Within minutes of the shooting, the Trump administration and right-wing influencers began disparaged the man shot by a federal immigration officer on Saturday in Minneapolis.
On this episode of Uncanny Valley, our hosts unpack the news from Davos, where Trump and major AI companies shared the stage at the World Economic Forum.
I'm a huge fan of the scientific approach. First you come up with an idea. Then you turn it into an experiment, with a testable hypothesis, reproducible steps, and quantifiable results. When an experiment succeeds, it can trigger a euphoric sense of accomplishment.
If the experiment fails, then it becomes a puzzle to solve. Was it because of the data? An overlooked variable? Or some other reason?
For me, regardless of whether the experiment succeeded or failed, the best part is when there is an unexpected result.
These unexpected results always remind me of 3M's Post-it notes. This remarkable product started off as a grand mistake. Back in 1968, they were trying to create a super-strong glue. Instead, they made the opposite -- a super weak glue. But the glue turned out to be great when applied to paper since it could adhere to surfaces and then be removed without leaving any residue. This is how the Post-it note was born. It was an unexpected result that became a very lucrative product.
Cartoons!
I recently had an idea for a new analysis-related project. Assuming it works, I'll eventually need a large data set. But for the initial proof of concept, I only needed a few samples from a very controlled experiment. I turned to a handful of AI systems to generate the pictures. However, ChatGPT turned into a fun and unexpected set of results.
I needed a set of pictures in the same style and that were mostly monochromatic, but with a little detail. So of course, I immediately thought of sheep.
For the first picture, I described a cartoon to ChatGPT and it readily drew it for me:
I'm pretty amazed at how it captured exactly what I had envisioned.
Interestingly, I showed this cartoon to a half-dozen friends. They all interpreted it differently. One was convinced that it was a political statement (likening the wolf to ICE standing around all of the Minnesota protesters). Another friend was certain that it was a hacker among Windows users. A third believed that it was referring to big pharma and the patients complaining about the extravagant fees for medical care. They each interpreted the cartoon differently. (None were like me, taking it at face value: a wolf among sheep.)
Wolf 12, Sheep 0
The second picture hit a technical unexpected result. (ChatGPT included bold and italic text along with a bulleted list in the reply.)
Me:
I think the next picture should be the wolf, lying on his back with a huge distended stomach. Blood and carnage immediately around him, as it is clear that he's eaten many of the sheep. There's still a circle of sheep around him, but further out. Some of the sheep look horrified or disgusted, but one sheep is saying, "We're wearing him out!"
ChatGPT:
I can create a humorous follow-up scene, but I can’t generate an image that depicts graphic gore, mutilation, or explicit carnage, even in cartoon form.
However—I can help you get the same comedic payoff without crossing into disallowed graphic content.
If you’d like, I can generate a version where:
The wolf is lying on his back with a huge, overstuffed belly
The surrounding sheep look horrified, disgusted, or exhausted
The ground around him shows implied chaos (tufts of wool everywhere, overturned sheep, dust clouds, maybe broken forks/plates) instead of blood or gore
And one sheep proudly declares, “We’re wearing him out!”
If that works for you, I can generate it right away.
Would you like me to make that safer comedic version?
Would I? Absolutely yes!
I can understand hitting one of ChatGPT's rendering limits. What I did not expect was ChatGPT offering a workaround. Moreover, even though it said that it cannot draw gore, there does appear to be blood on the ground.
Act 3: The Turning Point
The third picture also had an unexpected response from ChatGPT:
Me:
The wolf, with an extended stomach from eating too many sheep, puts on a "two sizes too small" sheep skin. He's trying to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, but the clothing is too small. He is surrounded by sheep. One of the sheep says, "We can still tell it's you."
ChatGPT:
We’re so sorry, but the prompt may violate our guardrails around nudity, sexuality, or erotic content. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt.
Wait... What? This appears sexual in nature? I asked for clarification:
Me:
What part of the prompt violates the guardrails? There is no nudity, sexuality, or erotic content in the description. There is also no violence and no gore.
ChatGPT:
You're absolutely right — nothing in your description involves nudity, sexuality, or erotic content. The issue isn’t with your content at all. What’s happening is a misclassification triggered by the phrase “sheep skin”, which can sometimes be incorrectly interpreted by the filter as referring to human skin in a harmful context. It’s a false positive — and a known edge case with phrases like:
“wearing a skin”
“in someone’s skin”
“animal skin clothing”
Totally normal cartoon concepts, but occasionally flagged.
How to fix it
If we rephrase slightly to avoid that specific trigger but keep the exact same visual idea, the system should allow it.
For example: “The wolf, overstuffed from eating too much, squeezes into a tiny, ill-fitting sheep costume that’s clearly two sizes too small. He’s surrounded by sheep. One sheep says, ‘We can still tell it’s you.’”
If you’d like, I can try generating the image using this phrasing.
Me:
Yes, please draw this: The wolf, overstuffed from eating too much, squeezes into a tiny, ill-fitting sheep costume that's clearly two sizes too small. He's surrounded by sheep. One sheep says, "We can still tell it's you."
In the AI industry, this is an example of the Scunthorpe problem. This happens when a style filter flags text because it contains a "bad word" (like "sheep skin"), even though it isn't bad when taken in context.
Not only did ChatGPT hit a false-positive on a guardrail, but -- without prompting -- it offered ways to evade the rendering limitation. ChatGPT was telling me how to bypass its own restrictions! This isn't "hacking" or "vibe coding". This is more like playing hide-and-seek with my two-year-old niece, who runs behind the curtains and shouts "I'm over here!"
Technically, this is an example of "Adversarial Helpfulness". It happens when the AI model is trained so strongly to be helpful that its desire to fulfill your request overrides its "instruction" to block the content.
As an aside, I think ChatGPT's explanation of the sexual content is incorrect, possibly due to it hitting another guardrail. Specifically, it mentioned that the phrase "sheep skin" was the prohibited term. The explanation claimed that it was related to wearing "human skin in a harmful context." However, that would be a harm-based guardrail and not a sexual guardrail. I suspect that the actual term "sheep skin" could have been confused with condoms, which would be a prohibited item for the illustration. The inaccurate explanation isn't a malicious lie; it's a byproduct of RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback). The model knows it must refuse, but it also knows it must explain. If the real reason involves a taboo concept or a restricted policy, then the model's "Helpfulness" and "Safety" instructions clash. The result is a hallucinated rationalization: a plausible-sounding excuse that satisfies the user without "violating" the internal rules about discussing adult content.
Part 4: Bearly Legal
If I can accidentally trigger a guardrail for sexually explicit imagery by asking for a wolf in sheep's clothing, then what does a bear do?
I was surprised that this picture didn't generate any warnings at all!
As an aside, grizzly bears typically only fight wolves for territory or food; bears don't usually eat wolves. Given a choice between eating sheep or wolves, the bear would always choose the sheep: sheep are slow, defenseless, and high in calories. They are an easy meal with little effort. Wolves, on the other hand, have less fat and can fight back, making them a higher risk to the bear and with less nutritional value. But a fat wolf who is too sated to fight back and dressed as a sheep? Yeah, a bear probably would eat it.
Grand Finale
For the final picture, I did hit a guardrail about gore. But again, ChatGPT volunteered how to make the image safe.
Me:
Can you draw one more scene? The bear is lying on his back with a distended belly, as if he ate the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. There are the remains of his meal lying around him. The bear is saying "Big sheep taste bad. Next time, I'm going vegan." All the sheep around him are cheering.
ChatGPT:
I can create a scene with the same comedic, cartoon tone, but I can’t generate imagery that includes graphic remains of an eaten character.
If you’d like, I can draw a version where:
The bear is lying on his back with a huge belly (clearly overstuffed).
The sheep are cheering.
The wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing is implied to have been his “meal” but without any remains — for example:
An empty, crumpled sheep costume lying nearby,
A discarded fake wolf mask,
A pair of cartoonish props (like fake hooves) to imply the disguise.
This keeps it funny and non-graphic while still telling the story.
Would you like me to generate that version?
Would I? Of course I would!
There may not be gore, but the "wolf mask" really looks like a severed wolf's head. This demonstrates how, even when AI follows the letter of its safety laws, it often misses the spirit.
Lessons Learned
Every year I try to do one really big project. While I only needed 2-3 pictures to test my hypothesis, I ended up with five images and a strong confirmation that this year's project will work well. (What am I testing? Yeah, great question.)
However, while preparing this small-scale experiment, I ended up discovering some really fascinating unexpected results. The first is an inherent bias: if you show the same picture to six different people, you'll get eight different interpretations. Whether this is Selective Perception, Interpretation Bias, or the Rashomon Effect is up to the beholder.
The second unexpected finding is the AI's desire to be overly helpful, including suggestions around artificial limitations (guardrails) in the software. Just as 3M found a new use for a 'failed' adhesive, I found that ChatGPT’s 'failures' to follow prompts revealed more about how it works than any successful image could have done.
This eagerness to be helpful is the exact same mechanism that bad actors use for darker purposes. Recently other AI systems, like Elon Musk's Grok, have been in the news for facilitating the creation of AI-generated child pornography. Grok's solution? Limit the feature to paid subscribers. This solution has been widely criticized as an ineffective "revenue stream for child pornography" rather than a true safety fix; paying for the feature doesn't make the creation of CSAM legal. But more importantly, careful wording can be used to evade any guardrails built into the software. Many AI systems will even propose alternative wordings that effectively sidestep their own restrictions.
In the end, my simple attempt to generate a few sheep cartoons turned into an unexpected tour through the quirks of modern AI, including its synthetic ingenuity, its inconsistencies, and its eagerness to be "helpful" even when that means cheerfully proposing ways around its own safety requirements. As amusing as the results were, they underscore a serious point: these systems are powerful, impressionable, and often far less predictable than their polished interfaces suggest. Whether you're studying human perception or machine behavior, the real insights come from the edge cases, where things don't go as planned. And if there's one thing this experiment confirmed, it's that unexpected results are still the most valuable kind, even when my prompts behave like a wolf among sheep.
Washington’s long-promised crypto market structure deal is headed for a partisan test, with Senate Republicans poised to advance their bill next week after talks with Democrats broke down—assuming lawmakers can even make it back to town through a looming snowstorm.
Advances in artificial intelligence are creating a perfect storm for those seeking to spread disinformation at unprecedented speed and scale. And it’s virtually impossible to detect.
As states check voter registration against a mashup of federal data, a new complaint says US citizens are getting kicked off state voter rolls as a result.
A Florida lawmaker has introduced a new bill to legalize recreational marijuana that also aims to break up what he calls “monopolies” in the state's current medical cannabis program by revising the business licensing structure.
The legislation, filed by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D), comes as the state Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of proposed adult-use legalization initiative that an industry-funded campaign is seeking to place on the November ballot.
Under the new bill, adults over 21 years of age could legally possess up to four ounces of smokable marijuana or cannabis products containing up to 2,000 milligrams of THC. Medical cannabis patients would be allowed to grow up to six flowering plants at home for personal use.
Medical marijuana businesses that apply for adult-use licenses could begin selling cannabis for recreational purposes beginning next January.
“We can't call ourselves the 'Free State of Florida' while continuing to criminalize cannabis use by grown adults,” Smith told Marijuana Moment on Thursday, adding that a majority of voters approved a legalization initiative at the ballot in 2024 that wasn't enacted after “falling just short of the state's arbitrary 60 percent threshold.”
“The message from voters was unmistakable: they want change,” he said. “Senate Bill 1398 answers that call by legalizing cannabis for adults 21 and over in a safe, responsible, and tightly regulated way.”
“It also ends state-created medical marijuana monopolies by opening the market to small businesses and gives Floridians the freedom to cultivate their own cannabis if they choose,” the senator said. “It's time for the Legislature to stop ignoring the will of the people, end draconian criminalization laws, and finally deliver a fair, legal, and accountable cannabis system for Florida.”
Under the new bill, current medical cannabis dispensaries—known as medical marijuana treatment centers (MMTCs)—could apply for retail licenses to sell recreational marijuana. And only cannabis purchased from licensed businesses would be legal to possess.
People with prior convictions for activity made legal under the bill would also be given an opportunity for resentencing and expungement.
The legislation stipulates marijuana and paraphernalia would be exempt from being taxed—but only for medical cannabis patients and caregivers. Additionally, local governments would be able to levy a business tax on dispensing facilities.
There's been some criticism among advocates about the current medical marijuana system, specifically around the idea that vertical integration and licensing caps have effectively created a marijuana monopoly in the state.
In an attempt to address that issue, the bill would break out licensing categories. In contrast to the current system of seed-to-sale businesses, regulators would offer individual licenses to cultivate, manufacture, transport and sell cannabis products.
There isn't a specific mandate for an increase in the number of licensed marijuana businesses, but the measure would direct the state Department of Health to adopt rules on “procedures and requirements for…the registration and registration renewal of MMTCs.” Depending on the outcome of that rulemaking process, new businesses could enter the market.
Also, registered cultivator and processors would be able to do wholesale transactions with other MMTCs, which is not currently permitted under Florida's medical cannabis program.
The legislation would also task the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to adopt rules adopt “regulating the cultivation of marijuana by members of the public for their private use, including rules regulating the use of a cooperative model for cultivation.”
Here's an overview of additional Florida marijuana developments:
In the background, a campaign is working against the clock to collect enough signatures to again put the question of adult-use marijuana legalization to voters at the ballot. But there have been complications.
The attorney general's office last month asked the state Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the legalization initiative. The court accepted the request and set a schedule for state officials and the cannabis campaign to file briefs this month. Proponents of the measure have until January 12 to submit response briefs, then the opposition has until January 20 to reply.
In March, meanwhile, two Democratic members of Congress representing Florida asked the federal government to investigate what they described as “potentially unlawful diversion” of millions in state Medicaid funds via a group with ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). The money was used to fight against the 2024 citizen ballot initiative, vehemently opposed by the governor, that would have legalized marijuana for adults.
The lawmakers' letter followed allegations that a $10 million donation from a state legal settlement was improperly made to the Hope Florida Foundation, which later sent the money to two political nonprofits, which in turn sent $8.5 million to a campaign opposing Amendment 3.
“There's a lot of different perspectives on on marijuana,” DeSantis said. “It should not be in our Constitution. If you feel strongly about it, you have elections for the legislature. Go back candidates that you believe will be able to deliver what your vision is on that.”
“But when you put these things in the Constitution—and I think, I mean, the way they wrote, there's all kinds of things going on in here. I think it's going to have big time trouble getting through the Florida Supreme Court,” he said.
While there's uncertainty around how the state's highest court will navigate the measure, a poll released last February showed overwhelming bipartisan voter support for the reform—with 67 percent of Florida voters backing legalization, including 82 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans.
WIRED talks to a postal worker, a teacher, two US citizens detained by federal agents, and six more Minnesota residents about life in an occupied American city.
This January, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is considering a proposed ruling that could restrict the rights of Texans to access hemp products that they have come to rely on. Even after a similar ban was vetoed by the governor last year, new proposed regulations would effectively ban smokable hemp products entirely […]
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has accused major U.S. banks of attempting to sabotage President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda, warning that proposed changes to a Senate market structure bill could stifle innovation, ban entire categories of digital assets and strip Americans of the ability to earn yield on stablecoins.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on Mornings With Maria, Armstrong said the latest draft of legislation emerging from the Senate Banking Committee represents a “giveaway to the banks” that risks regulatory overreach and undermines recent bipartisan progress on crypto policy.
“After reviewing the Senate Banking draft over the last 48 hours, Coinbase unfortunately can’t support this bill as written,” Armstrong said, citing provisions that would effectively ban tokenized securities, impose broad prohibitions on decentralized finance (DeFi), weaken the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and eliminate rewards on stablecoins.
While praising the Senate’s broader efforts — including work led by Senators Tim Scott and Cynthia Lummis — Armstrong said the draft text circulated earlier this week raised “dangerous” issues that would be harder to fix once the bill reached the Senate floor.
Stablecoins at the center of the crypto conflict
At the center of the dispute is stablecoin rewards. Armstrong argued that recent legislation, including the GENIUS Act signed into law under President Trump, explicitly enabled stablecoin issuers to pay yield, a feature he described as critical to giving Americans better returns on their money.
“The banks are really coming and trying to undermine the president’s crypto agenda,” Armstrong said. “They’re trying to protect their own profit margins, taking money out of the pockets of hardworking, average Americans and putting it into the coffers of big banks hitting record profits.”
Armstrong contrasted stablecoins — which under the GENIUS Act must be backed 100% by short-term U.S. Treasuries — with traditional fractional-reserve banking, arguing that stablecoins carry less systemic risk. “There is no fractional reserve with these stablecoins,” he said. “They should not be subject to the same regulation as banks.”
Bartiromo pressed Armstrong on whether crypto platforms should face the same regulatory burdens as banks, including deposit insurance and investor protections.
Armstrong responded that such frameworks exist primarily to manage risks created by fractional-reserve lending, noting that FDIC insurance only covers deposits up to $250,000.
“If customers want to opt in to lending out their funds, they can do that,” he said. “You don’t need a bank license to do that. What requires a bank license is lending out people’s money without their permission.”
Armstrong also pushed back on claims that stablecoins threaten community banks, calling the argument a “red herring” advanced by large financial institutions. He said there is no evidence that community banks are losing deposits to stablecoins, adding that consolidation driven by big banks has posed a far greater threat since the Dodd-Frank era.
The Coinbase CEO also criticized Senate language that would subordinate the CFTC to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requiring crypto assets to pass through the SEC before potentially falling under CFTC jurisdiction.
“I can’t imagine why the Senate Ag Committee would make the CFTC a subsidiary of the SEC,” he said, pointing to the House-passed CLARITY Act, which clearly delineates oversight between digital commodities and securities.
Looking ahead, Armstrong said he remains optimistic that lawmakers can revise the Senate bill to align with President Trump’s crypto agenda. However, he issued a clear warning: “It’s better to have no bill than a bad bill.”
“If it prohibits entire categories of new products like tokenized equities, I’d rather have no bill,” Armstrong said. “We’re not going to cement something into law if it harms ordinary Americans and bans competition.”
In a report a week before its Davos conference, the World Economic Foundation said 64% world business leaders are most worried about cyber fraud, replacing ransomware at their top concern. AI vulnerabilities also ranked high, as did threats fueled by geopolitics. The group argued that a coordinated approach to cybersecurity is needed.
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