics, and, yes "city council stuff."

The fact that Price actively avoids publishing actually newsworthy content with his AI seems to speak strongly to the limitations of generative AI when it comes to fully automated news. Reporting is a complex task, and generative AI often gets things wrong.

So while it's great to have a website where people can find information about local events, calling this a "news" site is at best, questionable — and at worst, existentially depressing.

More on AI and journalism: Beloved Local Newspapers Fired Staffers, Then Started Running AI Slop

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