Barricades, as we know them today, are thought to date back to the European wars of religion. According to most historians, the first barricade went up in Paris in 1588; the word derives from the French barriques, or barrels, spontaneously put together. They have been assembled from the most diverse materials, from cobblestones, tyres, newspapers, dead horses and bags of ice (during Kyiv’s Euromaidan in 2013–14), to omnibuses and e‑scooters. Their tactical logic is close to that of guerrilla warfare: the authorities have to take the barricades in order to claim victory; all that those manning them have to do to prevail is to hold them.  The 19th century was the golden age for blocking narrow, labyrinthine streets. Paris had seen barricades go up nine times in the period before the Second Empire; during the July 1830 Revolution alone, 4,000 barricades had been erected (roughly one for every 200 Parisians). These barricades would not only stop, but also trap troops; people would then throw stones from windows or pour boiling water onto the streets. Georges‑Eugène Haussmann, Napoleon III’s prefect of Paris, famously created wide boulevards to make blocking by barricade more difficult and moving the military easier, and replaced cobblestones with macadam – a surface of crushed stone. As Flaubert observed in his Dictionary of Accepted Ideas: ‘Macadam: has cancelled revolutions. No more means to make barricades. Nevertheless rather inconvenient.’   Lead image: Barricades, as we know them today, are thought to have originated in early modern France. A colour engraving attributed to Achille‑Louis Martinet depicts the defence of a barricade during the 1830 July Revolution. Credit: Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris. Above: the socialist political thinker and activist Louis Auguste Blanqui – who was imprisoned by every regime that ruled France between 1815 and 1880 – drew instructions for how to build an effective barricade Under Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann widened Paris’s streets in his 1853–70 renovation of the city, making barricading more difficult Credit: Old Books Images / Alamy ‘On one hand, [the authorities] wanted to favour the circulation of ideas,’ reactionary intellectual Louis Veuillot observed apropos the ambiguous liberalism of the latter period of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. ‘On the other, to ensure the circulation of regiments.’ But ‘anti‑insurgency hardware’, as Justinien Tribillon has called it, also served to chase the working class out of the city centre: Haussmann’s projects amounted to a gigantic form of real-estate speculation, and the 1871 Paris Commune that followed constituted not just a short‑lived anarchist experiment featuring enormous barricades; it also signalled the return of the workers to the centre and, arguably, revenge for their dispossession.    By the mid‑19th century, observers questioned whether barricades still had practical meaning. Gottfried Semper’s barricade, constructed for the 1849 Dresden uprising, had proved unconquerable, but Friedrich Engels, one‑time ‘inspector of barricades’ in the Elberfeld insurrection of the same year, already suggested that the barricades’ primary meaning was now moral rather than military – a point to be echoed by Leon Trotsky in the subsequent century. Barricades symbolised bravery and the will to hold out among insurrectionists, and, not least, determination rather to destroy one’s possessions – and one’s neighbourhood – than put up with further oppression.   Not only self‑declared revolutionaries viewed things this way: the reformist Social Democrat leader Eduard Bernstein observed that ‘the barricade fight as a political weapon of the people has been completely eliminated due to changes in weapon technology and cities’ structures’. Bernstein was also picking up on the fact that, in the era of industrialisation, contention happened at least as much on the factory floor as on the streets. The strike, not the food riot or the defence of workers’ quartiers, became the paradigmatic form of conflict. Joshua Clover has pointed out in his 2016 book Riot. Strike. Riot: The New Era of Uprisings, that the price of labour, rather than the price of goods, caused people to confront the powerful. Blocking production grew more important than blocking the street. ‘The only weapons we have are our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn’ Today, it is again blocking – not just people streaming along the streets in large marches – that is prominently associated with protests. Disrupting circulation is not only an important gesture in the face of climate emergency; blocking transport is a powerful form of protest in an economic system focused on logistics and just‑in‑time distribution. Members of Insulate Britain and Germany’s Last Generation super‑glue themselves to streets to stop car traffic to draw attention to the climate emergency; they have also attached themselves to airport runways. They form a human barricade of sorts, immobilising traffic by making themselves immovable.   Today’s protesters have made themselves consciously vulnerable. They in fact follow the advice of US civil rights’ Bayard Rustin who explained: ‘The only weapons we have are our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn.’ Making oneself vulnerable might increase the chances of a majority of citizens seeing the importance of the cause which those engaged in civil disobedience are pursuing. Demonstrations – even large, unpredictable ones – are no longer sufficient. They draw too little attention and do not compel a reaction. Naomi Klein proposed the term ‘blockadia’ as ‘a roving transnational conflict zone’ in which people block extraction – be it open‑pit mines, fracking sites or tar sands pipelines – with their bodies. More often than not, these blockades are organised by local people opposing the fossil fuel industry, not environmental activists per se. Blockadia came to denote resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline as well as Canada’s First Nations‑led movement Idle No More. In cities, blocking can be accomplished with highly mobile structures. Like the barricade of the 19th century, they can be quickly assembled, yet are difficult to move; unlike old‑style barricades, they can also be quickly disassembled, removed and hidden (by those who have the engineering and architectural know‑how). Think of super tripods, intricate ‘protest beacons’ based on tensegrity principles, as well as inflatable cobblestones, pioneered by the artist‑activists of Tools for Action (and as analysed in Nick Newman’s recent volume Protest Architecture).   As recently as 1991, newly independent Latvia defended itself against Soviet tanks with the popular construction of barricades, in a series of confrontations that became known as the Barikādes Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Inversely, roadblocks can be used by police authorities to stop demonstrations and gatherings from taking place – protesters are seen removing such infrastructure in Dhaka during a general strike in 1999 Credit: REUTERS / Rafiqur Rahman / Bridgeman These inflatable objects are highly flexible, but can also be protective against police batons. They pose an awkward challenge to the authorities, who often end up looking ridiculous when dealing with them, and, as one of the inventors pointed out, they are guaranteed to create a media spectacle. This was also true of the 19th‑century barricade: people posed for pictures in front of them. As Wolfgang Scheppe, a curator of Architecture of the Barricade (currently on display at the Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice), explains, these images helped the police to find Communards and mete out punishments after the end of the anarchist experiment. Much simpler structures can also be highly effective. In 2019, protesters in Hong Kong filled streets with little archways made from just three ordinary bricks: two standing upright, one resting on top. When touched, the falling top one would buttress the other two, and effectively block traffic. In line with their imperative of ‘be water’, protesters would retreat when the police appeared, but the ‘mini‑Stonehenges’ would remain and slow down the authorities. Today, elaborate architectures of protest, such as Extinction Rebellion’s ‘tensegrity towers’, are used to blockade roads and distribution networks – in this instance, Rupert Murdoch’s News UK printworks in Broxbourne, for the media group’s failure to report the climate emergency accurately Credit: Extinction Rebellion In June 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Demonstrators barricaded downtown streets using various objects, including the pink public furniture designed by design firm Rios for Gloria Molina Grand Park. LAPD are seen advancing through tear gas Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Roads which radicals might want to target are not just ones in major metropoles and fancy post‑industrial downtowns. Rather, they might block the arteries leading to ‘fulfilment centres’ and harbours with container shipping. The model is not only Occupy Wall Street, which had initially called for the erection of ‘peaceful barricades’, but also the Occupy that led to the Oakland port shutdown in 2011. In short, such roadblocks disrupt what Phil Neel has called a ‘hinterland’ that is often invisible, yet crucial for contemporary capitalism. More recently, Extinction Rebellion targeted Amazon distribution centres in three European countries in November 2021; in the UK, they aimed to disrupt half of all deliveries on a Black Friday.   Will such blockades just anger consumers who, after all, are not present but are impatiently waiting for packages at home? One of the hopes associated with the traditional barricade was always that they might create spaces where protesters, police and previously indifferent citizens get talking; French theorists even expected them to become ‘a machine to produce the people’. That could be why military technology has evolved so that the authorities do not have to get close to the barricade: tear gas was first deployed against those on barricades before it was used in the First World War; so‑called riot control vehicles can ever more easily crush barricades. The challenge, then, for anyone who wishes to block is also how to get in other people’s faces – in order to have a chance to convince them of their cause.        2025-06-11 Kristina Rapacki Share

To this day, Jaws remains the best example of Steven Spielberg‘s genius as a filmmaker. He somehow took a middling pulp novel about a killer shark and turned it into a thrilling adventure about masculinity and economic desperation. And to the surprise of no one, the massive success of Jaws spawned a lot of knockoffs, a glut of movies about animals terrorizing communities. None of these reach the majesty of Jaws, of course. But here’s the thing—none of them had to be Jaws. Sure, it’s nice that Spielberg’s film has impeccably designed set pieces and compelling characters, but that’s not the main reason people go to animal attack movies. We really just want to watch people get attacked. And eaten. With such standards duly lowered, let’s take a look at the best animal attack movies that came out in the past half-century since Jaws first scared us out of the water. Of course this list doesn’t cover every movie inspired by Jaws ( for example Godzilla Minus One, which devotes its middle act to a wonderful Jaws riff), and some can argue that these movies were less inspired by Jaws than other nature revolts features, such as Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds. But every one of these flicks owes a debt to Jaws, either in inspiration or simply getting people interested in movies about animals eating people. Those warning aside, lets make like drunken revelers on Amity Island and dive right in! 20. Sharknado (2013) Sharknado almost doesn’t belong on this list because it’s less a movie and more of a meme, a precursor to Vines and TikTok trends. Yes, many fantastic movies have been made off of an incredibly high concept and a painfully low budget. Heck, that approach made Roger Corman’s career. But Sharknado‘s high concept—a tornado sweeps over the ocean and launches ravenous sharks into the mainland—comes with a self-satisfied smirk. Somehow, Sharknado managed to capture the imagination of the public, making it popular enough to launch five sequels. At the time, viewers defended it as a so bad it’s good-style movie like The Room. But today Sharknado‘s obvious attempts to be wacky are just bad, making the franchise one more embarrassing trend, ready to be forgotten. 19. Orca (1977) For a long time, Orca had a reputation for being the most obvious Jaws ripoff, and with good reason—Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would go on to support Flash Gordon, Manhunter, and truly launch David Lynch‘s career with Blue Velvet, wanted his own version of the Spielberg hit. On paper he had all the right ingredients, including a great cast with Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling, and another oceanic threat, this time a killer whale. Orca boasts some impressive underwater cinematography, something that even Jaws largely lacks. But that’s the one thing Orca does better than Jaws. Everything else—character-building, suspense and scare scenes, basic plotting and storytelling—is done in such a haphazard manner that Orca plays more like an early mockbuster from the Asylum production company (makers of Sharknado) than it does a product from a future Hollywood player. 18. Tentacles (1977) Another Italian cheapie riding off the success of Jaws, Tentacles at least manages to be fun in its ineptitude. A giant octopus feature, Tentacles is directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, a man whose greatest claim to fame is that he annoyed first-time director James Cameron so much on Piranha II: The Spawning that he activated the future legend’s infamous refusal to compromise with studios and producers. Tentacles somehow has a pretty impressive cast, including John Huston, Shelly Winters, and Henry Fonda all picking up paychecks. None of them really do any hard work in Tentacles, but there’s something fun about watching these greats shake the the octopus limbs that are supposed to be attacking them, as if they’re in an Ed Wood picture. 17. Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) Spielberg famously couldn’t get his mechanical shark to work, a happy accident that he overcame with incredibly tense scenes that merely suggested the monster’s presence. For his arachnids on the forgotten movie Kingdom of the Spiders, director John “Bud” Cardos has an even more formative tool to make up for the lack of effects magic: William Shatner. Shatner plays Rack Hansen, a veterinarian who discovers that the overuse of pesticides has killed off smaller insects and forced the tarantula population to seek larger prey, including humans. These types of ecological messages are common among creature features of the late ’70s, and they usually clang with hollow self-righteousness. But in Kingdom of the Spiders, Shatner delivers his lines with such blown out conviction that we enjoy his bluster, even if we don’t quite buy it. 16. The Meg (2018) The idea of Jason Statham fighting a giant prehistoric shark is an idea so awesome, it’s shocking that his character from Spy didn’t already pitch it. And The Meg certainly does deliver when Statham’s character does commit to battle with the creature in the movie’s climax. The problem is that moment of absurd heroism comes only after a lot of long sappy nonsense. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! It’s hard to figure out who is to blame for The Meg‘s failure. Director Jon Turteltaub hails from well-remembered Disney classics Cool Runnings and National Treasure. But too often he forgets how to pace an adventure film and gives into his most saccharine instincts here. One of the many Chinese/Hollywood co-produced blockbusters of the 2010s, The Meg also suffers from trying to innocuously please too wide an audience. Whatever the source, The Meg only fleetingly delivers on the promise of big time peril, wasting too much time on thin character beats. 15. Lake Placid (1999) I know already some people reading this are taking exception to Lake Placid‘s low ranking, complaining that this list isn’t showing enough respect to what they consider a zippy, irreverent take on a creature feature, one written by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley and co-starring Betty White. To those people, I can only say, “Please rewatch Lake Placid and then consider its ranking.” Lake Placid certainly has its fun moments, helped along by White as a kindly grandmother who keeps feeding a giant croc, Bill Pullman as a dumbfounded simple sheriff, and Oliver Platt as a rich adventurer. Their various one-liners are a pleasure to remember. But within the context of a movie stuffed with late ’90s irony, the constant snark gets tiresome, sapping out all the fun of a killer crocodile film. 14. Open Water (2003) Like Sharknado, Open Water had its fans for a few years but has fallen in most moviegoers’ esteem. Unlike Sharknado, Open Water is a real movie, just one that can’t sustain its premise for its entire runtime. Writer and director Chris Kentis draws inspiration from a real-life story about a husband and wife who were accidentally abandoned in the middle of the ocean by their scuba excursion group. The same thing happens to the movie’s Susan Watkins (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel Travis (Daniel Kintner), who respond to their predicament by airing out their relationship grievances, even as sharks start to surround them. Kentis commits to the reality of the couple’s bleak situation, which sets Open Water apart from the thrill-a-minute movies that mostly make up this list. But even with some shocking set pieces, Open Water feels too much like being stuck in car with a couple who hates each other and not enough like a shark attack thriller. 13. Eaten Alive (1976) Spielberg’s artful execution of Jaws led many of the filmmakers who followed to attempt some semblance of character development and prestige, even if done without enthusiasm (see: Orca). Not so with Tobe Hooper, who followed up the genre-defining The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Eaten Alive. Then again, Hooper draws just as much from Psycho as he does Jaws. Neville Brand plays Judd, the proprietor of a sleazy hotel on the bayou where slimy yokels do horrible things to one another. Amity Island, this is not. But when one of the visitors annoy Judd, he feeds them to the pet croc kept in the back. Eaten Alive is a nasty bit of work, but like most of Hooper’s oeuvre, it’s a lot of fun. 12. Prophecy (1979) Directed by John Frankenheimer of The Manchurian Candidate and Grand Prix fame, Prophecy is easily the best of the more high-minded animal attack movies that followed Jaws. This landlocked film, written by David Seltzer, stars Robert Foxworth as Dr. Robert Verne, a veterinarian hired by the EPA to investigate bear attacks against loggers on a mountain in Maine. Along with his wife Maggie (Talia Shire), Verne finds himself thrown into a conflict between the mining company and the local Indigenous population who resist them. Prophecy drips with an American hippy mentality that reads as pretty conservative today (“your body, your choice” one of Maggie’s friends tells her… to urge her against getting an abortion), making its depictions of Native people, including the leader played by Italian American actor Armand Assante, pretty embarrassing. But there is a mutant bear on the loose and Frankenheimer knows how to stage an exciting sequence, which makes Prophecy a worthwhile watch. 11. Piranha 3D (2010) Piranha 3D begins with a denim-wearing fisherman named Matt, played by Richard Dreyfuss no less, falling into the water and immediately getting devoured by the titular flesh-eaters. This weird nod to Matt Hooper and Jaws instead of Joe Dante’s Piranha, the movie Piranha 3D is supposed to be remaking, is just one of the many oddities at play yhere. Screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg have some of the wacky energy and social satire of the original film, but director Alexandre Aja, a veteran of the French Extreme movement, includes so much nastiness in Piranha 3D that we’re not sure if we want to laugh or throw up. Still, there’s no denying the power of Piranha 3D‘s set pieces, including a shocking sequence in which the titular beasties attack an MTV/Girls Gone Wild Spring Break party and chaos ensues. Furthermore, Piranha 3D benefits from a strong cast, which includes Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, and Ving Rhames. 10. Anaconda (1997) With its many scenes involving an animal attacking a ragtag group on a boat, Anaconda clearly owes a debt to Jaws. However, with its corny characters and shoddy late ’90s CGI, Anaconda feels today less like a Jaws knockoff and more like a forerunner to Sharknado and the boom of lazy Syfy and Redbox horror movies that followed. Whatever its influences and legacy, there’s no denying that Anaconda is, itself, a pretty fun movie. Giant snakes make for good movie monsters, and the special effects have become dated in a way that feels charming. Moreover, Anaconda boasts a enjoyably unlikely cast, including Eric Stoltz as a scientist, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube as members of a documentary crew, and Jon Voight as what might be the most unhinged character of his career, second only to his crossbow enthusiast from Megalopolis. 9. The Shallows (2016) The Shallows isn’t the highest-ranking shark attack movie on this list but it’s definitely the most frightening shark attack thriller since Jaws. That’s high praise, indeed, but The Shallows benefits from a lean and mean premise and clear direction by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has made some solid modern thrillers. The Shallows focuses almost entirely on med student Nancy Adams (Blake Lively), who gets caught far from shore after the tide comes in and is hunted by a shark. A lot of the pleasure of The Shallows comes from seeing how Collet-Serra and screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski avoid the problems that plague many of the movies on this list. Adams is an incredibly competent character, and we pull for her even after the mistake that leaves her stranded. Moreover, The Shallows perfectly balances thrill sequences with character moments, making for one of the more well-rounded creature features of the past decade. 8. Razorback (1984) Jaws, of course, has a fantastic opening scene, a thrilling sequence in which the shark kills a drunken skinny dipper. Of the movies on this list, only Razorback comes close to matching the original’s power, and it does so because director Russell Mulcahy, who would make Highlander next, goes for glossy absurdity. In the Razorback‘s first three minutes, a hulking wild boar smashes through the rural home of an elderly man in the Australian outback, carrying away his young grandson. Over the sounds of a synth score, the old man stumbles away from his now-burning house, screaming up into the sky. Sadly, the rest of Razorback cannot top that moment. Mulcahy directs the picture with lots of glossy style, while retaining the grit of the Australian New Wave movement. But budget restrictions keep the titular beast from really looking as cool as one would hope, and the movie’s loud, crazy tone can’t rely on Jaws-like power of suggestion. 7. Crawl (2019) Alexandre Aja’s second movie on this list earns its high rank precisely because it does away with the tonal inconsistencies that plagued Piranha 3D and leans into what the French filmmaker does so well: slicked down and mean horror. Set in the middle of a Florida hurricane, Crawl stars Kaya Scodelario as competitive swimmer Haley and always-welcome character actor Barry Pepper as her father Dave, who get trapped in a flooding basement that’s menaced by alligators. Yet as grimy as Crawl can get, Aja also executes the strong character work in the script by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen. Dave and Haley are real people, not just gator-bait, making their peril feel all the more real, and their triumphs all the sweeter. 6. Piranha (1978) Piranha is the only entry on this list to get a seal of approval from Stephen Spielberg himself, who not only praised the movie, even as Universal Pictures planned to sue the production, but also got director Joe Dante to later helm Gremlins. It’s not hard to see why Piranha charmed Spielberg, a man who loves wacky comedy. Dante’s Looney Tunes approach is on full display in some of the movie’s best set pieces. But Piranha is special because it also comes from legendary screenwriter John Sayles, who infuses the story with social satire and cynicism that somehow blends with Dante’s approach. The result is a film about piranha developed by the U.S. military to kill the Vietnamese getting unleashed into an American river and making their way to a children’s summer camp, a horrifying idea that Dante turns into good clean fun. 5. Slugs (1988) If we’re talking about well-made movies, then Slugs belongs way below any of the movies on this list, somewhere around the killer earthworm picture Squirm. But if we’re thinking about pure enjoyable spectacle, it’s hard to top Slugs, a movie about, yes, flesh-eating slugs. Yes, it’s very funny to think about people getting terrorized by creatures that are famous for moving very, very slowly. But Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón, perhaps best known for his equally bugnuts giallo Pieces (1982), pays as little attention to realism as he does to good taste. Slugs is filled with insane and ghastly sequences of killer slugs ending up in unlikely places, swarming the floor of someone’s bedroom or inside a fancy restaurant, and then devouring people, one methodical bite at a time. 4. Deep Blue Sea (1999) When it comes to goofy ’90s CGI action, it’s hard to top Deep Blue Sea, directed by Renny Harlin and featuring sharks with genetically enhanced brains. Deep Blue Sea doesn’t have a strong sense of pacing, it lacks any sort of believable character development, and the effects looked terrible even in 1999. But it’s also the only movie on this list that features LL Cool J as a cool chef who recites a violent version of the 23rd Psalm and almost gets cooked alive in an oven by a genius-level shark. It’s scenes like the oven sequence that makes Deep Blue Sea such a delight, despite its many, many flaws. The movie tries to do the most at every turn, whether that’s clearly reediting the movie in postproduction so that LL Cool J’s chef becomes a central character, stealing the spotlight form intended star Saffron Burrows, or a ridiculous Samuel L. Jackson monologue with a delightfully unexpected climax. 3. Alligator (1980) In many ways, Alligator feels like screenwriter John Sayles’ rejoinder to Piranha. If Joe Dante sanded down Piranha‘s sharp edges with his goofy humor, then Alligator is so filled with mean-spiritedness that no director could dilute it. Not that Lewis Teague, a solid action helmer who we’ll talk about again shortly, would do that. Alligator transports the old adage about gators in the sewers from New York to Chicago where the titular beast, the subject of experiments to increase its size, begins preying on the innocent. And on the not so innocent. Alligator shows no respect for the good or the bad, and the film is filled with scenes of people getting devoured, whether it’s a young boy who becomes a snack during a birthday party prank or an elderly mafioso who tries to abandon his family during the gator’s rampage. 2. Grizzly (1976) Grizzly stands as the greatest of the movies obviously ripping off Jaws precisely because it understands its limitations. It takes what it can from Spielberg’s masterpiece, including the general premise of an animal hunting in a tourist location, and ignores what it can’t pull off, namely three-dimensional characters. This clear-eyed understanding of everyone’s abilities makes Grizzly a lean, mean, and satisfying thriller. Directed by blaxploitation vet William Girdler and written by Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon, Grizzly stars ’70s low-budget king Christopher George as a park ranger investigating unusually vicious bear attacks on campers. That’s not the richest concept in the world, but Girdler and co. execute their ideas with such precision, and George plays his character with just the right amount of machismo, that Grizzly manages to deliver on everything you want from an animal attack. 1. Cujo (1983) To some modern readers, it might seem absurd to put Cujo on a list of Jaws knockoffs. After all, Stephen King is a franchise unto himself and he certainly doesn’t need another movie’s success to get a greenlight for any of his projects. But you have to remember that Cujo came out in 1983 and was just the third of his works to get adapted theatrically, which makes its Jaws connection more valid. After all, the main section of the film—in which mom (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) are trapped in their car and menaced by the titular St. Bernard—replicates the isolation on Quint’s fishing vessel, the Orca, better than any other film on this list. However, it’s not just director Lewis Teague’s ability to create tension that puts Cujo at the top. Writers Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier key into the complicated familial dynamics of King’s story, giving the characters surprising depth. It’s no wonder that Spielberg would cast Wallace as another overwhelmed mom for E.T. The Extraterrestrial the very next year, proving that he still has a soft spot for animal attack movies—even if none of them came close to matching the power of Jaws.

Business leaders are weighing in on the Elon Musk and Donald Trump breakup. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images 2025-06-06T05:49:58Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? The friendship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump publicly unravelled on Thursday. It all started when Musk criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." Here's what business leaders like Mark Cuban and Bill Ackman have to say about the breakup. Amid a dramatic falling out between Donald Trump and his "first buddy," Elon Musk, some of the business world's most influential voices are weighing in.The relationship between the president and his once-close ally imploded on Thursday as they clashed publicly over Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."Musk, who stepped down from his role at DOGE in May, took to X to criticize the bill, calling it the "Debt Slavery Bill" and the "Big Ugly Spending Bill."In response, Trump fired back at Musk during a White House event. He also defended the bill on Truth Social, while threatening to cancel Musk's government contracts.Musk saw his net worth fall by $34 billion on Thursday, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tesla shares were also down by more than 14%.Here's what several business leaders have to say about the row.Mark Cuban Mark Cuban appeared to support Elon Musk's suggestion to start a new political party. Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images Amid his feud with Trump, Musk proposed creating a new political party for "the middle" in a poll on X.Mark Cuban appeared to endorse the idea, quoting Musk's post and replying with three check marks. The former "Shark Tank" star previously said he's "not a fan of either party," but would run as a Republican if he wanted to join politics.Bill Ackman Bill Ackman called on Musk and Trump to reconcile. Brian Snyder/Reuters Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman voiced his support for both Trump and Musk on X, calling on the two to put aside their differences and "make peace for the benefit of our country."Ackman, who had endorsed Trump for his 2024 presidential bid, wrote: "We are much stronger together than apart." "You're not wrong," Musk responded.Paul Graham Paul Graham also took to X to share his thoughts on the feud. Joe Corrigan/Getty Images for AOL Paul Graham, cofounder of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, also weighed in on the public feud between the president and the Tesla CEO. "A lot of people seem to be treating this as if it were just a beef. But the underlying allegation is a very serious one. If it's true, Trump is surely going to have to resign," he wrote in a post on X.Graham did not specify what allegation he was referring to.Hours before Graham made his post, Musk went on X and accused Trump of withholding information about Jeffrey Epstein."Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" Musk wrote on X.Graham told Musk in February that he should work with the government "carefully" because it's not "just a company."A representative for Graham did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

There are some questionable sources underpinning Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s controversial “Make America Healthy Again” commission report. Signs point to AI tomfoolery, and the use of ChatGPT specifically, which calls into question the veracity of the White House report meant to address reasons for the decline in US life expectancy.An investigation by NOTUS found dozens of errors in the MAHA report, including broken links, wrong issue numbers, and missing or incorrect authors. Some studies were misstated to back up the report’s conclusions, or more damningly, didn’t exist at all. At least seven of the cited sources were entirely fictitious, according to NOTUS.Another investigation by The Washington Post found that at least 37 of the 522 citations appeared multiple times throughout the report. Notably, the URLs of several references included “oaicite,” a marker that OpenAI applies to responses provided by artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT, which strongly suggests its use to develop the reportGenerative AI tools have a tendency to spit out false or incorrect information, known as “hallucinations.” That would certainly explain the various errors throughout the report — chatbots have been found responsible for similar citation issues in legal filings submitted by AI experts and even the companies building the models. Nevertheless, RFK Jr has long advocated for the “AI Revolution,” and announced during a House Committee meeting in May that “we are already using these new technologies to manage health care data more efficiently and securely.”In a briefing on Thursday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to concerns about the accuracy of the citations while evading any mention of AI tools. Leavitt described the errors as “formatting issues” and defended the health report for being “backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government.” The Washington Post notes that the MAHA report file was updated on Thursday to remove some of the oaicite markers and replace some of the non-existent sources with alternative citations. In a statement given to the publication, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said “minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected, but the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”See More:

A hot potato: Although Nvidia has caught the most flak for continuing to sell mid-range $400+ graphics cards with just 8GB of VRAM, AMD has also persisted with this approach in the budget-performance segment. Although independent benchmark data reveals the ongoing quality and performance sacrifices associated with smaller VRAM pools, Team Red continues to defend its lower-tier products with statements that, while technically accurate, obscure the true value propositions of modern GPUs. AMD's Frank Azor recently defended the company's decision to sell an 8GB variant of the Radeon RX 9060 XT amid growing criticism of mid-range and mainstream graphics cards featuring limited VRAM. While Nvidia is more frequently guilty of this trend and AMD cards often offer more memory, the most affordable and popular products from both companies suffer from the same issue. Following a Computex unveiling of the RX 9060 XT, which offers 8GB and 16GB configurations, Azor responded to a question regarding the cheaper version by claiming 8GB of VRAM is sufficient for 1080p, the most popular PC gaming resolution. Our reviews of similar GPUs like Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti 8GB and 5060 reveal that, while this is true, low VRAM significantly handicaps cards compared to similar hardware with more memory. While virtually any title in 2025 is playable with 8GB of VRAM at the right graphics settings, the size of the VRAM pool can still significantly impact the user experience. Comparing the 8GB and 16GB versions of the RTX 5060 Ti reveals that while average frame rates are often similar, running out of memory can dramatically worsen one-percent lows, leading to noticeable stuttering. Some games perform worse overall on the 8GB model, and others – like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – crash at settings where the 16GB GPU runs smoothly. // Related Stories Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 highlights a different issue. Both cards deliver nearly identical frame rates at ultra settings with the 4K texture pack enabled, but the 8GB version struggles to render high-resolution textures. In another benchmark, the 8GB RTX 5060 Ti even falls behind Intel's Arc B580 – a 12GB card that costs over $100 less and targets a lower performance tier. These issues can arise even at 1080p, a resolution still used by 55% of surveyed Steam users. Azor also noted that the mainstream GPU market is aimed largely at esports players, who likely represent the largest segment of users. Steam's most popular games – esports titles like Counter-Strike 2, Marvel Rivals, Dota 2, and Apex Legends – can still achieve high frame rates on 8GB cards. Related reading: 4GB vs. 8GB: How Have VRAM Requirements Evolved? However, as GPUs become more expensive, many users are turning to budget hardware for playing demanding AAA titles, which benchmarks show they can handle surprisingly well. With sufficient VRAM and upscaling technology, mainstream GPUs are perfectly capable of 4K gaming. Nvidia's approach to reviews of 8GB GPUs also suggests manufacturers are aware of the shortcomings. The company withheld 8GB RTX 5060 Ti review units from independent outlets and restricted access to RTX 5060 drivers for reviewers unwilling to benchmark the card under favorable conditions. One such condition was enabling quadruple frame generation, a feature that distorts raw performance metrics and consumes additional VRAM. Meanwhile, ray tracing – a feature Nvidia frequently markets as a core benefit – is notably memory-intensive. AMD's first 8GB card, the Radeon RX 480, launched nearly nine years ago at $229. It's remarkable that manufacturers still sell GPUs with the same VRAM capacity for over $300. Outside of esports, these products are likely to age poorly, especially if next-generation consoles, which are expected to feature more than 20GB of memory, launch within these cards' life spans. How much VRAM do you have?

Verso is happy taking back seat in your Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 party. He provides damage buffs to your team and then helps your primary damage-dealer quickly rout the enemy. His playstyle is reminiscent of Capcom’s Devil May Cry series, since you must rack up damage and dodges across multiple turns to increase your rank (called Perfection in Expedition 33) from D to S — though if you get hit, Verso’s rank will drop. The higher his rank, the better he performs in battle. As a result, he’s a high-risk, high-reward party member. If you’re interested in the best for your mysterious well-maned swordsman, this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide will break down the best Verso build, including his best weapons, attributes, Pictos, and skills to quickly achieve S rank. Best Verso build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Verso is meant to play second fiddle to one of your stronger DPS characters in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Whether you prefer Sciel or Maelle, Verso perfectly accompanies them by buffing their high damage output. He’s at his best when paired with a strong DPS unit. Verso demands mastery of Expedition 33’s defensive mechanics, though. As you build him up to his peak strength, you must rely on well-timed parries and dodges to increase and maintain your Perfection rank. Once you unlock Verso’s best weapon, which allows you to start battles in S Rank, you must still be able to dodge and parry to maintain that rank. The best Verso build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is: Attributes: Agility and Luck Weapon: Chevalam Skills: Blitz, Phantom Stars, Follow Up, Paradigm Shift, Defiant Strike, and Ascending Assault Pictos: Augmented Counter I, Perilous Parry, and Confident Fighter Verso’s best attributes are Agility and Luck, similar to other DPS units. He’s best used when you can maximize how frequently he plays. From the moment you Verso joins your party in Act 2, you’ll want to prioritize Agility. In Act 2, his best weapon is the Gaulteram, for its potent level 4 passive ability, which prevents you from dropping down in Perfection rank when getting hit. This weapon is so good for those learning Verso’s playstyle, but in Act 3 gets overshadowed by Chevalam, which starts you out at max Perfection Rank. Below, we’ll explain in more detail why this is the best Verso build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Best attributes for Verso No matter where you are in the game, the main attribute you should prioritize for Verso is Agility. Agility grants him more turns in combat as well as provides extra damage, as both of his best weapons scale with it. Verso offers a ton of flexibility with leveling because, once you’ve maxed out his Agility, you’re more or less free to allocate his points however you see fit. We’d recommend Luck as the best choice, though, because of boost to your critical hit chance and that fact that it scales with the Chevalam, but you can also opt for more Vitality for survivability. Best weapon for Verso The best weapon for Verso is, without a doubt, the Chevalam. However, you won’t get the full benefit of the weapon unless you have a solid handle on parrying and dodging. Verso’s best weapon in Act 2, the Gaulteram, is a good substitute if you don’t have the timing down. You can find the Chevalam by defeating the Chromatic Gold Chevaliere boss. You can only access this boss by completing the sword puzzles in the Crimson Forest, making it missable. You can find the Gaulteram in the overworld too as the enemy that drops it is right next to the Stone Wave Cliffs entrance. (Technically, the Gaulteram is missable too, but if you fight everything you see, you’ve probably stumbled upon it.) The Chevalam offering S rank at the start of combat is invaluable, but the downside is that you can’t be healed or defended with shields. This is why you must be great at parrying — mess up your defense moves and you could die pretty quickly. The weapon’s highest-level passive ability also applies Rush on reaching S rank, allowing for a boost to Verso’s Agility as soon as battle starts. Managing Perfection rank is key here, and while the Gaulteram is suitable for practice once you’ve mastered Verso, it’s best to graduate to the Chevalam when you’re comfortable. Best Pictos and Luminas for Verso Verso thrives with Pictos that work in tandem with his best attributes, Agility and Luck. It is also preferred that his chosen Pictos offer strong Passives to help set up himself and the rest of his team. The best Pictos in his case are Augmented Counter I, Perilous Parry, and Confident Fighter. Below are the detailed descriptions of what these Pictos do and the stats they grant bonuses to. Augmented Counter I — Health and Crit Rate. 25% increased Counterattack damage. Perilous Parry — Speed and Crit Rate. +1 AP on Parry, but damage received is doubled. Confident Fighter — Health and Crit Rate. 30% increased damage, but can’t be Healed. These Pictos, along with Verso’s best weapon, the Chevalam, set up a playstyle that rewards masterful parries. This turns Verso into a glass cannon who that is meant to support your primary attacker, but with the right Luminas, you can get Verso dealing high damage himself. We’d recommend using the following Luminas, depending on how many Lumina Points you have. Augmented First Strike Auto Rush Breaking Counter Charging Tint Confident Critical Burn Dead Energy II Marking Shots Double Mark Powerful on Shell Empowering Parry Energising Jump Energising Start II Glass Canon Inverted Affinity Painted Power Solidifying Shell On Rush Energising Shots Best skills for Verso The best skills for Verso are the following: Blitz: Deals low single target Physical damage. 1 hit. Plays a second time. Kills non-boss enemies with less than 10% Health. B Rank: Increased damage. Phantom Stars: Deals extreme Light damage to all enemies. 5 hits. Can Break. S Rank: Costs 5 AP. Follow Up: Deals medium single target Light damage. 1 hit. Damage increased for each Free Aim shot this turn, up to 10 times. S Rank: Costs 2 AP. Paradigm Shift: Deals low Physical single target damage and gives 1-3 AP back. 3 hits. C Rank: +1 AP. Defiant Strike: Deals high single target Physical damage that applies Mark. 2 Hits. Costs 30% of current Health. B Rank: Increased damage. Ascending Assault: Deals low single target damage. 1 hit. Uses weapon’s element. Increased damage at each cast. S Rank: Costs 2 AP. Verso’s skills revolve around reaching S rank as quickly as possible. If you’re using the Chevalam, you can already max out Verso’s damage output. Phantom Stars is an excellent move against multiple enemies, but against bosses or a single strong enemy unit, Ascending Assault is the way to go. Defiant Strike is suitable for applying marks — which can then help the rest of your party deal extra damage — and Follow Up is a great skill, as it deals more damage if you spam your free aim shots before using it. This skill, partnered with Luminas like Marking Shots, can be used to additionally set up party members who come after, turning it into a valuable, damaging, and supportive tool. For more Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 build guides, check out our best builds for Lune, Maelle, Sciel, and Monoco.

Sad Eagle Scream Eagleopolis has fallen despite Helldivers 2 players slapping up 2.5 billion squids for an opening victory in the battle for Super Earth, leaving six Mega Cities to defend "To unleash the flames of Justice and triumph over Tyranny, we must battle through the inferno before us." Image credit: Arrowhead News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 23, 2025 Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, good news, Helldivers 2 managed to win the first major order of the battle for Super Earth by slaughtering over two billion Illuminate. The bad news? It's not stopped Eagleopolis from falling. As it turns out, not even the biggest number of Helldivers the game's had since last spring diving in to help try and hold off the invasion of fresh Illuminate baddies was enough to stop one of Super Earth's seven Mega Cities being reduced to ruins. It's ok, don't cry. Hug your SEAF buddy and watch a clip of someone surfing on a Leviathan if that'll help. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The previous major order, which was the Helldivers' initial defense of Super Earth after the Illuminate invasion of their home planet began with the arrival of the Heart of Democracy update, ended this morning. Things looked good, the goal of casually killing 2.5 billion Illuminate had been achieved. Let the good times roll right? Nope, said Arrowhead. "Eagleopolis, a venerable stronghold of Managed Democracy since time immemorial, lies in ruins," the studio informed us all via its latest MO briefing, "Its tattered shopping centers stand in warning as to the fate that awaits the rest of Super Earth, should our mission fail." So, that's one of the seven Mega Cities which make up Super Earth destroyed, but there's still a long way to go in the battle for Super Earth, and that win has seen folks make some progress towards wiping out the entire Illuminate fleet or forcing it to retreat. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Illuminate Fleet Strength currently stands at 49%," Arrowhead continued, "Six Mega Cities remain standing. The Helldivers must dig in, alongside their SEAF allies, and continue to fight, day and night, to defend the heart of our Federation. The surviving Mega Cities must be defended at all costs. The Helldivers must deploy to the Mega Cities as Illuminate pressure shifts among them to prevent them from falling. Once they fall, they cannot be reclaimed." Hence the latest order's goal - successfull extract from missions against the Illuminate 20 million times, in order to strike a further blow to the fleet's big invisible health bar. And, of course, to avenge Eagleopolis, which I'm sure people on the game's subreddit would be cut up about if they weren't too busy post fan art about loving their SEAF trooper buddies in a fashion that totally isn't getting a bit creepy. Are you shedding super tears for Eagleopolis? Let us know below!

Microsoft acknowledges "standard commercial relationship" with Israel Ministry of Defence, conducts internal review of AI services Company says there is "no evidence to date" that its AI services "have been used to target or harm people" in the ongoing Gaza conflict News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on May 23, 2025 Microsoft has conducted an internal review following concerns that its Azure and AI technologies were being used by the Israel Ministry of Defence (IMOD) "to target civilians or cause harm in the conflict in Gaza". Earlier this year, an investigation conducted by the Associated Press claimed Microsoft's commercial AI products were being used by the Israeli military. The AP reported that Microsoft's Azure technology was allegedly being used to "transcribe, translate, and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance" which could be "cross-checked with Israel's in-house AI-enabled targeting systems". Microsoft has since acknowledged that it provides the IMOD "with software, professional services, Azure cloud and AI services", as detailed in a statement published earlier this week. Following interviews with "dozens of employees and assessing documents", it came to the conclusion that there was "no evidence to date" that these technologies "have been used to target or harm people" in the ongoing Gaza conflict. Microsoft clarified that it "works with countries and customers around the world, including the IMOD" and that "as with many governments around the world, [it] also work[s] with the Israeli government to protect its natural cyberspace against external threats." The firm emphasised that it had a "standard commercial relationship" with the IMOD. Microsoft did note that it "occasionally provides special access to [its] technologies beyond the terms of [its] commercial agreements". This included providing "emergency support to the Israeli government in the weeks following October 7, 2023, to help rescue hostages". "We provided this help with significant oversight on a limited basis, including approval of some requests and denial of others," Microsoft said. "We believe the company followed its principals on a considered and careful basis, to help save the lives of hostages while also honouring the privacy and rights of civilians in Gaza." Microsoft stated that the IMOD was "bound by Microsoft's terms of services and conditions of use", including the prohibition of the use of its cloud and AI services "in any manner that inflicts harm on individuals or organisations or affects individuals in any way that is prohibited by law." The company noted that militaries "typically use their own proprietary software or applications" for "surveillance and operations", clarifying that it had "not created or provided such software or solutions to the IMOD". Microsoft said it was "important to acknowledge" that it does not have the ability to see "how customers use [its] software on their own servers and devices". Specifically, the firm said it did not "have visibility to the IMOD's government cloud operations, which are supported through contracts with cloud providers other than Microsoft." "Microsoft has long defended the cybersecurity of the State of Israel and the people who live there," the company's statement concluded. "We similarly have long been committed to other nations and people across the Middle East. "Our commitment to human rights guides how we engage in complex environments and how our technology is used. We share the profound concern over the loss of civilian life in both Israel and Gaza and have supported humanitarian assistance in both places." It continued: "The work we do everywhere in the world is informed and governed by our human rights commitments. Based on everything we currently know, we believe Microsoft has abided by these commitments in Israel and Gaza." As reported by our sister site Eurogamer, the No Azure for Apartheid petition has called for Microsoft to make the findings of its investigation public. The No Azure for Apartheid group is made up of current and former Microsoft employees. Last month, the Palestinian BDS movement called for a boycott of Microsoft and Xbox in response to the company providing the IMOD with its services.

A group of GeoGuessr map creators have pulled their contributions from the game to protest its participation in the Esports World Cup 2025, calling the tournament "a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record." The protestors say the blackout will hold until the game's publisher, GeoGuessr AB, cancels its planned Last Chance Wildcard tournament at the EWC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from July 21 to 27. GeoGuessr is a browser game where players try to pinpoint locations using only Google Street View images, and it relies on community mapmakers to stay relevant. The blackout, which began on May 21, includes "dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps," according to a statement the group shared on Reddit. The removed maps have been played tens of millions of times. One of the largest GeoGuessr communities, Plonk It, has also removed its Map Directory and shared the mapping community's open letter. That statement reads in full as follows: We, the creators of a considerable share of GeoGuessr’s most popular maps, have decided to make our maps unplayable in protest of GeoGuessr AB’s decision to host a World Championship wildcard tourney at the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh. The EWC is a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record. Groups targeted by the government include women, LGBTQ people, apostates and atheists, political dissenters, migrant workers in the Kafala system, religious minorities, and many others. The subjugation of these groups is extensive and pervasive. Members of these groups are routinely subjected to discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even public executions. These severe human rights violations are well-documented and indisputable. By participating in the EWC, GeoGuessr is contributing to that sportswashing agenda, which is designed to take attention away from Saudi Arabia's human rights violations. The GeoGuessr community is diverse and includes many members of groups that would be harshly persecuted were they to live in Saudi Arabia. In solidarity with those currently residing in Saudi Arabia while being subject to oppression, as well as members of the community who would feel and be unsafe attending the tournament in Riyadh, we have decided to black out our maps by replacing all their previous locations with random garbage locations, rendering them unplayable. This blackout includes dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps. It will continue until we see action from GeoGuessr; specifically, we demand that GeoGuessr cancels its wildcard event in Saudi Arabia and commits to not hosting any events there as long as it continues its oppressive regime. You don't play games with human rights. Thank you for reading. The GeoGuessr mapping community We've hit up GeoGuessr AB for a comment on the blackout and will update this story as we hear back. The EWC is a huge, multi-game event owned and operated by the Saudi government and held in the country's capital city. It's an evolution of the Gamers8 tournament and this year marks the second EWC-branded competition; it's due to take place in July and August with a total prize pool of $38 million, split among 24 games. Franchises participating in the 2025 event include Rocket League, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Overwatch, Dota 2, Valorant, Street Fighter 6, EA Sports FC and PUBG. It's difficult to compete in esports without running into Savvy Games Group, the video game arm of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Alongside hosting the EWC, Savvy has financial stakes in Nexon (10.2 percent ownership), Electronic Arts (9 percent), Embracer Group (8.3 percent), Nintendo (7.5 percent), Capcom (5 percent) and Take-Two Interactive (6.8 percent as of 2023). Savvy also runs ESL FACEIT Group, which contains the Electronic Sports League, a longstanding and significant esports event company. The New York Times reported last year that the Saudi government plans to invest $38 billion in the video game industry by 2030. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long documented the abuses of the Saudi government. HRW describes Saudi Arabia's human rights record as "abysmal," and specifically calls out the PIF as a reputational whitewashing tool. Saudi authorities have been accused of sportswashing in traditional sports as well, specifically through the country's ownership of LIV Golf and Newcastle United FC. In February, Riot Games — the operator of League of Legends, Valorant and Teamfight Tactics, and arguably the largest name in esports — signed a three-year deal with the Esports World Cup Foundation for an undisclosed sum. Riot defended the partnership, arguing that the resulting financial boon for players and the esports industry outweighed other concerns. "We know some of you may not feel great about our decision to partner with the EWC in this way, and we respect that," Riot's statement read. Though corporate support for the EWC remains strong, the GeoGuessr mapping community isn't alone in rejecting this year's tournament. Street Fighter 6 player Christopher Hancock, who plays as ChrisCCH for FlyQuest, recently declined his spot at EWC 2025. In a social media statement, Hancock said, "I gave this decision a lot of thought and ultimately decided that, due to the nature in which the event is funded and managed, I do not feel comfortable participating in it." He added that the partnership between the Capcom Pro Tour and the EWC effectively forced him to work with the Saudi-backed group. "Choosing to not participate in any EWC qualifiers would effectively mean retirement from competing," Hancock said. "I find it regrettable that this event has become so deeply embedded in the [fighting game community], but I have not yet made a decision on whether I will stop competing in events associated to it altogether." Alongside the GeoGuessr map blackout, the community protest added one new, short challenge to the game called How to Run A Dictatorship. It takes players through five locations around Riyadh, documenting the alleged government-sanctioned torture, kidnapping, imprisonment and oppression of women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities and political dissenters occurring in these places. The challenge takes just a few minutes, so feel free to experience it yourself.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/geoguessr-community-maps-go-dark-in-protest-of-ewc-ties-to-human-rights-abuses-221037118.html?src=rss

The company's net losses just doubled.Do No KlarnSwedish buy-now-pay-later company Klarna, whose CEO once bragged about its automated customer service AI bots doing the work of "700 full-time agents," is now in deep trouble.The fintech outfit is facing net losses of $99 million for the first quarter of this year, CNBC reports, which is more than double compared to the same period last year.The company had already paused its highly anticipated IPO in the US last month, which once valued it at over $15 billion.And it's all particularly noteworthy because of how CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski previously bragged that he hadn't hired anyone in a year, following a doubling down on AI tech.During an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month, however, Siemiatkowski struck a dramatically different tone, revealing that the gambit hadn't paid off. He admitted that "there will always be a human if you want" when it comes to customer service — a sign of the times, as investors are starting to ask some tough questions given widespread economic uncertainty.Cash FlowNonetheless, it wasn't a complete reversal. Siemiatkowski defended his embrace of AI last week, boasting that the tech allowed Klarna to shrink its workforce by 40 percent.During its Monday earnings call, an AI-generated avatar of Siemiatkowski took over for the executive, the Financial Times reports, showing that the company is far from giving up on the tech.But public support for the tech is unmistakably falling off. Translation company Duolingo has faced a torrent of pushback from social media users, particularly on TikTok, after its controversial CEO Luis von Ahn announced that AI will gradually replace all contractors.However, while it could be easy to see Klarna as the canary in the coal mine for the AI industry as a whole, its rapidly mounting losses involve other factors as well. As the FT points out, many of the company's American customers are failing to repay their buy-now-pay-later loans.Klarna's credit losses have risen 17 percent year-on-year to $136 million, reflecting widespread economic uncertainty and falling consumer confidence as president Donald Trump's trade war takes its toll.In response, Klarna has said that it's "closely monitoring changes in the macroeconomic environment" and "remains well-positioned to adapt swiftly if required."Share This Article