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WIRED
29 minutes ago
- WIRED
WIRED Roundup: Why GPT-5 Flopped
By Zoë Schiffer and Jake Lahut Aug 18, 2025 2:01 PM On this episode of Uncanny Valley , we dig into WIRED's latest—from crude deportation memes to GPT-5's negative reception. Photo-Illustration:In today's episode, our host Zöe Schiffer is joined by WIRED's senior politics writer Jake Lahut to run through five of the best stories we published this week—from how the Trump administration is creating and sharing memes to make fun of deportations, to NASA's ambitious goal to put nuclear reactors on the moon. Then, Zöe and Jake dive into why users kind of hated OpenAI's GPT-5 release. Mentioned in this episode: OpenAI Scrambles to Update GPT-5 After Users Revolt by Will Knight The Trump Administration Is Using Memes to Turn Mass Deportation Into One Big Joke by Tess Owen Trump Family–Backed World Liberty Financial Sets Up $1.5 Billion Crypto Treasury by Joel Khalili Inside the 'Whites Only' Community in Arkansas by David Gilbert Why the US Is Racing to Build a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon by Becky Ferreira Join us live in San Francisco on September 9th. Get your tickets here. You can follow Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer and Jake Lahut on Bluesky at @ Write to us at uncannyvalley@ How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for 'uncanny valley.' We're on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Zoë Schiffer: Hey, this is Zoë. Before we start, I want to share some exciting news with you. We're doing a live show in San Francisco on September 9th, in partnership with KQED. Uncanny Valley co-hosts, Lauren Good and Michael Colore will sit down with our editor-in-chief, Katie Drummond, and a special guest, for a conversation that you really won't want to miss. You can use the link in the show notes to grab your ticket and invite a friend. We can't wait to see you there. Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley . I'm Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's Director of Business and Industry. Today on the show, we're bringing you five stories that you absolutely need to know this week, including the less than warm reception that OpenAI's GPT-5 model got from users. I'm joined today by WIRED's senior writer. Jake Lahut. Jake Lahut: Great to be back. Zoë Schiffer: So our first story this week is about how the Trump administration has been posting memes to make fun of deportations. Have you seen these at all? Jake Lahut: Yes, unfortunately I have. Yeah. Real fun, funny stuff. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, real dark. So WIRED contributor, Tess Owen, reported on this pattern of different official government accounts on social media using whatever is viral at the moment and tailoring it to promote and make fun of deportations. And this is especially popular in the accounts of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the White House. So for example, there's this catchy jingle that belongs to Jet2, which is a low budget British Airline that's been making the rounds lately on social media. [Archival audio]: Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday, and right now- Zoë Schiffer: Last month, DHS and the White House made a joint Instagram post incorporating the tune on top of footage of ICE detainees in handcuffs boarding a deportation plane, and the caption reads, "When ICE books you on one-way Jet2, holiday to deportation, nothing beats it." Jake Lahut: Oh my God. Zoë Schiffer: I honestly have such a hard time thinking about who would find that funny, even if you really are anti-immigration, I don't know another way to say it, it just seems so mean. Jake Lahut: Yeah, if you could have seen our faces when that was playing. Yeah, darling, hold my hand, I don't want to ever see anything like that ever again. Something I've picked up on ever since covering the Trump 2024 campaign, which is, there's obviously still a lot of really weird, cringy, messed up stuff going on here, but it's also an attempt, at least from their point of view in the weird bubble they're in to kind of mainstream this stuff. Zoë Schiffer: Right. And this is actually the point, according to Tessa's reporting, she spoke to experts who said that the goal of this is really to normalize what's happening. The point isn't just to be crude or cruel, it's strategic. This sparked a bunch of backlash. It's not just you and me, but in response to WIRED's reporting, the White House gave a statement that basically just dismissed these concerns and said that it, "won't apologize for posting banger memes." Moving on to the world of crypto. Our colleague, Joel Kalili, reported on a cryptocurrency business called World Liberty Financial, which I'm sure you're familiar with too, Jake. Jake Lahut: Oh, yeah. Zoë Schiffer: Which has come up with a clever workaround, I guess you could say, for the fact that crypto can't technically be traded on the stock exchange. So World Liberty is now allowing investors to speculate on the price of its coin by way of a little known company that is legally listed on the NASDAQ, called Alt-Five Sigma Corporation. Are you familiar? Jake Lahut: I am not as familiar with that word mash. Zoë Schiffer: So this is where it gets kind of sticky because technically Alt-Five is marketed as a crypto payments company, but in practice, the deal will turn the stock into a sort of proxy for their crypto coin, basically allowing investors to bet on the asset without the hassle and risk that comes with holding a crypto coin themselves. It sounds very crypto. It's a scheme that has raised eyebrows, to say the least. One of Joel's Wall Street sources told us that what this move effectively does is build a holding company with the sole objective of creating a treasury for their crypto coin, about $1.5 billion worth, which could inflate the market capitalization of the coin. Jake Lahut: And this is also controversial because this starts opening up a different can of worms where potential investors and politically motivated actors who are all in this orbit can have even more influence over the administration. We've already seen the way you can do that with the meme coin, now with World Liberty Financial they're obviously affiliated with Trump's adult sons, and the Trump family controls 22.5% of the WLFI coins and about a 40% equity stake in World Liberty Financial. So this is definitely the big game in town when it comes to buttering the Trump family's biscuit. Zoë Schiffer: Right. I love how you said that. Yeah, basically, if you want to potentially try and curry favor with Trump, you buy into one of these schemes, and maybe you'll get invited to a fancy crypto dinner, which has happened before. Maybe you get something else. But even just the optics here are pretty suspect. Jake Lahut: Yeah. And in a little side item we had in my Interloop Newsletter this week, we had some new data on the somewhat stunning lack of enforcement from the Trump administration across the tech sector, but crypto in particular had pretty much everyone who had been facing any kind of legal action from the Biden administration, having their enforcement actions either dropped completely or paused. And in one instance, we're looking at the maybe first ever pardoning of a company from one of these things. So you don't need to just pony up the money for these things and expect a legislative win, you can just get the heat pulled off of you on the regulatory front. Zoë Schiffer: Right. So our third story, I'm really waiting for one that's not incredibly depressing, but right now we're going all the way to Arkansas where our colleague, David Gilbert, reported that a group of Americans are building a "whites-only community," which they call Return to the Land. The group believes that white people and western culture are facing extinction because of an influx of immigrants and minorities. And according to the group's founder, access to the community is open only to people of white European ancestry who share common views on things like segregation, abortion, and gender identity. Return to the Land's president shared their intellectual inspiration with David, the reporter, saying that they were partly inspired by venture capitalist and the son of immigrant parents, Balaji Srevenesin, and his book, The Network State, which promotes the idea of a digital-first community of people with shared values, with the aim of gaining a degree of sovereignty and autonomy. Jake Lahut: And look, not just America, long history of a bunch of wacky well-intentioned or just downright weird utopias, but this one, a little different, because you're having the sovereignty to be racist. But in all seriousness, Zoë, how is any of this legal? Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, that is the real question. So the whole premise goes back to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prevents housing discrimination based on race or religion, but Return to the Land claims that the structure of the community is more akin to a private member's association. And so far local authorities seem to agree. Arkansas Attorney General, Tim Griffin, told WIRED that his office has found nothing illegal about the community. Surprise, surprise. Jake Lahut: Yeah, it's like Erlich Bachman's incubator from Silicon Valley, but for white supremacy and racism. Zoë Schiffer: Exactly. Exactly. Okay, one more before we take a break. This one is about how the US is racing to build a nuclear reactor on the moon. WIRED contributor, Becky Ferreira, recently reported that NASA is fast tracking a plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030 under a new directive from the agency's interim administrator, Sean Duffy. Jake Lahut: Sean Duffy, only in America, can you go from the Fox and Friends weekend couch to being Secretary of Transportation, to also doing this. He's a busy, busy man, multitasking- Zoë Schiffer: He's a busy, busy man. Jake Lahut: To the moon. Zoë Schiffer: So his stated motivation is that the US has to stay ahead in what he deems to be the "moon race" with China and Russia. Both countries have expressed their desire to place nuclear reactors on the moon, and it's an appealing idea because nuclear energy is a powerful continuous source of energy. We're hearing about it more and more with the AI race. And so the directive laid out by Duffy is to quickly design, launch, and deploy an operational 100 kilowatt reactor to the lunar South Pole within five years that would be built with commercial partners, and experts say this would be difficult, but not completely impossible. If it actually gets accomplished, it would potentially change the space industry. They could start designing space systems around what we want to do and not what smaller, often limited power allows them to do. Jake Lahut: With the added bonus of effectively using a nuclear flag to prevent other countries from landing in this area, so, all right. Sounds promising, question mark? Zoë Schiffer: It is, and there's always a but, there's also a mountain of safety and regulatory concerns that this would bring obviously, because we're literally dealing with nuclear energy in outer space. So how do you contain the uranium for one, how do you make sure to stay in your sovereign zone so you don't accidentally start a space war? All these questions are coming up and accelerated process could make it even trickier. Jake Lahut: Yeah. I extremely do not want to be here for a space war, so catch me pulling a Yoda in the Degaba system. I'll hide it out until the all clear has been given. Zoë Schiffer: I'll be there with you. Okay. Coming up, we'll dive into why OpenAI's latest model release ended up being kind of a flop despite all of the hype. Stay with us. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley . I'm Zoë Schiffer, I'm joined today by Jake Lahut, and we're discussing the user response to OpenAI's release of GPT-5. OpenAI's GPT-5 model was meant to be like a world changing upgrade to the wildly popular ChatGPT. Sam Altman had tweeted out the Death Star, they said it was going to have kind of virtuosic skill and PhD level intelligence, and I think a lot of people felt like it was going to bring us basically up to artificial general intelligence. Were you aware of the hype leading up to everything? Jake Lahut: And I was definitely taken aback by the term PhD level intelligence in the hype for all of this stuff. And what I started to wonder about was like, what is that going to look like compared to the more sycophantic glaze you up version of GPT-4.0? Zoë Schiffer: So yeah, it was too much hype. They'd actually tried... I talked to sources about this, internally they were testing various models that they wanted to call GPT-5 and none were meeting the mark. And so I think there was a fair amount of pressure internally. If you talk to people who work closely with Sam, they'll say he really likes to have a big splash every three to four months, once a quarter at least. And so I think the combination of the fact that they hadn't released a major model in a while, I mean the open source models notwithstanding, they had been hyping GPT-5 for so long. There was this push to be like, "We have to release a model, a big model, and we kind of have to call it GPT-5." Then the day it launched, there was supposed to be this feature that could automatically route your query based on how complicated it was, like if you were asking something very simple, it would route you to a cheaper model basically. And if you were asking something more complicated, you might get a reasoning model. That broke according to Sam Altman, the CEO. And so the model just seemed dumber all day than it otherwise would. So I don't know. There was a lot going on. Jake Lahut: And at least from my more layman outside politics world perspective on this, it does seem like a... From the economics to be a rather smart, more efficient way to go about it. But the part that really stood out to me though was more of the "personality" of GPT-5 and this revolts that it started on Reddit and among the ChatGPT super users, of which I am admittedly not one. Zoë Schiffer: Right, yeah. So this was really fascinating. I think one thing that happened, and again I'm pulling this from conversations with a bunch of sources inside the company, is that they really wanted to optimize for coding ability this time, because that's really been Claude's edge, Anthropic's AI model, and obviously it's a huge revenue driver. It's kind of the first area where we've seen a big widespread commercial adoption in a way that could do the thing that AI companies have been saying all along will be done, which is it'll disrupt and augment jobs in a pretty serious way. Engineers really are using these tools and companies are really pushing the tools on their own workforce. But like you said, the reason that regular people like models isn't often because of their coding ability. It's because they genuinely like talking to them. It's a lot more about the personality, about the warmth, even about the sycophancy, although they've fixed a large part of that in the latest release. And so people completely flipped out. We were looking at Reddit and people were saying, "This is erasure, what have they done? Take me back to 4.0." Jake Lahut: "You took away my friend." Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean it really, really impacted people. I think on the most extreme ends, you see people who have, what looks like perhaps like a mental health crisis, they're so attached to the model, but then you just have complete power users who are like, "This is part of my minute by minute life. What have you done? You didn't warn me." Jake Lahut: And this is where the introspective aspect of these tools, the kind of desire for self-understanding, the people who are not advisably from any medical perspective, but they are trying to use these bots for something akin to therapy. And what it made me think of when I saw this rolling out was, is this maybe the beginning of something bigger where there's kind of a departure between the "regular consumer" experience and demand for AI versus the business application. We may not all have the same definition of intelligence when it comes to these models, and that some of us really just want a buddy, a companion, a way to know ourselves better. And then other people are like, "No, I just need a little team of bots here to manage, get my stuff done, I'm going to babysit and I'm going to tell them what to do and live my life." And yeah, I don't know where that goes. It does seem like it's revealing something maybe genuinely new about the human condition in a way that I would not have expected. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, I think it's been a learning for OpenAI. They've been kind of baffled. I've seen these conversations internally where they're like, "I guess people don't care as much about intelligence as we thought." The narrative around intelligence is critically important for fundraising, if nothing else, they really need to raise gobs of money and being like, "We're about to achieve artificial and general intelligence, AI will be able to do all of these things," is really important for that. But for everyday users, it really makes me think of this story that is kind of famous inside OpenAI About the night before the ChatGPT release in November of '22, Ilya, he was testing out what was going to be ChatGPT and asked it 10 pretty hard questions. And he felt like five of them, he got pretty good responses, and five were unacceptably bad. And they had this moment where they were like, "Do we release this? I don't know if it's good enough." And then they decided to move forward. And what we saw was the general public was like, "This is amazing." Because they'd solved a product issue. It wasn't necessarily about the model, which had been out for a long time. It was like the interface to interact with the model was really the unlock. And I think OpenAI, that really is more and more the company's edge, even though it really sees itself as a research lab. It's a product lab in a lot of ways, and it'll be interesting to see how that changes the company moving forward. Jake Lahut: Absolutely. Zoë Schiffer: That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. If you're in San Francisco, don't forget to get your tickets for the September 9th event with KQED. Make sure to check out Thursday's episode of Uncanny Valley , which is about what Palantir actually does and why it's so controversial. Adriana Tapia produced this episode, Amar Lal at Macrosound mixed this episode. Pran Bandi is our New York studio engineer. Kate Osborn is our executive producer. Conde Nass, Head of Global Audio is Chris Bannon and Katie Drummond is WIRED's Global Editorial Director.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
See auroras from space in this 'wild' timelapse captured by NASA astronaut on space station
Zena Cardman recently caught a glimpse of some auroras aboard the International Space Station and was kind enough to share footage with us on the ground. Auroras on Earth are a stunning sight to behold – and a rare one at that from the continental United States. Lucky enough to have witnessed a phenomenon that in the Northern Hemisphere is known as the northern lights? Well, now imagine what that would look like from about 250 miles above. One astronaut aboard the International Space Station recently caught a glimpse of the incredible light show, and was kind enough to share footage of it with all of us still on the ground. "I don't have words yet for the whole experience, so a picture will have to do," NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said in an Aug. 14 post on social media site X. Here's a look at what Cardman documented from space, and how it's the latest in a long line of striking astral photography. What are auroras? Astronaut captures phenomenon from ISS The auroras are a natural light display in Earth's sky that are famously best seen in high-latitude regions of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The glowing phenomenon appears as rays, spirals and flickers that most commonly manifest in hues of red and green. Most of us in the Northern Hemisphere are likely most familiar with the aurora borealis, or northern lights. But because Cardman said the view she captured was over the South Pacific Ocean, that would likely make the display the southern lights, or the aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere. The 40-second timelapse she shared to social media also shows the Orion constellation and satellites, Cardman said. Other astronauts document Earthly phenomenon from space Cardman is far from the first astronaut to document such an incredible cosmic sight from space. Astronaut Nichole Ayers, who was part of the since-departed Crew-10 mission, captured a few different phenomena during her time at the orbital outpost. Ayers' astral photography included photos of lightning in June from the space station and, in July, photos of a rare event known as a "sprite." The phenomenon, which scientists refer to as transient luminous events (TLEs), happens above the clouds during periods of intense electrical activity, like lightning. Coincidentally, Cardman said she recorded her recent timelapse video aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule docked at the time at the station that Ayers rode in March to the ISS. The Dragon undocked and landed Aug. 9 off the California coast with Ayers and three other Crew-10 members. "It was a bittersweet farewell but marked the start of a new chapter in what feels already like a great story," Cardman said in her post. Who is on the International Space Station? Cardman is one of seven people living aboard the International Space Station. Cardman arrived Aug. 2 at the orbital laboratory as part of a four-person contingent of a joint NASA and SpaceX mission known as Crew-11. The other members of the mission are NASA astronaut Mike Fincke; Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); and Russian Oleg Platonov, a Roscosmos cosmonaut. Crew-11 launched Aug. 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Dragon capsule perched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Also aboard the station is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who reached the ISS in April with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Northern lights could be visible in more than a dozen US states tonight
Another dazzling display of northern lights could be visible Monday night with the prediction of a minor geomagnetic storm, according to space weather experts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center has forecasted a minor geomagnetic storm that could produce auroras in more than a dozen U.S. states. MORE: NASA to launch 2 new satellites that will help forecast solar storms People in states like Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine could see the northern lights, according to NOAA's aurora viewline map. Some of the northernmost states could witness more displays on Tuesday night, the map shows. The auroras could appear especially vibrant due to the current phase of the moon. This week, the moon is expected to rise in the early morning hours, which will make the night sky appear even darker. Streaks of pinks and greens may be more visible against the dark canvas. MORE: How to increase your chances of seeing the northern lights as the current solar cycle peaks The best times to see the northern lights in the U.S. will be between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., according to NOAA. Northern lights occur when atoms and molecules in Earth's atmosphere clash with a solar flare, which causes the atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow, creating a spectrum of color in the night sky. In October, the sun's magnetic field reached the solar maximum phase in its 11-year cycle, according to NASA. The increase in number of sunspots and intensity of magnetic activity from the sun has led to more northern lights activity over the past year. Sunspots with intense magnetic activity are expected to last through 2026, according to NOAA. MORE: This is when peak northern lights activity will occur The Space Weather Prediction Center recommends traveling away from city lights and traveling to the darkest location possible for the best viewing. Smartphones and digital cameras may be able to capture the light shows even if they are not visible to the naked eye because they are more sensitive to the array of colors, according to NASA. The citizen science platform Aurorasaurus allows users to sign up for alerts of northern lights that are being seen in real time, based on user reports.
