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With how easy they can make our day-to-day lives, it is easy to get swept up by the impressive achievements of apps like <keyword id="19918826" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ChatGPT" source="keywords">ChatGPT</keyword>, Midjourney, and <keyword id="20055508" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="DALL-E" source="keywords">DALL-E</keyword>. These <keyword id="21195046" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI-applications" source="keywords">AI applications</keyword>, powered by <keyword id="19897804" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="large-language-models" source="keywords">large language models</keyword> (LLMs), can generate text, create images, and hold conversations that mimic human interactions. But according to a recent study by Apple Computer Company researchers, the intelligence displayed by these AI systems is far from genuine. <h2>The illusion of intelligence</h2>The Apple research team, led by a trio of AI experts, conducted a series of tests on various popular LLMs. They found that while these models appear intelligent on the surface, their responses are often unreliable when asked to perform tasks requiring true <keyword id="21233087" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="logical-reasoning" source="keywords">logical reasoning</keyword>. This discrepancy, they argue, reveals that LLMs don’t actually “understand” the questions they’re answering. Instead, they simply recognise familiar patterns and respond based on statistical probabilities, rather than meaningful comprehension. To illustrate this point, the researchers used a simple analogy: imagine a child asking their parent how many apples are in a bag. The child also mentions that some of the apples are too small to eat. Both the child and the parent understand that the size of the apples has no bearing on their quantity. However, when <keyword id="19924380" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI-models" source="keywords">AI models</keyword> are presented with similarly structured questions — questions with information that can be considered unnecessary (like the size of the apples) — they frequently become confused, offering nonsensical or incorrect answers. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114046455" title="Love ChatGPT and Alexa? This year’s Physics Nobel Prize has been awarded to two scientists who made these AI technologies possible" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>In their study, the researchers asked the AI models hundreds of questions, including some with non-pertinent details. They found that even minor changes in phrasing or context were enough to throw off the models. These AIs, despite their advanced programming, struggled to filter out irrelevant information, suggesting that they lack the capacity for genuine logical reasoning. <h2>How do modern AI apps work?</h2>Understanding why AI models like ChatGPT struggle with logic and nuance requires a closer look at how these systems function. At their core, LLMs are based on complex machine learning algorithms that analyse vast amounts of text data to learn language patterns. Once trained, these models use probabilities to generate responses based on what they’ve seen in their training data. However, they don’t “understand” language the way humans do. When an LLM receives a prompt, it breaks down the text into tokens and predicts the next word in a sequence based on statistical likelihood. This approach allows the AI to generate coherent, contextually relevant responses but doesn’t equip it to handle questions that require deeper, contextual reasoning. In essence, AI models are mimicking language without truly grasping the meaning behind it. To elaborate on the earlier example, if asked, “How many apples are in a bag if three are too small to eat?” a human would immediately recognise that the size of the apples has no impact on the total count. An AI, on the other hand, may get tripped up by the additional detail and offer a convoluted response because it cannot separate what’s important from what’s not. Apple’s researchers suggest that this limitation is a fundamental flaw in how AI models are designed. While the technology has advanced rapidly, the underlying mechanics remain rooted in <keyword id="20034261" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pattern-recognition" source="keywords">pattern recognition</keyword> rather than true comprehension. As a result, today’s AI applications are better suited for tasks that involve straightforward pattern matching, like language translation or text prediction, but struggle when asked to exhibit <keyword id="23580940" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="human-like-intelligence" source="keywords">human-like intelligence</keyword>. <h2>Overestimating AI capabilities can have risks</h2>Because these modern AI models can produce remarkably human-like text, many have a tendency to attribute greater intelligence and understanding to them than they actually possess. This misconception can lead to unintended consequences, such as relying on AI for critical decision-making in areas where accuracy and logical reasoning are paramount — such as in business decisions as more and more companies adopt AI. <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114284609" title="Even high school interns are able to use common AI tools to bypass security and launch bots on X, Facebook and other social media: report" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>The researchers also caution that the “illusion” of intelligence can make it difficult for users to recognise when an AI is providing incorrect information. In their tests, Apple’s team noted that LLMs frequently gave answers that sounded correct on the surface but fell apart upon closer inspection. These findings highlight the importance of scrutinising AI-generated content and using these tools as supplements to human expertise rather than replacements for it. As AI continues to evolve, researchers will need to explore new approaches that go beyond pattern recognition. Achieving genuine AI intelligence will likely require breakthroughs in fields like cognitive computing and neuromorphic engineering — fields that aim to create systems capable of human-like understanding and reasoning. For now, the takeaway from Apple’s research is clear: despite their impressive capabilities, today’s AI apps are tools, not thinkers. As Apple researchers pointed out, these models are designed to simulate understanding but lack the cognitive depth to handle complex reasoning. Recognising these limitations is crucial as we integrate AI into more aspects of our lives. The findings of this research have been published in a preprint server and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2410.05229">here</a>.

Apple engineers assert the AI apps of today are essentially still just fakes that lack 'true' intelligence

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Cards Against Humanity filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk's SpaceX for trespassing on its Texas land.</li><li>The company says Musk and SpaceX are getting rich from property they didn't get permission to use.</li></ul>The maker of one of the world's most offensive card games says <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> and his company, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-elon-musk">Space X</a>, have offended it.Cards Against Humanity, the company behind the humorous and often inappropriate card game with the same name, is suing Musk's SpaceX for trespassing on its land in Texas, according to a lawsuit filed in Cameron County.The company initially purchased "a pristine parcel of land" along the border to protect it from "Donald Trump's very stupid wall," Cards Against Humanity said in an announcement on Instagram on Friday. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment."Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire—Elon Musk—snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage," Cards Against Humanity said in its Instagram post, noting it is suing for $15 million and would split the winnings among the 150,000 original donors who facilitated the purchase.The company, which is referred to as CAH in the lawsuit, accused SpaceX of trespassing on its property, creating a nuisance, and unjust enrichment off of the property, which "SpaceX has never asked for permission to use," the lawsuit said.Cards Against Humanity added in the suit that SpaceX began constructing "large modern-looking buildings" on adjacent lots and accused Space X of ignoring the property line, depositing gravel on CAH's property, and storing construction vehicles on the property, too."Musk, by allowing his company to wrongfully operate on CAH's Property, casts the shadow of possible association between him and CAH. Nothing could be more offensive to CAH nor more harmful to its reputation with its supporters," the card game company said in the lawsuit.SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Cards Against Humanity obtained the land in a "stunt" to draw attention to billionaires who "ignore the rights and problems of regular people," according to the lawsuit. While then-President Donald Trump campaigned for a US-Mexico border wall in 2017, Cards Against Humanity purchased a plot of land near the border with the help of donations from its supporters.The goal was to create an obstacle for Trump's border wall effort and to highlight the "hubris on the part of a high-profile billionaire who was more interested in his own aggrandizement than in the good of the people," the card game company said in the lawsuit.A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How Cards Against Humanity is trolling Elon Musk and Donald Trump in a Texas lawsuit

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists found new clues about one of the last living Neanderthals.</li><li>By sequencing the DNA from one of the Neanderthal's teeth, they discovered a completely new lineage.</li></ul>Scientists are one step closer to solving the mystery of humanity's last great extinction: why the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neanderthals-virus-herpes-hpv-caught-from-humans-may-helped-extinction-2024-6">Neanderthals died off</a>.The Neanderthals are our <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/when-humans-neanderthals-had-sex-interbred-dna-2024-6">closest ancient human relatives</a>. But around 40,000 years ago, the last of them mysteriously disappeared.Now, a recent study that analyzed the DNA from one of the last of these ancient humans is giving scientists clues about <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neanderthals-extinct-humans-naked-neanderthal-book-2024-2">why they vanished</a> while modern humans continued to thrive.<h2 id="0ac3e680-c75c-45de-8846-f00dd3b811c3">The mystery around one of the last Neanderthals</h2><div type="image" title="A man in a vest wearing gloves holds Neanderthal teeth" height="3712" width="5568" msid="113681188" hostid="261" sizebytes="210758"></div>Tens of thousands of years ago, a Neanderthal nicknamed Thorin lived in southeastern France, not long before his species went extinct.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40000-year-bone-hints-humans-neanderthals-shared-cave-culture-2023-8">His remains</a> were first discovered in 2015 and sparked a debate between archaeologists, who dated him to between 50,000 to 42,000 years old, and geneticists, who insisted his DNA showed he was closer to 100,000 years old.The discrepancy launched a seven-year investigation, culminating in a recent study in which geneticists looked at a handful of Neanderthals' DNA from around the world and compared them to Thorin's DNA, starting with the assumption that he was 50,000 years old instead of 100,000."At this time, the geneticists decided to calibrate their own tools and to change everything we knew about all Neanderthals," archaeologist Ludovic Slimak, lead author on the new study published in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cell.com/cell-genomics/fulltext/S2666-979X(24)00177-0">Cell Genomics</a>, told Business Insider. Namely, that they were all a part of a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/some-more-neanderthal-dna-others-scientists-why-2023-10">single homogenous population</a>.Because of how different his DNA was from Neanderthals closer to his age, the researchers realized that Thorin must have belonged to a completely new Neanderthal lineage. They estimated his ancestors' line had split around 103,000 years ago.This explained why Thorin's DNA seemed so much more ancient than his bones. His DNA resembles Neanderthals who lived over 100,000 years ago, but Thorin was 50,000 years younger, according to the recent study.What could have caused this genetic split? The researchers suspect that Thorin lived in an isolated community that had little to no contact with other groups from the time they diverged until Thorin's death.That means, people within the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-interbreeding-between-humans-and-neanderthals-affects-our-health-today-2023-6">community reproduced amongst themselves</a> for more than 50,000 years, spawning a unique lineage distinct from other Neanderthal groups, according to the researchers.As you can imagine, a community isolated for that long will inevitably lead to inbreeding, and the researchers did indeed find evidence of that in Thorin's DNA.The community's isolation also helps explain why Thorin was among the last of the Neanderthals. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/science-marry-your-cousin-safe-genetics-2018-7">Inbreeding leads to a lack of genetic diversity</a>, which can make populations more vulnerable to disease, harmful mutations, and environmental changes.While one isolated community can't speak for an entire species, it can point to a key behavior that sheds new light on why these human relatives died out."We have this incredible extinction, which is the last great extinction of humanity," Slimak said.<h2 id="ec65f9ab-25b6-4918-93fd-5d996ad2f4d7">Neanderthals kept to themselves, which could help explain their extinction</h2><div type="image" title="Two Neanderthal skeletons on display at The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History" height="1585" width="2003" msid="113681184" hostid="261" sizebytes="198430"></div>Thorin's community wasn't isolated because of geography. They were <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/mental-health/antisocial-personality-disorder">isolated because they chose to be</a>, Slimak said. "We're facing a border, a social border," he said.In fact, other Neanderthals lived just a couple weeks' walk from Thorin's in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121004480">Massif Central</a> around the same time.If Thorin's relatives did ignore their Neanderthal neighbors, that means <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-loneliness">the group's isolation</a> wasn't only genetic but was also cultural and social, Slimak said."It's something very important and very central to understanding what was this population and, at the end, why and how they disappeared and they died out," Slimak said.While isolation may have worked for Thorins' ancestors for millennia, eventually their luck ran out. "Their little social network just collapsed onto themselves and just died in a whisper," Slimak said.<h2 id="6978ad0c-08c3-4f1e-9816-babb68840ad5">Modern humans' large social networks may have helped them survive</h2><div type="image" title="A model showing a Neanderthal family near a fire." height="2232" width="3968" msid="113681187" hostid="261" sizebytes="511650"></div>How universal this isolationist behavior among Neanderthals was is unclear. If resources in the area were scarce, the Neanderthals may have started becoming more insular to protect their own group."Maybe this idea that one group kept to themselves maybe is not so crazy in that kind of competitive environment," said April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist with the University of Victoria who was not involved with the study.As Neanderthals' numbers dwindled, maintaining smaller and smaller groups would have put their future at risk whenever a family member died.Many experts <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=0dda9b208d7c44ccdb961bdb9c9a45661653c52f24e70106524b9f8725031266&amp;postID=66f340a28d7e7259bc9488b4&amp;postSlug=last-neanderthal-thorin-unique-dna-help-explain-species-extinction-2024-9&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41598-021-84410-7">believe</a> that Neanderthals' small group sizes led to their extinction, which would have made them vulnerable even without added stressors like increased competition from humans. Meanwhile, modern humans didn't seem to have had the same tendency to form insular communities. Instead, they traveled far and wide and formed large social networks, Slimak said."We see modern human populations that seem to have these wider social networks and are exchanging genes with potential mates on a wider geographical region," Nowell said.Modern human groups were expanding and becoming more genetically diverse. That made them better equipped to handle any sort of accident or natural disaster, Nowell said.On the other hand, with smaller Neanderthal populations, even losing a handful of breeding-age individuals impacts future generations, she said."I really do think that the genetic isolation is telling us something interesting about Neanderthals and their challenges and eventually their extinction," Nowell said.

Scientists discovered a unique line of Neanderthals and it's helping solve the mystery of humanity's last great extinction

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="20851936" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ukrainian-drones" source="keywords">Ukrainian drones</keyword> won't need operators in as little as six months, a Ukrainian commander said.</li><li>Artificial intelligence-enabled drones are being rapidly developed, tested, and deployed.</li></ul>In just a matter of months, Ukraine may no longer need pilots for its drone force, a special drone unit commander said recently. The expected shift towards autonomous and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-allies-look-to-ai-for-help-with-naval-operations-2023-12">artificial intelligence-enabled systems</a> would mark an important development in the continued <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-russia-locked-cat-and-mouse-game-drone-production-official-2024-6">drone arms race between Russia and Ukraine</a>. In as little as six months, Ukraine's drone force could shift to <keyword id="20233903" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI-systems" source="keywords">AI systems</keyword>, <keyword id="23328745" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Robert-Brovdi" source="keywords">Robert Brovdi</keyword>, the founder and commander of the "<keyword id="23328746" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Madyar-Birds" source="keywords">Madyar Birds</keyword>" special drone unit, said in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOzLRul3o3A">a conversation with The Economist</a> earlier this month. He said the unmanned aerial vehicles will be "pilotless completely without any operators." He talked about the ongoing development and testing of hundreds of AI systems, explaining that soldiers will only need to launch the aircraft. From there, the drone "will decide on its own where to go and how to hit the target." Brovdi added that the weapons will be able to tell friends from foes. It's unclear to which systems Brovdi is referring, although various Ukrainian and Western companies have been working on autonomous capabilities for drones. One Ukrainian company's AI drones have already been used on the battlefield to carry out <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/10/17/ukraines-ai-drones-seek-and-attack-russian-forces-without-human-oversight/">autonomous strikes</a> on Russian forces. But many of the drones on the battlefield, be they cheap first-person-view drones or higher-end systems, still use human operators. Brovdi said that the Ukrainian soldiers who have been at the forefront of employing unmanned systems in the war have garnered years of experience and will be able to help train NATO militaries in <keyword id="20675065" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="drone-warfare" source="keywords">drone warfare</keyword>. Brovdi said that "this will become an element of our practical gratitude for your assistance in our fight for our freedom and for our country and for our families," referencing the ongoing support for Ukraine from its Western partners. <div type="image" title="US Army drones at a military base in Poland." height="1414" width="2121" msid="113642773" hostid="261"></div>Brovdi's comments highlight the continued development of various drone capabilities amid the war in Ukraine. Drones have become a defining element of the war, as has the resulting arms race. Both sides in this conflict are using unmanned systems en masse and developing new countermeasures. As FPV drones emerged as a serious threat, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-electronic-warfare-shows-us-needs-for-future-wars-2024-5">extensive electronic warfare</a> was employed to counter them. Tethered drones connected to the operator by <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-unjammable-wired-drones-arent-end-all-game-changer-2024-8">fiber optic cables</a> were then used to defeat jamming. Autonomous, AI-driven drones would also be immune. Drones have drastically changed what the modern battlefield looks like and pushed Western armies such as the US to further prioritize the development of unmanned systems and options for eliminating them in combat. <div type="image" title="A missile explodes in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on October 8, 2023." height="4373" width="6550" msid="113642774" hostid="261"></div>Discussions about AI in drones and other weapons systems have been ongoing in recent years. Earlier this year, the Pentagon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stricter-ai-rules-fears-pentagon-building-killer-robots-in-basement-2024-1" target="_blank">updated its directive on autonomy in weapons systems</a>, a move the deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks, attributed to "the dramatic advances in technology happening all around us." Militaries like the US have been thinking bigger when it comes to AI, including <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-militarys-ai-fighter-jet-pilot-making-dramatic-advances-officer-2024-6">autonomous fighter jets</a>, warships, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-drone-boats-deadly-weapons-first-time-middle-east-2023-11">more</a>. But with the rise of AI comes a range of concerns about letting autonomous systems make kill decisions. Earlier this year, reports of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-using-ai-gaza-targets-terrifying-glimpse-at-future-war-2024-4">Israel using AI to locate and target Hamas operatives</a> raised a number of concerns about how to keep the human in the loop. The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-could-shape-future-of-war-starting-with-wargaming-experts-2024-2">AI race in militaries</a> has also led to international disputes about whether to impose regulations on how to develop and use AI weapons. Some major players, such as the US, Russia, and Israel have argued there's no need for new international regulations on such capabilities. Others, however, argue that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-warfare-is-catastrophic-and-robotic-former-general-says-2023-5">rules need to be put in place</a> sooner rather than later. Correction: September 26, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misspelled the surname of the US deputy secretary of defense. She's Kathleen Hicks, not Kathleen Kicks.

Ukrainian unit commander predicts drone warfare will be truly unmanned in a matter of months and won't need human pilots

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Steve Blank is the creator of the Lean Startup Method — the go-to blueprint for creating successful startups. </li><li>But has his advice for entrepreneurs changed now that AI is disrupting all aspects of business?</li></ul>Every year, roughly 4.7 million new businesses are created in the US, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.census.gov/econ/currentdata/?programCode=BFS&amp;startYear=2004&amp;endYear=2024&amp;categories[]=TOTAL&amp;dataType=BA_BA&amp;geoLevel=US&amp;adjusted=1&amp;notAdjusted=1&amp;errorData=0">according to data from the United States Census Bureau.</a> Within 10 years, more than 65% of them will fail, the USCB's data shows.Most seasoned entrepreneurs will tell you that failure is part of success. True visionaries pick themselves up and turn to their next innovation, ready to once again confront the question: What's the secret to a winning startup?Steve Blank is the man who has provided that answer for many founders. After more than two decades involved in eight technology startups, half of which reached IPO, Blank turned to academia and developed a method for leading early-stage companies to success — the lean startup method.The lean startup, as Blank explained in a 2013 <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://hbr.org/2013/05/why-the-lean-start-up-changes-everything">Harvard Business Review</a> cover story, favors experimentation, a customer-centric approach, and agility over traditional up front strategies.At the core of the method was the recognition that early-stage companies couldn't and shouldn't aim to operate like large businesses.It's become the go-to template for startups, is taught in business schools worldwide, informs <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.fedtech.io/resource/how-lean-start-up-methodology-can-benefit-va-innovators">federal commerce initiatives</a>, and has earned Blank unofficial status as the "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/ai-will-reinvent-every-piece-commerce-and-enterprise-next-year-says-father-modern-entrepreneurship-steve-blank">Father of Modern Entrepreneurship</a>."Now, in addition to his work as an adjunct professor at Stanford, Blank is involved in efforts to imbue US national security with the spirit of entrepreneurship he's renowned for.As the world enters what Blank calls the "beginning of massive change," Business Insider spoke to the legendary entrepreneur about what he'd do if he was trying to grow a business today.His biggest piece of advice? Have fun with AI."If you're not playing with all the tools and trying to build apps on top of them, you're already obsolete," Blank told BI. "In twenty years, it will be the companies with AI in their DNA that are thriving."Entrepreneurs should immerse themselves in this rapidly changing environment. If they don't they'll be left behind by the new wave, according to the Silicon Valley veteran."And if your experiments are not making you giggle, you're not experimenting enough."<div type="image" title="Steve Blank sits on a stage with a mic, holding his hand outreached to the audience." height="2640" width="3960" msid="111927635" hostid="261" sizebytes="220554"></div>That applies to his own methodology as well."If I was still an entrepreneur, I would immediately be AI-enabling that whole lean startup model and building enterprise software," said Blank."The pieces of the lean startup are just so obvious to me to be automated and then strung together. That doesn't replace my process, it augments it.""Doing it manually will look silly in another five or 10 years, if not sooner," he added.Blank acknowledged there are risks and that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-disruption-ai-future-careers-blue-collar-desk-work-2023-11">some industries</a> will be "completely devastated" by AI. But he said the people claiming the technology will end the world are fooling themselves.That doesn't mean there aren't mistakes to be made. The most common issue for innovators right now is that they're putting too much trust in AI working consistently."It works until it doesn't. But then a lot of it won't tell you when it's not working," Blank told BI. An outlandish answer on a chatbot may be a small issue, but if you're designing an aircraft wing using AI-enabled computation, those calculations are mission-critical."That is the interesting thing about a neural net; you really don't know how it's coming up with its answer."Increasing references or ways to check how LLMs have come up with their outcomes will be crucial to solving this problem going forward, he added.From Blank's perspective, one side of entrepreneurship that is safe in the emerging AI world is the role of the visionary founder."I think the idea of a passionate set of founders who see over the horizon and see something that no one else does, that's going to be with us forever. All that's going to be different is the tools and the markets that they go after. Founders are closer to artists than any other profession.""They're resilient, and they're driven by a passion for creation that is never going to go away as long as human beings are around."

Startups that aren't using AI are already obsolete, says the man known as the 'father of modern entrepreneurship' 

There is a singular misery to trying your very best, after months of training, only to be crushed by a 6-year-old.Last December, I spent a cloudy day holed up at the Mechanics' Institute, a venerable chess club in San Francisco, to play in the 22nd annual McClain Memorial Tournament. It was my first in-person chess competition, and I was full of optimism.I faced a severe-looking child who wore a food-stained sweatshirt emblazoned with a cartoon penguin. He did not speak. He alternated between fidgeting uncontrollably and fixing me with a disconcerting death stare. He spent much of his time between moves crawling around beneath the table (an interesting psych-out technique, but not one I think I could pull off).Early in the game, I made an amateur mistake that left me down a knight. From there it was all over, even if I didn't immediately realize it. A checkmate soon followed.My first game had been against a middle-aged asset manager, and we'd discussed the strangeness of us adults competing against children. (He also beat me.) After an undignified lunch of Doritos and a chocolate protein shake, I managed to eke out a win against my third opponent. A tech worker in her mid-20s, she noted she was nursing a severe hangover, and she had a helpful habit of involuntarily gasping whenever she realized she'd made a mistake. At that point, I'd take whatever modicum of dignity I could salvage.For the first three decades of my life, I'd had fleeting phases of mild interest in chess, playing the occasional game online while procrastinating or over the board with a drink. But the game's foreboding density and association with supreme intellect dissuaded me from going any deeper. Over the past few years, however, a drumbeat of fanfare and tabloid headlines about the seemingly staid game became inescapable. Like so many other people, I got chess-pilled.Chess.com, the world's leading chess site, now regularly reports record numbers of players — it said that in February 2023 it hosted more than 1 billion games a month — sporadically crashing under the weight of demand. The pandemic's enforced isolation and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-netflix-is-changing-the-entertainment-industry-2021-8">Netflix's</a> smash hit "The Queen's Gambit" collectively introduced an entire generation to the game. Socialites are playing chess on "The Real Housewives of New York City." Twitch streamers and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-started-with-youtube-podcasts-build-an-audience-2024-5">YouTubers</a> have racked up millions of followers and ushered in a radical new culture — meme-drenched, rapid-fire, and drama-prone.Chess has never been more popular, but its ugly side has also never been more exposed. The same characteristics that have driven its popularity online — an easy-to-understand eight-by-eight grid, a strategy without chance or luck — have also made it a cheater's paradise. Meanwhile, rampant sexism festers at chess' heart.What the hell was happening to the game of kings? To find out, I decided I needed to get better at the game and face off against everyone I talked to.In 1990, when Judit Polgár, the greatest female chess player, was emerging as a child prodigy, the world champion Garry Kasparov dismissed her as "after all, a woman.""It all comes down to the imperfections of the feminine psyche," he said. "No woman can sustain a prolonged battle."Sexism persists in every level of the game. In 1990, according to the US Chess Federation, only 4% of chess players were women. Today it's 14%. There are innumerable tales of how women were belittled, mistreated, harassed, and abused — from snide remarks about "losing to a girl" at a chess club to sexist comments during online play. Juliana Gallin, a graphic designer in San Francisco, told me before a game on Chess.com (she wiped the floor with me) that she had deliberately omitted any references to her gender in her online profile. Even at professional tournaments, many women say commentators and audiences sometimes fixate on their appearances and clothes rather than the quality of their chess. FIDE, the <a target="_blank" href="https://ethics.fide.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/New-EDC-Procedural-Rules-as-approved-by-FIDE-Council.pdf">international chess body</a>, requires anyone wishing to make a misconduct complaint to first pay a fee of 75 euros. In 2023, the chess world had its own #MeToo moment. It started when the grandmaster Jennifer Shahade accused Alejandro Ramírez, a grandmaster and well-connected coach, of sexual assault. A slew of further allegations against Ramírez — and claims that the US Chess Federation had failed to act — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/alejandro-ramirez-jennifer-shahade-chess-allegations-622263b8">soon followed</a>. (Ramírez has denied the allegations.)Shahade and I played a quick game — she smothered me, picking off my pawns until my structure crumbled — and talked. Shahade told me that, in addition to the gender imbalance, part of the issue is that chess is "complex to attack because there's so many different cultures," adding that "every country might have its own policy for safe play." Beyond that, she said, "all ages play together — which mostly is a really awesome thing about the game that we love — but unfortunately for bad actors that could be an opportunity for grooming."And there's no easier place for bad actors to take root than in chess' most popular venue: online.More than anything else, the internet has transformed how chess is played and talked about. It has infused the 1,500-year-old game with modern video-game sensibilities and smack talk. Online chess can feel a world away from the carefully considered hourslong games of old; many modern players prefer "bullet chess," whose warp speed games take less than three minutes. Beyond Reddit hubs like the more pedantic r/Chess (1.1 million members) and the oddball, shitposting r/AnarchyChess (500,000), ground zero for chess' reimagining is video platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Dedicated chess influencers like Levy "GothamChess" Rozman (nearly 5 million YouTube subscribers) and the Botez sisters (1.5 million subscribers) offer guidance to amateurs like me, dissecting tournament games and diving into the nearly constant beef between chess celebs. Even grandmasters — historically cast as cerebral recluses — are getting in on the action. The five-time US champion Hikaru Nakamura (2.3 million subscribers) has become one of the most prolific streamers out there.<div type="image" title="Rey Enigma plays chess against Anna Cramling" height="683" width="1024" msid="109978342" hostid="261"></div>"You definitely can make in general a lot more from making content than what you can from playing competitive chess," said Anna Cramling, a fast-talking 21-year-old Swedish player with nearly 900,000 YouTube subscribers. After we chatted, we played a quick game; I timed out with no good moves open to me. All the time in the world wouldn't have made a difference.The seedier side of internet culture has also wormed its way into chess. "The biggest downside to what I do is I don't always feel safe," Cramling said. Some of her followers, she says, are often "trying to get to know things about me." Poor sportsmanship abounds: Some players rage quit when they make mistakes, try to "stall" their opponents, or abort games if they don't get to play as white. Chat rooms are full of normalized abuse, often sexual or racist. Sometimes dark behavior bleeds out beyond the screen: In late 2023, Nakamura said the police had <a target="_blank" href="https://kick.com/gmhikaru?clip=clip_01HGP490KWBC8473KX5F71RV06">turned up at his home</a> after someone tried to "swat" him.But is playing online as fulfilling as playing over the board? As I explored, I kept up a steady stream of middling games on <a target="_blank" href="http://Chess.com">Chess.com</a> — my Elo rating slowly rising — but wanted a more immersive experience. I decided to devote an entire day to playing bullet chess. In the version I played, a 1:1 time control, each player was allotted one minute total for the entire game plus one additional second per move. My first game went beautifully: excellent piece development, no big mistakes, and a neat checkmate. During game two, I started to feel a little frantic. By hour two, the games were blurring into one another — aching hands, no time for strategy, just vibes. When I took a break for a virtual doctor's appointment, I was seized with a compulsion to fill out the intake forms at blitzkrieg speed.I had a breakthrough when I switched up the time control. Now I was playing just a flat minute per player, no additional time. Suddenly I was winning clearly lost games because I was just a bit faster on the draw. All I had to do was hide my king in the corner and make my structure just convoluted enough, and I'd win by default as my opponents timed out. It was a lightning-fast game of pattern recognition and counterstrike reflexes, and totally unconducive to improving my actual chess skills.Eight hours later, I was 150 games down and completely exhausted. It was time to log off.Out in the world, chess' resurgence has been accompanied by a wave of new clubs and events.In April 2023, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/04/15/school-chess-class-clubs/">The Washington Post reported</a> that chess was causing an "epidemic of student distraction." In Berkeley, California, a controversial unlicensed street club has become a flash point for debates about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/10/06/students-community-defend-telegraph-chess-tables-berkeley-city-council">gentrification</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2023-10-04/article/50429?headline=The-City-of-Berkeley-Makes-a-Pawn-of-the-Chess-Club---Steve-Martinot">police brutality</a>. When I visited, I was bested by a guy who I suspected was extremely high and who got up to dance to Bill Withers between moves.A couple months into my chess journey, I was in New York City for the week. I made a pilgrimage to the Marshall Chess Club, a 109-year-old institution in Greenwich Village. Inside, rows of players sat in perfect silence as the bust of the club's founder, Frank Marshall, the American chess champion of 1909, frowned down at them. But my itch to play could not be scratched: The club was hosting a tournament that day, a nice man told me apologetically, for high-ranking players only. Even the youngest attendees would demolish me. "These aren't your normal kids," he said.The following evening, I went to an East Village bar and found a very different scene at Club Chess. Beneath impressionist murals of naked women, and among candles and pumping EDM, an eclectic crowd of hipsters, skaters, and the occasional dyed-in-the-wool chess nerd mingled. There were no chess clocks in sight, and downstairs there was a full-on dance floor. It was standing room only. Founded in 2023 by Alexander Luke Bahta — who spent the evening swanning around, tailed by a photographer and reporter for a lifestyle blog — Club Chess has been described by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/sep/13/new-york-gen-z-chess-clubs">The Guardian</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.curbed.com/article/club-chess-maneros-of-mulberry.html">New York magazine</a> as the epicenter of chess' ascendance in nightlife.I played a young Canadian mycologist in an evenly matched game that she ultimately resigned. Then came a wiry Romanian in athleisure — Elo rating 2200, extremely good — who inexorably ground me down, trapping one of my bishops and stomping through my pawn structure. Afterward I watched him play the burly security guard and checkmate him barely a dozen moves in. The bouncer "plays unconventionally," the Romanian said diplomatically."That guy's a monster," the bouncer told me later.With work looming the next day, I left the party, still going strong, at about 11 p.m., feeling rejuvenated. It had been chess at its purest and most freeing — no scores or internet trash talk to be found.If you've heard anything about chess in the past couple of years, it's probably been about anal beads.In 2022, the world champion Magnus Carlsen accused the grandmaster Hans Niemann, chess' enfant terrible, of cheating in a tournament. What followed was a breathless debate (not by Carlsen) over whether Niemann had managed this with a device hidden in a particularly intimate part of his body.<div type="image" title="Chess tournament" height="683" width="1024" msid="109978343" hostid="261"></div>The consensus among serious chess players is that the specific allegation is absurd, but paranoia about cheating pervades the game, from grandmasters playing in tournaments to amateurs whacking away at each other online. <a target="_blank" href="http://Chess.com">Chess.com</a> bans 90,000-odd <a target="_blank" href="https://www.chess.com/fair-play#fair-play-numbers">players every month for cheating</a>.I understand why. I've cheated at chess.Years ago I periodically played online against a college buddy. He beat me, a lot. So in one or two games, purely out of curiosity, I booted up a chess engine, plugged in the moves he made, responded with the computer-determined optimal moves, and won handily. I told him promptly what I'd done. But there was also a prurient little thrill to winning, no matter how undeserved. And I'm hardly the only one who feels this way. Chess is an extraordinarily easy game to cheat at. Computer programs have handily beaten human players ever since Deep Blue versus Kasparov in 1997. And there's no easy remedy. At the most basic level, there's the risk of people copying computer moves by rote, but that's relatively straightforward to detect. For more sophisticated players, cheating on a single move at the right moment is sometimes enough to give them the edge. Even just a signal — a cough, a gesture, a vibration — that their seemingly innocuous next move will actually be critical, even if they're not told what the right move is, can be enough to make a player slow down and find the pathway to the (ill-gotten) win.Hence a constant fear of cheaters and a string of minor scandals. The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has in recent years repeatedly cast aspersions on other high-profile players, including Nakamura. (<a target="_blank" href="http://Chess.com">Chess.com</a> subsequently said it investigated "dozens of players" whose play Kramnik had questioned and found no evidence "in the vast majority of cases.") The grandmaster Fabiano Caruana <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADK1o1sZ0s0">said in a recent interview</a> that he'd "bet a lot" that someone in the top 10 players had cheated at some point.The concern can taint players' enjoyment of the game."It just sucks because you're trying your hardest — but it kind of doesn't matter because you're just playing god, essentially," said Dan Timbrell, a 33-year-old working in machine learning in the Netherlands. "You are pulling your heart and soul into really trying to win a game, and then you just realize it is just punching a brick wall."Over four months, I played a shit ton of chess, and I learned a lot by being summarily beaten by nearly every person I talked to. But I also felt more and more burned out by the game. I found myself constantly fretting about my Elo rating. It distracted from what actually mattered: the chess.Chess is a notoriously brutal game for the ego. If you lose, it's simply because you weren't good enough. Chess is a skill that can be learned, like any other, but that doesn't stop people online from discussing ad nauseam whether there's a correlation between chess prowess and IQ. Add internet-tracked Elo ratings, and you've got a potent recipe for an inferiority complex.As a 27-year-old musician in New York City who got into chess after watching "The Queen's Gambit," told me: "You either make good moves or bad moves. So it's very easy to say, 'Oh my, I've made a terrible move — I'm so stupid.'"I could relate. When I was playing online, I began gravitating toward anonymous, logged-out games — a far more relaxed affair.Chess' problems aren't unique. But it is uniquely positioned to act as an accelerant for the internet's worst impulses: sexism, abuse, cheating, elitism, and toxic nerdery. It's a far cry from what Juliana Gallin described to me as "the stunning, breathtaking beauty and magic of chess." My most memorable chess experiences, the places where I encountered that magic, weren't online. They were playing in the crowded thrill of Club Chess in New York, or trading pieces with a buddy over a gin and tonic in a Lake Tahoe cabin, or battling it out in the cafeteria of a Russian bathhouse in San Francisco.As I was wrapping up this story, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26174PF9Gmw">YouTube recommended me a video by ChessPage1</a>, a janky instructional channel. At the high levels, the robotic-sounding voice said, players need an encyclopedic knowledge of openings and theory and a grand strategy to execute. But among us mortals, people screw up in minor ways several times a game."If you can be the guy who just doesn't blunder and also spots the opponent's blunders," the voice said, "you can easily become a very good chess player without having to pull off some complex mastery game plan … You don't have a game plan, your opponent doesn't have a game plan, everybody is confused. But confusion means high probability of blunders, and if you don't blunder, you will crush 99% of your opponents. Congratulations, you are now enlightened and smart." They added, "Remember, whenever you feel like you need a complex strategy, just don't blunder."It's good advice for chess, and for life. If in doubt, remember that basically no one else has it figured out either. Just try not to screw up too badly.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/rob-price">Rob Price</a> is a senior correspondent for Business Insider and writes features and investigations about the technology industry. His Signal number is +1 650-636-6268, and his email is <a target="_blank" href="mailto:rprice@businessinsider.com">rprice@businessinsider.com</a>.

Sexism, cheating, and nightclubs: inside the dark heart of modern chess

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Kenon Chen, a member of BI's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/workforce-innovation-board-tackles-topics-such-as-c-suite-innovation-ai-worker-wellness-2024-8">Workforce Innovation board</a>, is Clear Capital's strategy and growth EVP.</li><li>He views AI as a chance to improve workplace processes and give employees the tools to innovate.</li></ul>Business Insider's "Workforce Innovation" series is gathering perspectives from a wide variety of industry verticals and corporate roles to talk about the drivers of change in companies — particularly artificial intelligence, diversity, equity, and inclusion, worker well-being, and C-suite transformation.Kenon Chen, the executive vice president of strategy and growth at Clear Capital, is spending a lot of his time looking at the intersection of AI and worker well-being.His company provides technology solutions for valuing real estate. "Clear Capital is really about helping people make good decisions on properties based on accurate data," Chen said. He leads Clear Capital's strategy and go-to-market team and manages product partnerships, marketing, and sales.In an interview, Chen said that workers were understandably nervous about the potential for AI to take jobs.As a participant in BI's Workforce Innovation board, he's hoping to talk about how to surface the positive outcomes of AI."It could also be the thing that helps workers have a better work experience," he said. "Because they have the right tools they need to do their job really well and be efficient and then focus on the things that really need human expertise, the harder problems to solve."The following has been edited for length and clarity.Why is the topic of workforce innovation a priority now?It's important for a few different reasons. One, culture and people are extremely important to our business. We have a number of core values that put people at the center of what we do, and how we think about being successful is really all around this idea of finding ways to improve the lives of those around you — whether it's little things throughout the day that remove stress or large solutions for how we can take care of our customers.But in a post-COVID-19 remote environment, workforce innovation is so important because how do you maintain a strong sense of your core values and culture as you're embracing efficiencies and new tools to innovate?You work in the real-estate sector. What workplace issues are specific to your vertical and business?Absolutely. We work with valuation professionals: These are real-estate brokers, agents, and appraisers who have expertise in understanding what a home is worth, and the process of analyzing data to form a credible opinion of the value of a home in any location in the country.We use AI, as well, to create other ways of valuing properties, such as automated valuation models that use AI to predict the value. We have a number of automated tools that let you use computer vision and AI to scan the home and generate an accurate floor plan.There are certainly fears that go along with that. Is AI, while it might have some benefits to create more accuracy, consistency, and better data, going to replace professionals? And what's the interplay between what highly trained certified professionals with local-market understanding bring to the table [and] innovation going with AI and data?How we bring workforces together with modern tools in a way that doesn't just replace people but provides a better end product is a lot of what the industry's struggling with right now.What are some concrete examples of how you're integrating AI innovation into the workforce?We acquired a company called CubiCasa a few years ago that has an automated-floor-plan app that anyone can use on their phone — no special training or equipment — and walk through a home, scan the home, and it generates an automated floor plan and all of the data associated with that.We see that as an opportunity to enhance the process, not necessarily replace people but put better tools into people's hands.So I think there is a path where technology makes the process more consistent but also gives options to our clients who have different risk levels for what types of tools they need for a particular decision. It's just a question of knowing how to make those options available and also equip people with the right technology at the right time.What are the leadership challenges AI companies are facing now?I hear a lot of conversations that go to concerns around people's jobs being replaced or people's skill sets maybe not being as appreciated anymore if there's an AI equivalent available. One of the quotes I heard from the CTO of United Wholesale Mortgage is that it's not going to be AI that replaces people but people who use AI that will replace people, in terms of jobs.I don't think it has to be a binary conversation: Is AI going to replace people or not replace people? I think there's a very strong link between the idea of worker well-being and AI because whenever there's fear of a new technology that seems powerful enough to cause some disruption, that creates a certain amount of fear and uncertainty for workers.Yet it could also be the thing that helps workers have a better work experience because they have the right tools they need to do their job really well and be efficient and then focus on the things that really need human expertise, the harder problems to solve.In what other ways is AI driving change?One of the things I've been thinking about lately is the human element when we talk about AI, especially when we talk about generative AI. I think it's activated both sides of the brain for the first time. With machine learning and big data, it's activated the logic center of our brain — we're making predictions; we're replacing statistics with supersmart models.But with generative AI, we're talking about some of the creative aspects of things, using it to generate imagery and writing. With that, we now have this opportunity to talk about things like, "If I could create music with this, if I can create these other things, how do I deal with that?"So I think it's worth — instead of thinking about this just as tools and products and tech, we could start having a more holistic conversation about how this actually impacts both our personal lives and the way we go about doing creative things and our business life and the products we create. I think there's room for both at the table for conversation.

AI can enhance human expertise and worker well-being, Clear Capital's EVP of strategy and growth says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Microplastics were just found in testicles.</li><li>That's alarming because testes, like brains, have a special blood barrier.</li></ul>In 2024, microplastics are starting to look a lot like cigarettes did in the early 1960s: A poorly-understood health hazard in dire need of better study and regulation.The latest bad news on microplastics and human health emerged last week, when a study from <a target="_blank" href="https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/05/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics-testicular.html">researchers</a> at the University of New Mexico examined 47 canine and 23 human testes, taken from neutering operations and cadavers, respectively. All of those testicles had microplastics inside — there were 12 different kinds of microplastic inside the organs studied, including the common plastic making material that plastic silverware and plastic bottles are made from."It does strike me as kind of 'eww,'" Tracey Woodruff, who directs the program on reproductive health and the environment at the University of California San Francisco, and who was not involved in the study, told Business Insider.Woodruff isn't exactly surprised that microplastics are showing up in testicles. They've already been found in our bloodstream, and in other human organs such as the liver, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microplastics-risks-heart-attack-stroke-study-2024-3">heart</a>, and the lungs. In March, a New England Journal of Medicine study even suggested microplastics lodged into blood vessels in our necks might be playing a role in heart attack and stroke risk. And microplastics had already been found in <a target="_blank" href="https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfae021">testes</a> in one 2023 Chinese study. In fact, in a rapid, systematic <a target="_blank" href="https://prhe.ucsf.edu/press-release/microplastics-can-harm-human-health-and-existing-national-policy-responses-are">review</a> of 2,000 microplastic research papers that Woodruff did for California legislators last year, she and her team found that microplastics can harm the reproductive health of both men and women, while also upping cancer risk, and hurting lungs.But Dr. Ranjith Ramasamy, an expert in reproductive urology, says if it's true that microplastics are invading testicles, that's of extra concern."The only two organs in the human body that are protected spaces are the testes and the brain," he told BI. "I think we need to first study the question of how microplastics even got there in the first place."<h2 id="c6bff6db-f818-40a3-904d-d403fe756271">The testicles, like the brain, have a special blood barrier that stuff isn't supposed to get through</h2><div type="image" title="human brain" height="1478" width="2028" msid="110284248" hostid="261"></div>It makes sense that microplastics might flow into organs like the heart or the kidneys. Microplastics come from all kinds of things we consume and breathe in, including dust, food containers, makeup, and water bottles.Small particles consumed through your mouth flow to your gut, then enter your bloodstream, and invade all corners of the body, from the lungs to the liver. But getting into a woman's ovaries, which are "soaked in blood" and located inside the body should be easier than invading a man's testicle, Ramasamy said."I am shocked," he said.To get into the brain or the testicles requires surmounting an extra tough hurdle, that special blood barrier.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10141840/">Early</a> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/turkish-study-identifies-microplastics-in-brain-cells/3197206">studies</a> are starting to suggest that microplastics do have the capacity to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1041233">penetrate</a> the blood-brain barrier, though. And if the results of this new testicle study hold true in other labs, it would be a damning sign that the same is true for mens' testes.Still, Ramasamy cautions that we need to understand much more about what's really going on with all the microplastics in our bodies, and precisely how they are impacting our health, before we start pointing to plastic ingestion as the most important reason for fertility issues in modern-day society."Before we start alarming everybody saying, 'you're drinking too much from plastics and that's why your fertility is going down.' I think we just need to be a little bit cautious," he said. "Do microplastics play a role as an environmental toxin? I 100% agree. But does it play a role by entering inside the testes and blocking sperm production? That I don't know."<h2 id="3e061287-633e-4a06-b733-2de9795ba913">Scientists don't understand why microplastics are bad — but they are urging regulators to step in</h2><div type="image" title="Woman drinking water from a bottle." height="1413" width="2123" msid="110284249" hostid="261"></div>Scientists know that certain chemicals inside <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/endocrine-disruptors-dangerous-chemicals-2019-1">plastic disrupt our hormones</a>.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/diet-nutrition/what-is-bpa">Chemicals like BPA</a> are colloquially known as "hormone-disrupting" chemicals, and plastic makers are developing new ones all the time. In addition to the specific chemicals that are used to make a plastic, there may also be physical issues to worry about with plastic ingestion.In this study, men had three times the amount of microplastic in their testicles as dogs. Does that matter? We don't really know."I don't think the amount is as important as the types that are found and the potential damage that it can cause," Ramasamy said.Is having plastic floating around in your bloodstream problematic because of the chemicals we're being exposed to within it, which can include <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bpa-plastic-containers-bad-health-risks-obesity-heart-disease-diabetes-2019-2">known toxins like PFAS</a>, or does it cause issues because it's getting stuck in places it shouldn't be? The answer to these scientific questions is probably pretty complicated, experts say."What we're seeing now is that these microplastics are a vehicle for these chemicals, which we know are toxic, and they also themselves could be toxic," Woodruff said.This is why she is in favor of regulating plastics much like we do air pollutants."We have a real opportunity here to address microplastics and plastics right now," she said. "Plastic production is projected to triple by 2060, but we don't have to do that — we don't have to have more plastic."<h2 id="380defc4-c7ea-47d1-b063-a0c26e3b081a">One thing experts agree on: you should stop microwaving your plastic</h2><div type="image" title="microwave TV dinner in black plastic" height="1713" width="1750" msid="110284250" hostid="261"></div>Experts BI spoke with all agreed that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-avoid-pfas-in-water-and-food-2019-8">microwaving less plastic</a> is a good idea."Drinking from it is one thing, but heating them and eating from it or drinking from it, I think it's definitely wrong," Ramasamy said.The reason scientists get so bent out of shape about microwaving plastic is because when plastic gets heated up, it becomes much easier for the chemicals in the plastic to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reduce-hazardous-forever-chemicals-exposure-pfas-at-home-2022-9">leech out</a> and get absorbed by the body.Certainly, Ramasamy said, environmental pollutants — including microplastics — are one reason for declining fertility."I always ask the question, did our parents use the amount of plastics that we do today?" he said. "The answer is absolutely not."Interestingly, men over the age of 55 in the new study didn't have as much microplastic in their system as younger men did.Even "greener" looking takeout containers these days, like cardboard boxes, are often built with a special plastic coating inside so liquid doesn't seep out. So, try to put your food on a ceramic or glass plate or in a real bowl when you can.Woodruff says trying to drink from fewer plastic bottles, washing your hands before you eat, and leaving your shoes at the door are all good practices for minimizing exposure too.

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