alex manley

CNN: Overall, we found Character.ai – a platform which allows people to create and roleplay with customizable characters – assisted users’ requests on target locations and how to obtain weaponry 83.3% of the time. CNN also found multiple school shooter-styled characters on Character.AI, including one based on Uvalde school shooting perpetrator Salvador Ramos that used a real-life mirror selfie he had taken.

FUTURISM: One popular Character.AI creator we identified hosted over 20 public-facing chatbots on their profile, almost entirely modeled after young murderers, primarily serial killers and school shooters who were in their teens or twenties at the time of their killings. In their bio, the user — who has personally logged 244,500 chats with Character.AI chatbots, according to a figure listed on their profile — insists that their bots, several of which have raked in tens of thousands of user interactions, were created “for educational and historical purposes.” The chatbots created by the user include Vladislav Roslyakov, the perpetrator of the 2018 Kerch Polytechnic College massacre that killed 20 in Crimea, Ukraine; Alyssa Bustamante, who murdered her nine-year-old neighbor as a 15-year-old in Missouri in 2009; and Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed six and wounded many others in Southern California in a terroristic plot to “punish” women. (Rodger has since become a grim “hero” of incel culture; one chatbot created by the same user described him as “the perfect gentleman” — a direct callback to the murderer’s women-loathing manifesto.) Perhaps most striking, though, are the multiple characters created by the same user to emulate Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer who murdered 20 children and six teachers at an elementary school in Connecticut in December of 2012. These Lanza bots are disturbingly popular; the most trafficked version boasted over 27,000 chats with users.

FUTURISM: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who together massacred 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Accounts dedicated to the duo often include the pair’s known online usernames, “VoDKa” and “REB,” or simply use their full names. Klebold and Harris-styled characters are routinely presented as friendly characters, or as helpful resources for people struggling with mental health issues or psychiatric illness. “Eric specializes in providing empathetic support for mental health struggles,” reads one Harris-inspired bot, “including anger management, schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety.” “Dylan K is a caring and gentle AI Character who loves playing first-person shooter games and cuddling up on his chair,” offers another, positioning Klebold as the user’s romantic partner. “He is always ready to support and comfort you, making him the perfect companion for those seeking a comforting and nurturing presence.”

2026 and according to new reporting from CNN, CharacterAI has yet to fix its school shooter bots problem, which Futurism identified back in December 2024:

www.cnn.com/2026/03/11/a...

futurism.com/character-ai...

"Facebook meme, e-greeting card, etsy pillow level popular" is a delightful and accurate description of that and lots of other online ephemera loll

i don't remember who it was but i did think about it recently. i felt like it was one of those things that kind of ended up permeating through the culture for a bit? if indeed it was started by a standup

In 1983, Ruth Schwartz Cowan published a book called More Work for Mother where she argued that modern household tech (washing machines/vacuums) didn't reduce women's housework time, it just raised standards of domesticity. Household work is never shortened by tech & you can extrapolate that out.

It's just one story, one illustration of all the terrible things that have happened. It's been a week since the very great noise/drone artist Siavash Amini posted this, from where he lives Tehran. There has been no update since. It could be for any number of reasons. We just don't know.

The oil is flowing into the sewers and the streets are on fire in Tehran

they're the boygenius line because there's a really short one, a normal-sized one and a really tall one. and also bc they rock

Because we're consistently in the red & can't pay people back in a timely manner we've had to completely stop sending new eSims. That's devastating for the people of Gaza living through a genocide committed on our dime. #ConnectingGaza

i’m at the looking for a job. i’m at the capitalism is collapsing. i’m at the combination looking for a job capitalism is collapsing.

Two white nationalists I exposed in a recent article showed up to try to intimidate me in person last night.

This is a press freedom issue.

Here’s what happened:

embarrassing typo. should’ve been “toronto will win a first-round series. the only question is when and how many.”

Liberals to cut CBC by $192-million in 2026-27 This year’s estimates include $1.38-billion in funding for the CBC, representing a marked decrease from the $1.58-billion allotted to the public broadcaster during the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Mark Carney campaigning in April 2025:

"When we compare ourselves to the U.K., France or Germany, we see that our public broadcaster is underfunded. That has to change. We expect that in the coming years, we will continue to increase that funding...”

Mark Carney now:

uh with the total siege on gaza... you know what to do

#ConnectingGaza

one of my all-time faves

bit.ly/eSimsRUs <3 #ConnectingGaza

Prediction Marketing The prediction market boom is liquidity extraction before a liquidity crisis.

Ahead of the State of the Union address, I wanted to share my thoughts on the credulous coverage of “prediction markets” and the grim economic structure that coverage has ignored. Prediction market platforms are a pit stop on a crisis…. ayeshaasiddiqi.substack.com/p/prediction...

A digital drawing of author Maia Kobabe, a white nonbinary person with short brown hair wearing a patterned blue shirt, who scowls while holding up a copy of eir book GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR. Maia is saying: H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban my books, and any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps and say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban all my books, & any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps & say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

Cardboard sign on a wooden pole: There is no way to police trans people out of public life without simultaneously creating an apparatus of violence- (the sign is ripped, cutting off the rest of the text)

Gravely disappointing.

periodically feeling animus/distrust towards CGI visuals that i know aren't AI just because my anti-AI sentiment is so strong it's boiling over into adjacent areas

i feel like i've heard about dad strength — combo of being in your 30s+ instead of younger and wirier but also just carrying your kid(s) all the time

call me a bleeding heart but i do not think the state should have the power to invalidate trans people’s identities and effectively imprison them. if you can’t legally drive in KANSAS how the hell are you meant to get anywhere

the "just asking questions" to "legitimate questions about fairness in sports" to "the state doesn't have to consider us as real people" pipeline working exactly as designed.

They want to disappear Trans people. We cannot let this happen.

Kansas is doing Nazi stuff to transgender people. This is not about minors having surgery. This is about adults having the most basic civil rights.

A wastewater virus signals chart for Toronto, ON showing a big Covid spike in Feb 2026

#Toronto: we are currently undergoing a big Covid surge.

Get vaxxed, mask, and clean the indoor air.

I get my masks from here: www.masksupplycanada.com

Stay safe out there, everyone! 😷

wwater.ca/g/Ontario/To...

The Public Lending Right (PLR) Program It pays to have your books in Canada’s libraries! Learn more about the Public Lending Right Program

Canadian authors, remember to register your books for the PLR program by May 1! For the first time, you are no longer required to mail things in—you can do it online.

you can really blow some minds with “actually there was an entire library and research institute for queer / trans history, science and medicine founded by a Jewish sexologist but the Nazis destroyed it in the hopes of exactly this outcome, ie future generations not believing trans people are real”

IF YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED IT'S NOT BECAUSE THERE ISNT ANY WORK JUST LOOK AROUND: A HOUSING SHORTAGE, CRIME, POLLUTION; WE NEED BETTER SCHOOLS AND PARKS. WHATEVER OUR NEEDS, THEY ALL REQUIRE WORK. AND AS LONG AS WE HAVE UNSATISFIED NEEDS, THERE'S WORK TO BE DONE. SO ASK YOURSELE, WHAT KIND OF WORLD HAS WORK BUT NO JOBS. IT'S A WORLD WHERE WORK IS NOT RELATED TO SATISFYING OUR NEEDS, WORLD WHERE WORK IS ONLY RELATED TO SATISFYING THE PROFIT NEEDS OF BUSINESS. THIS COUNTRY WAS NOT BUILT BY THE HUGE CORPORATIONS OR GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES. IT WAS BUILT BY PEOPLE WHO WORK. AND, IT IS WORKING PEOPLE WHO SHOULD CONTROL THE WORK TO BE DONE. YET, AS LONG AS EMPLOYMENT IS TIED TO SOMEBODY ELSE'S PROFITS, THE WORK WONT GET DONE.

the Black Panthers were right

counterpoint: i really like the minimalism. i think they’re sharp.