Changing an organisms genome is a profound act, and the tools you use to make the changes don’t alleviate the need for responsible regulation.
Since bursting onto the scene in 2012, CRISPR technology has been used to modify dozens of species from bacteria to livestock to plants, and even human embryos. Many countries have put ethical guardrails in place to prohibit creating designer babies. However, in agriculture, gene-edited crops are largely exempt from regulatory oversight, creating a “Wild West” where anything goes and edited crops are free to enter the food supply.
Unlike traditional genetically modified organisms (GMO)used since the 1990s to create Roundup Ready seeds and many other widely used productsediting doesnt involve inserting transgenic DNA from other organisms. Instead, it tweaks the genes that already exist. As such, proponents claim its a safer approach: no Frankenfoods, just selective breeding on steroids.
Following a massive industry lobbying campaign, such arguments have gained traction around the world. In Europe, regulators are forging ahead with a two-tier regulatory system for modified crops. While traditional GMOs remain heavily regulated, gene-edited crops are being given a free pass, with no oversight or labeling required. (Some heavily edited crops will still undergo a degree of scrutiny, though far less than GMO crops.)
GENE EDITING NEEDS OVERSIGHT
In the U.S., the USDAs SECURE Rule had, since 2020, similarly exempted most edited crops from regulatory oversightuntil it was ruled arbitrary and capricious and struck down last December by a California judge. For now, the USDA has reverted to its pre-2020 rulebookfull of red tape, but at least even-handed in the burdens imposed on agtech innovators.
The issue here isnt that theres anything wrong with gene editing. One of us (Randall) spent several years leading gene editing research at numerous companies, including Inari, Arcadia, and Monsanto (now Bayer), and we can tell you that CRISPR is an incredible tool. Its already being used to create amazing new productsfrom bananas that wont go brown to rice thats resistant to destructive viruses. Researchers are also developing vitamin-packed tomatoes, carbon-sequestering strains of rice, and high-yield wheat. They should be applauded: Well need all these innovations, and more, to grow healthy, tasty, and affordable food for billions of people in a warming world.
But while there isnt anything uniquely dangerous about gene editing, there isnt anything uniquely safe about it either. With both gene editing and transgenic methods, youre rewriting the genomeand what matters is the impact of the new genetic content, not where the underlying DNA letters came from. Whatever methods are used, genetic engineering can deliver enormous benefits, but brings real risksand requires proper oversight to ensure safety and maintain public confidence.
THE GMO BACKLASH
However, the current bifurcated approach that gives gene editing a pass creates a significant risk that regulators are sowing the seeds of a future backlash against genetic engineering. Paradoxically, GMO crops have one important benefit over gene-edited crops: Precisely because they contain transgenic genetic information, they can be easily detected using simple lab testing. Gene-edited crops, on the other hand, are typically indistinguishable from conventional crops, so if an edited crop were found to have harmful traits, it would be extremely difficultand unimaginably expensiveto verifiably remove it from the global food chain.
The approach also distorts the marketplace by creating incentives for gene editing at the expense of future innovations using proven GMO technologies that farmers and consumers already rely on.
Unfortunately, by downplaying the need for meaningful oversight of edited crops, we risk playing into the hands of the least scrupulous market participants. In China, gene editing techniques have already been misused to unlawfully edit the genomes of unborn babies, and Chinese firms are racing to create gene-edited medical treatments in ways that have raised eyebrows among Western regulators. Now, China is actively promoting gene editing for crops and livestock, too, in a bid to end its reliance on U.S. soybeans and other farm exports. Want to place a bet that no corners will be cut along the way?
Were no Luddites, with Randall spending his career using genetic techniques to improve crops. Genetic engineering, encompassing both transgenic methods and gene editing, is the defining technological breakthrough of our time (sorry, ChatGPT). But its also among the most misunderstood, and certainly the most maligned, of modern technologies. Crop innovators, burned once by the demonization of GMOs, are understandably eager to avoid tarring gene editing methods with the same brush.
A BACKDOOR APPROACH
But in the rush to wave through gene editing technologies, were falling into the same trap. The industrys arrogant dismissal of safety concerns turned an entire generation against GMOs. Now, instead of being forthright with consumers about the power and potential of gene editing, the industry is trying to sneak it in by the back door as simply an extension of selective breeding methods used since the dawn of agriculture.
The reality is more nuanced. Theres no need to panic about gene editing methods. But theres also no scientific basis for casting GMO crops as bad and edited crops as good. Both gene editing and genetic modification are incredibly powerful toolsand the novel plant traits they enable should be welcomed. But they should also be regulated, carefully and effectivelyand regulated as products, based on their own unique attributes, regardless of the processes used to create them.
Its time to move away from process-oriented regulations and focus instead on creating a level playing field for both transgenic and gene-edited crops. We need an honest conversation and clear-eyed regulations of both technologies to protect the safety of the food chainand ensure that vital new agtech breakthroughs continue to develop in safe, transparent, and sustainable ways.
Shely Aronov is CEO and cofounder of Innerplant. Randell Schultz, PhD, is vice president of research and development at Innerplant.
Dicks Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) announced it will close select Foot Locker stores and raised its full-year year outlook, in its third quarter earnings report on Tuesday.
While Dick’s has not disclosed how many locations it will shutter (Fast Company has reached out for confirmation), it is part of a larger restructuring effort, according to executive chairman Ed Stack who spoke with CNBC.
Dick’s acquired leading footwear and apparel retailer Foot Locker for $2.5 billion back in September, according to its latest earnings release. As of November 1, the company was operating 3,230 store locations across the combined Dick’s and Foot Locker businesses globally.
Shares in the Pittsburgh-based sports retailer were up about 1% at the time of this writing by late afternoon on Tuesday.
“[Dick’s] is taking strategic actions to address unproductive assets, including the optimization of inventory and the closure of underperforming stores,” Dick’s said in its earnings release. “The company believes these actions will lay the groundwork for the success of the Foot Locker Business starting in 2026.”
Once it optimizes inventory and shutters those underperforming stores, Dick’s said it expects Q4 2025 operating profit for Foot Locker to be just “slightly negative.”
Dick’s third quarter revenue came in at $4.17 billion beating expectations of $3.59 billion; and reported earnings per share (EPS) of $2.78 adjusted versus $2.71.
Dick’s is working to offset declining traffic, (Q3 foot traffic was down 2.6% year-over-year) by deepening digital engagement through its Game Changer app, (which had 7.4 million unique active users last quarter) expanding its House of Sport locations, and is betting on its recent Foot Locker acquisition to drive in-store growth, according to Placer.ai.
Spurred to action by tech industry lobbyists and insiders, Republicans in the Senate appear to be planning to add language to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would preempt states from passing laws regulating AI labs.
Two sources with knowledge tell Fast Company that a small group of GOP lawmakers, staffers, and tech lobbyists worked through the weekend crafting the new language.
Heading into Thanksgiving, much uncertainty hangs over the fate of the state-level moratorium – and a fair amount of secrecy about how the AI industry and its MAGA allies will try to tie the hands of states, and Congress, to regulate AI. Democrats and others may not be allowed to see the new language until the vote to pass or reject the NDAA, a so-called must-pass bill that funds the military.
Senate Democrats also have no visibility on the scope of the moratorium language that will go in the NDAA. Could it, for example, prevent states from passing any and all kinds of AI laws, including those that focus on consumer protection issues or AI-related unemployment?
What big tech is trying to do here is an even larger giveaway than Section 230, says Future of Life Institutes head of U.S. policy Michael Kleinman. (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 exempted tech platforms from liability for user-generated content.) You literally have big tech lobbyists meeting with a handful of senior Republicans trying over the course of a holiday weekend to craft legislation that will govern what state governments can do around AI for the futureits appalling.
Not long after Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, introduced the preemption measure last week, Massachusetts Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey quickly penned and sent a letter to their colleagues urging them to oppose adding the state moratorium — which they describe as a “poison pill — to the NDAA, which will need 60 GOP votes to end a Democratic filibuster and advance to a final vote. Attorneys General representing 36 states sent a letter to Congressional leadership opposing the state moratorium language.
Congress is not in session because of the Thanksgiving holiday. But Republicans plan to make another push to convince lawmakers to add the state preemption to the NDAA when they return December 1, sources say.
Last week, the White House proposed a route that bypasses Congress, circulating a draft executive order (EO) that proposes pulling back congressionally approved broadband funding from any state enacting new AI laws. The EO also proposed creating a new Department of Justice task force to challenge existing state AI laws. The White House had reportedly planned to release the EO last Friday, but chose to delay it.
Many of the people who would benefit from a state AI moratorium were present at a November 18 White House state dinner hosted by President Donald Trump for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. These include Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAIs Greg Brockman, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Apple CEO Tim Cook. David Sacks, Trumps AI and crypto czar and venture capitalist, was also among the attendees. Given the import of stifling AI regulation whenever and wherever possible, its very likely that the state AI law moratorium was discussed while these people were in Washington for the event, one Washington source said.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz tried last summer to tuck the preemption into the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (an appropriations measure) last summer, but senators voted 99-1 to remove it. The moratorium idea is unpopular with the public, survey data shows, and unpopular across the political spectrum in Washington DC.
Despite broad opposition, tech industry insiders such as Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Sacks have Trumps ear, and have helped keep the state preemption idea alive in the Capitol.
Big techs big opportunity
In a broad sense, the chance to keep government oversight away from what could be the most impactful technology in a generation may explain why tech moguls and opinion leaders threw their support behind Donald Trump before the 2024 election and have continued to praise and appease him.
While the Trump administration rewards his tech industry allies by killing government inquiries and regulation, big U.S. tech companies and financiers are now sinking trillions into building the infrastructure needed to support a massive expansion of generative AI.
The AI industry has been ramping up its lobbying spend over the past two years to stifle AI regulation at both the federal and state levels. Its also expanding into electoral politics.
This summer a group of AI companies and investors launched a super PAC worth $100 million called Leading the Future that will push pro-AI candidates and oppose pro-AI regulation candidates. Backers include a16z, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Perplexity AI, and angel investor Ron Conway.
On a legal level, some in the tech industry, including the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, argue that state laws should focus on the application, not the development, of AIsuch as to prevent or punish things like fraud or civil rights violationswhile federal law should govern the national AI market. AI companies also fear being burdened by a patchwork of state AI regulations instead of a single set of federal rules.
Tom Kemp, who directs the California Privacy Protection Agency, explains that in many tech policy issues theres a debate over the boundary between issues covered by federal law and issues covered by state law. But Congress hasnt come close to passing a broad AI safety and transparency law, and isnt likely to.
The fundamental issue they have is that there’s no federal backstop, Kemp says. So the moratorium basically says you just can’t do any laws having to do with AI.
Innovation versus states rights
Many state governors, including Florida Republican Ron DeSantis, and legislators, claim they have not just a right but a responsibility to enact AI laws to protect the public in the absence of a federal law. State lawmakers are very aware of the series of reports about AI chatbots exacerbating mental health problems in users, including younger ones. There’s a big concern that state legislators cannot protect kids from some of the harms of AI, Kemp says.
On Monday, a bipartisan group of 280 state lawmakers from across the country sent a letter to lawmakers in the House and Senate opposing the state AI law preemption, saying it would hamstring their efforts to address the impacts of artificial intelligence.
The tech lobby and its Republican allies frame the moratorium as critical to helping the U.S. maintain its lead in AI — technology that will be increasingly used in defense and national security. But even the top players in defense dont seem convinced. You need the four corners of the armed forces committees to be all approved, says Kemp, who met with lawmakers last week in Washington to discuss the issue. In other words, the majority and minority leaders of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have to agree to insert state AI preemption language into the NDAA.
Kemp believes that Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, and Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, the committees ranking member, are opposed, as is Senate Committee on Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed. Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the committee, has yet to announce his position.
Its possible that new language in the NDAA will go beyond a state-level pre-emption, and promote some form of broad, but weak, federal AI law that limits oversight by both federal and state regulators. On Monday the Leading the Future PAC launched a $10 million campaign to push Congress to craft a national AI policy that would override a patchwork of state laws, reports CNBC.
What we’re seeing, not just with preemption, but with these big tech super PACs is that big tech will go to any effort to undermine that overwhelming small-D democratic will, Kleinman says. All the polling that we have done and that others have done shows that consistently across the board strong majorities of both parties support AI regulation.
Tests of ByHeart infant formula tied to a botulism outbreak that has sickened dozens of babies showed that all of the company’s products may have been contaminated.
Laboratory tests of 36 samples of formula from three different lots showed that five samples contained the type of bacteria that can lead to the rare and potentially deadly illness, the company said Monday on its website.
Based on these results, we cannot rule out the risk that all ByHeart formula across all product lots may have been contaminated, the company wrote.
At least 31 babies in 15 states who consumed ByHeart formula have been sickened in the outbreak that began in August, according to federal and state health officials. In addition, other infants who drank ByHeart formula were treated for botulism in earlier months, as far back as November 2024, although they are not counted in the outbreak, officials said.
Clostridium botulinum type A, the type of bacteria detected, can be unevenly distributed in powdered formula. Not all babies who ingest it will become ill, though all infants under age 1 are at risk, medical experts said.
ByHeart recalled all of its formula nationwide on Nov. 11. However, some products have remained on store shelves despite the recall, according to state officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Parents and caregivers should stop feeding the formula to babies immediately and monitor the children for symptoms, which can take up to 30 days to appear.
Infant botulism occurs when babies ingest spores that germinate in their intestine and produce a toxin. Symptoms include constipation, difficulty sucking or feeding, drooping eyelids, flat facial expression, and weakness in the arms, legs, and head. The illness is a medical emergency and requires immediate treatment.
At least 107 babies nationwide have been treated for botulism with an IV medication known as BabyBIG since Aug. 1, health officials said. In a typical year, less than 200 infants are treated for the illness.
To report an illness tied to the outbreak, contact an FDA consumer complaint coordinator or fill out an online MedWatch form.
Consumers who bought ByHeart on the company’s website on or after Aug. 1 can receive a full refund, an expansion of its previous policy, the company said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Jonel Aleccia, AP health writer
If everything feels expensive this year, youre not alone. The high cost of living is on many Americans minds heading into the tail end of the year a period defined by ceaseless shopping, whether its for the Thanksgiving menu or a last minute gift for under the tree.
Americans need to buy stuff (perhaps not so much stuff), but theyre also feeling the pinch of persistent inflation, chaotic tariffs and a frozen job market in 2025. How those forces will play out this holiday shopping season remains to be seen.
According to a recent survey from consulting firm Deloitte, more people will be shopping this Black Friday through Cyber Monday, but they plan to spend less. Consumers said they plan to spend an average of $622 during the stretched out shopping holiday, down 4% from last year the first decline in five years. Unsurprisingly, shoppers who planned to cut their spending pointed to higher living costs and financial constraints in the decision.
Some generational differences emerged. Gen X shoppers and boomers reported plans to reduce their spending during the shopping holiday, but Gen Z and millennial shoppers said they would stay the course and keep their spending levels the same this year. With the explosion of online shopping, lining up at the mall before sunrise for doorbuster sales might seem like a relic of the past, but 72% of Gen Z shoppers actually said they plan to shop in person this year.
While most shoppers are showing restraint this season, the spending power of Gen Z is growingthey are responsible for about $20 of every $100 holiday dollar spent, compared to just $4 five years ago, Deloitte Retail Strategy Leader Brian McCarthy said. And we expect they are headed back to the stores on Black Friday to take part in the excitement of the day. People from both higher and lower-income households said they planned to cut back on spending this year, but those in the range between $100,000 and $200,000 actually reported plans to spend 5% more this year.
The National Retail Federation estimates that a record 186.9 million people plan to shop between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday (the Monday following Black Friday) this year. That projection is up by 3 million shoppers compared to 2024. During that period, Black Friday is expected to reign supreme among deal-seekers, drawing an estimated 130.4 million people to shop the day after Thanksgiving. Saturday and Sunday arent full-blown shopping holidays of their own, but Cyber Monday a relatively recent invention will likely continue to gain ground, luring around half as many shoppers as Black Friday itself.
Pushing back on Black Friday
To draw attention to the cost of living crisis, a coalition of organizations is calling for shoppers to sit out this Black Friday. A grassroots movement known as the Mass Blackout, is urging Americans to boycott online and in-store shopping, including digital purchases, for one week, starting on Tuesday, November 25. While the Mass Blackout website calls out the Trump administrations coziness with corporations, its not explicitly a Democratic effort.
Big business is funding authoritarian candidates while walking back public commitments to civil rights, labor protections, diversity, and democracy, the website states. This isn’t about left vs. right. This is about people vs. power. While the coalition wants Americans to spend less this holiday season, it still encourages participants to give their money to small businesses and local shops.
Another major boycott is looking to hit the biggest names in retail where it hurts this holiday season. The We Aint Buying It movement, tied to progressive groups like Indivisible and the No Kings protests, is similarly calling for a shopping blackout over Thanksgiving weekend, specifically targeting Amazon, Target and Home Depot over their deference to the Trump administration and their reversal of DEI policies. Well send a clear message: until they cease collaborating with this administrations harmful policies, our dollars will go elsewhere, the campaigns website states.
Sales at U.S. retailers and restaurants increased modestly in September as resilient consumers moderated their spending after splurging over the summer.
Sales rose 0.2% in September from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, in a report delayed more than a month because of the government shutdown. Sales jumped 0.6% in July and August and 1% in June. Numerous reports on inflation, employment, spending, and growth remain delayed and the government wont likely be caught up until late December.
The retail sales figures, which aren’t adjusted for inflation, suggest that Americans pulled back on spending in September as many households struggled with high prices for groceries, rent, and many imported goods hit by tariffs. The retail sales report covers about one-third of consumer spending, with the rest going to services such as travel, haircuts, and entertainment. Still, higher spending should lift the economys growth to a solid 3% annual rate in the July-September quarter, economists forecast, after a sluggish 1.6% expansion in the first half of the year.
Much of the spending, however, was driven by rising prices at gas stations and grocery stores. Still, sales rose 0.7% in September at restaurants and bars, a healthy gain in discretionary spending. Sales at clothing, electronics, and sporting goods stores fell.
Consumer spending could slow in the final three months of the year, economists warned. The government shutdown, weak hiring, and elevated inflation will likely cause more Americans to cut back.
The moribund labor market and ongoing drag on real incomes from tariff-induced price increases suggest that this slowdown is likely to be maintained, Oliver Allen, an economist at Panthenon Macroeconomics, a consulting firm, said.
Also on Tuesday, payroll processor ADP released its weekly measure of hiring, which found that companies cut an average of 13,500 jobs a week in the four weeks ending Nov. 8. The report is a sign hiring may have slowed since September, when the government said a solid 119,000 jobs were added.
The disparity found in economic data shows how the economy remains in an uncertain state despite the solid growth in the third quarter. Hiring has generally been weak and the unemployment rate has ticked higher, which could drag down consumer spending and the broader economy if it worsens. Unemployment rose to 4.4% in September, the highest in nearly four years, from 4.3%, according to the delayed monthly jobs report released last week.
Higher-income Americans are driving much of the gains, according to data from Bank of America and reports from retailers such as Walmart, as lower-income shoppers seek bargains and are more likely to spend more on necessities.
Still, some retailers issued positive reports Tuesday, including electronics chair Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Best Buy lifted its sales and profit forecasts for the year.
Tuesdays report comes before the crucial winter holiday season kicks off this weekend, when retailers earn as much as a fifth of their revenues. The National Retail Federation and other forecasters expect modest sales gains this year, compared with last years holiday, with the NRF projecting that sales will top $1 trillion for the first time.
Separate figures from the Labor Department suggest that inflation remains elevated but isn’t accelerating, which could make it more likely that a closely-divided Federal Reserve cuts rates next month.
Wholesale prices rose 0.3% in September from August, the Labor Department said Tuesday, and 2.7% compared with a year ago. The monthly gain in the producer price index was pushed higher by a sharp increase in gasoline costs. The yearly figure was unchanged from the previous month.
Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy prices, rose just 0.1% in September and 2.6% from a year earlier. Those figures are less than expected and suggest inflation pressures are cooling, economists said.
The retail sales figures land as many economic data are coming in mixed. Wage growth has slowed this year and is just modestly above inflation, a trend that is likely driving Americans concerns around affordability.
Wages, on average, rose 3.8% in September from a year ago, the government said last week. That is only modestly above Septembers annual inflation rate of 3%.
But for many Americans, particularly those earning lower incomes or for older workers, wages are rising more slowly and are clearly trailing inflation.
The Bank of America Institute estimates that for the poorest one-third of households, pay grew just 1% in October from a year earlier, while the highest one-third saw their wages rise 3.7%. The gap between higher- and lower-income households matches an August figure as the widest in nearly a decade, the bank said. Bank of America uses anonymous data from its customers to calculate the figures.
And a separate report from JPMorganChase Institute showed that incomes for a typical household have retreated to levels last seen in the early 2010s, after the harsh 2008-2009 recession.
Households are going into the end of the year with weak income growth and bank balances that remain flat, after adjusting for inflation, the report said.
Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
AP Retail Writer Anne DInnocenzio contributed to this report.
If you ask New Yorkers on the street what they think about the giant, controversial print ad campaign in the NYC subway system, their initial response might be, Which one? In the past two months alone, not one, but two ad campaigns fitting that description have appeared on the subway.
The first debuted in late September, when Friend, an AI company billed as a portable companion, ran a $1 million print campaign featuring a variety of servile messages like, Ill never leave dirty dishes in the sink. The campaign received massive criticismto the point that the MTA was forced to continuously remove Friends vandalized ads. In an interview with Fast Company, Friend CEO Avi Schiffmann said he expected that would happen, and, in fact, he designed the ads with white space to invite graffiti.
Now, another controversial print ad campaign has joined the fray. The new ads are paid for by Nucleus Genomics, a genetic health company specializing in genetic testing, IVF services, and embryo screening. The companys ads include phrases like, Height is 80% genetic, IQ is 50% genetic, Have your best baby, and These babies have great genes. In emails to Fast Company, Nucleus said that its new campaign was inspired by yet another contentious ad from this year: Sydney Sweeneys recent American Eagle partnership, which sparked backlash for what many people believed was a casual promotion of eugenics.
Shock value marketing is as old as advertising itself. But Friend and Nucleuss recent campaigns represent a novel kind of rage bait marketing that is primed for the current moment of political and technological divide. This new era of attention-seeking provocation, incubated on social media with companies like Cluely, has now made its way into the physical world where brands are looking to double down on turning backlash into opportunity.
We spoke to leading experts about the rise of rage bait marketing and where it goes from here. Hear from:
An NYU Stern School of Business professor on why the new crop of tech startups is perfectly primed for rage baiting.
The head of strategy at The Martin Agency on the advantage provocative marketing campaigns give young companiesand what it might cost them.
The cofounder of Joan Creative on what comes next after this initial wave of rage bait campaigns.
[Photo: Nucleus Genomics]
What is Nucleus Genomics trying to do, exactly?
Nucleus was launched in 2021 by the now-25-year-old Kian Sadeghi. According to Sadeghi, the company is dedicated to helping parents have healthier children through what he calls genetic optimization.
In practice, Nucleus provides a few different services. Its first offering was a proprietary DNA testing kit that uses cheek swabs to, per its website, uncover your genetic risk for 2000+ conditions. This summer, Nucleus partnered with a company called Genomic Prediction to begin offering an embryo screening service that allows patients to look at their embryos statistically predicted traitsincluding the potential likelihood of developing conditions like autism or Alzheimer’s, alongside eye color, height, hair color, and IQ. Later, in August, the company bundled that service with a new full-service IVF program called IVF+.
[Images: Nucleus Genomics]
Nucleus isnt the only company thats started offering more advanced embryo screening services in recent years. Several others, like Orchid and Genomic Prediction, have emerged within the last decade. All of these companies are facing intense debate from the scientific community over the legitimacy of their prediction models, the morality of screening for certain traits, and the long-term repercussions of a future in which embryo optimization becomes commonplace.
This discussion around the ethics of Nucleus core premise is actually what sets it up for a successful rage bait campaign, according to Joshua Lewis, an assistant professor of marketing at NYUs Stern School of Business. For companies like Friend and Nucleus, he says, some level of polarization is intrinsic to the product itself. AI companions, for example, will inevitably have detractors who find the premise objectionable, as well as champions who believe in it wholeheartedly; the same goes for embryo screening companies.
By employing rage bait tactics, Lewis says, these companies can start broader cultural dialogues and build affinity with their target audiences without losing too many potential customers.
To polarize intentionally can make some sense, because ultimately what you want in marketing is to have your target segments be loyal. Polarizing can be quite good, as long as your non-target segments are experiencing the rage, and your target segments are appreciating what the brand is doing, Lewis says. Regardless of Nucleus actual intentions, he adds, it doesn’t cost them much to upset people who weren’t going to be using their products anyway.
For companies in nascent fields, theres an added advantage to aiming for shock value in campaigns, says Elizabeth Paul, chief strategy officer at the advertising company The Martin Agency.
If you’re in the business of genetically engineered babies or AI companions, controversy is baked into the product, Paul says. It seems to me like Nucleus Genomics and Friend AI decided to lean into that reality and make their baklash bug a feature. If anyone’s wondering, Why would you do that? I think their tension-filled campaigns better amplified mass awareness for what are very nascent categories.
[Images: American Eagle]
Inside Nucleus latest campaign
In an email to Fast Company, Nucleus PR firm described the subway campaignwhich includes a full takeover of the Broadway Lafayette station, more than 1,000 subway car ads, and another 1,000 street adsas the first mainstream campaign to openly champion advanced embryo selection for specific traits. Several of the ads call out physical attributes and IQ, and most direct viewers to Nucleus landing page, pickyourbaby.com.
The Nucleus team says it was inspired by the controversial Good Jeans campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. In that campaign, a denim-clad Sweeney narrates, Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue. A male voice-over adds, Sydney Sweeney has great jeans. It almost immediately entered the sphere of marketing infamy for (likely inadvertently) promoting genetic ideals, given Sweeneys blue eyes, blond hair, and white skin.
When Sadeghi saw the reaction to the Sweeney ad, he noticed a lot of what he calls DNA dissonanceor what he considers a widespread misunderstanding of what DNA actually is, why genetics matter, and how far along genetic testing has come in the scientific community. He claims that Nucleuss products are just another tool parents are going to use to help give their child the best start in life, and that the ads can help parents better understand how to achieve that advantage.
While Sadeghi benignly frames the campaign as an educational tool, it doesnt exactly line up with the actual ads. Much of the copy feels designed to generate a reactiongood or badto what Sadeghi refers to as the “sci-fi narrative” surrounding embryo optimization.
The internet reacts
On Threads, one post of an ad reads, Every single day theres a new dystopian subway ad. On TikTok, a video with nearly 200,000 views critiquing the campaign is captioned, We need to have some very serious conversations about eugenics cuz we’re losing ground here. Another TikTok with more than 2.4 million views shows a camera panning around the Broadway Lafayette station with the overlaid text, Uhhh sorry but what in the eugenics is this? More than 8,000 other users have sounded off about the campaign in the comments.
On the surface, rage baiting might seem counterproductivewho wants people to hate their product? But for companies like Friend and Nucleus, the numbers may speak for themselves.
Nucleus says that since the campaign debuted, the company has seen an over 1,700% increase in sales, primarily driven by sign-ups to its IVF+ services. Across organic responses, its achieved almost five million impressions. Similarly, Friends earlier campaign sparked dozens of stories in the media and commentary across social media, causing Schiffman to deem it an overwhelming success.
The vast majority of marketers are not going to want to test the adage all press is good press by courting controversy, Paul says. Still, most can probably understand the desire to break through the noise in an environment where consumers are bombarded with content on a daily basis. On social media, one algorithmically-backed way to achieve those ends is by eliciting fear or anger.
The reality is, according to Kantar, 85% of ads right now fail to meet the minimum threshold of attention for comprehension, Paul says. In other words, they are so bland and boring and invisible, people did not pay enough attention to even process what they said. In an environment like that, brand invisibility is a bigger threat than brand rejection.
View on Threads
Companies are choosing to say the quiet part out loud
Risk and provocation in marketing is a tale as old as time. Paul points out that such tactics trace back as far as P.T. Barnums shock-value stunts for his circus events. But Jaime Robinson, cofounder of the agency Joan Creative, believes there is something entirely unique about Friend and Nucleus recent campaigns: the willingness to openly address, and even emphasizeintrinsically controversial elements of their products.
Robinson recalls a 1974 ad in which a brand called Beautymist featured football player Joe Namath pictured with his legs smoothed by a pair of nylons. Lewis remembers a 2018 ad featuring Colin Kaepernick after he refused to take a knee during the National Anthem. Each of these examples, they told me in separate interviews, were made with the knowledge that there would be some backlash from the public.
The difference with Friend AI and Nucleus, Robinson explains, is that pantyhose and sneakers are not inherently controversial, while AI companions and embryo screening areand instead of hiding the elements of these products that consumers are most wary of, both companies are bringing them to the fore.
[Nucleus] product is something where you can not just look out for potential diseases your embryos might have, but also pick out features like eye color and hair color. Theyve made a really provocative choice in their product and their use-case, Robinson says. Last year, she adds, a company like Nucleus might have shied away from talking about those features, and instead emphasized the health aspects of the marketing. Now, theyre putting it front-and-center.
It’s about saying things that go against some of the most deeply held convictions of most of us and the things that we find most uncomfortable in the world: being replaced by robots; having babies being picked by their physical features and IQ, Robinson says. These are the things that we find the most abhorrent, just as human beings.
[Screenshots: Twitter/X]
Robinson believes that part of this marketing strategy might be attributable to a political climate in which authority figures are constantly testing the boundaries of what is acceptable to say. Lewis noted that, in a sense, President Trump often uses similar rage bait techniques in order to communicate his own personal branding. Now, we might be seeing that political tenor bleed into the marketing sphere. Both Robinson and Paul predict that, in the wake of Friend and Nucleus campaigns, were likely to see an uptick in rage bait marketing in the months to come.
What’s interesting now is how companies are choosing to say the quiet part out loud, and doing it fearlessly, Robinson says. It’s almost as if they’ve thrown away the dog whistle and traded it for a foghorn.
U.S. consumers were much less confident in the economy in November in the aftermath of the government shutdown, weak hiring, and stubborn inflation.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped to 88.7 in November, from an upwardly revised October reading of 95.5, the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs that caused the stock market to plunge.
The figures suggest that Americans are increasingly wary of high costs and sluggish job gains, with perceptions of the labor market worsening, the survey found. Declining confidence could pose political problems for Trump and Republicans in Congress, as the dimmer views of the economy were seen among all political affiliations and were particularly sharp among independents, the Conference Board said.
Earlier Tuesday, a government report showed that retail sales slowed in September after healthy readings over the summer. While economists forecast healthy growth for the July-September quarter, many expect a much weaker showing in the final three months of the year, largely because of the shutdown.
Less-confident consumers may spend less, though the connection isn’t always clear. In recent years, consumer spending has held up even when the available data suggests they’ve grown more anxious.
We do not think that consumer spending is about to hit a cliff, as spending has decoupled from confidence, but risks to the downside are increasing, Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, an investment bank, said.
The proportion of consumers who said jobs are plentiful dropped to 27.6% in November, down from 28.6% in the previous month. It is down sharply from 37% in December.
At the same time, 17.9% said jobs are hard to get,” slightly below the 18.3% who said so in October. That figure is up from 15.2% in September. The figures on job availability are seen by economists as reliable predictors of hiring and the unemployment rate.
Americans continue to worry about elevated costs, fueling the affordability concerns that were a key issue in elections earlier this month.
Consumers write-in responses pertaining to factors affecting the economy continued to be led by references to prices and inflation, tariffs and trade, and politics, with increased mentions of the federal government shutdown,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board. The shutdown ended November 12.
The economy likely grew at a solid annual rate of about 3% in the July-September quarter, economists estimate. But growth is likely to slow in the final three months of the year, largely because of the shutdown, which cut off pay for federal workers, disrupted contracts, and interrupted air travel.
The Conference Board survey ran through November 18, about five days after the shutdown ended.
By Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
The Trump administration is hunting for ways to block the ability of states to regulate artificial intelligence. In response, dozens of state attorneys general have now sent a letter pressing Congressional leadership not to approve language that would preempt their governments freedom to propose their own legislation on the technology.
Broad preemption of state protections is particularly ill-advised because constantly evolving emerging technologies, like AI, require agile regulatory responses that can protect our citizens, they write in a Tuesday memo. This regulatory innovation is best left to the 50 states so we can all learn from what works and what does not. New applications for AI are regularly being found for healthcare, hiring, housing markets, customer service, law enforcement and public safety, transportation, banking, education, and social media.
The endeavor, which represents 36 states total, comes as Congress weighs language, packed in a new defense funding authorization bill, that would prevent states from enforcing their own rules about the technology. A previous measure, which failed, would have established a 10-year moratorium on states writing their own rules. A draft executive order leaked last week would, similarly, push the federal government to punish states for enacting or enforcing these rules.
If there were real cases to be brought up, they would have brought [them] already, Alex Bores, the lawmaker who authored New Yorks passed, but not-yet-signed AI legislation, the RAISE Act, told Fast Company last week. The only reason you need an executive order to tell people to look for cases is when you just want to harass states into submission.
Every state should be able to enact and enforce its own AI regulations to protect its residents, New York Attorney General Letitia James, the lead author of the letter, said in a statement. Certain AI chatbots have been shown to harm our childrens mental health and AI-generated deepfakes are making it easier for people to fall victim to scams. State governments are the best equipped to address the dangers associated with AI.
The letter comes after state lawmakers wrote to their federal peers not to strip states of their ability to regulate artificial intelligence. Thus far, the federal government has not passed major legislation on ensuring model transparency use, AI cybersecurity and safety, or energy use.
For state officials, the concern is that states will be banned from taking their own action on these fronts. Arati Prabhakar, a top tech adviser under the Biden administration, recently called this effort ludicrous, since Congress has yet to establish any regulatory regime for AI.
The attorneys general emphasized the importance of defending children from inappropriate relationships with chatbots, including discussions of self-harm, and defending against deepfake-enabled scams. A moratorium would put us behind by tying states hands and failing to keep up with the technology, they write, arguing that pre-emption prevents states from remaining agile in responding to an emerging technology.
In a packed room at a library in downtown Boston, Rep. Ayanna Pressley posed a blunt question: Why are Black women, who have some of the highest labor force participation rates in the country, now seeing their unemployment rise faster than most other groups?
The replies Monday from policymakers, academics, business owners, and community organizers laid out how economic headwinds facing Black women may indicate a troubling shift for the economy at large.
The unemployment rate for Black women increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August and September this year, the most recent month for available data because of the federal government shutdown.
That compares with a 3.2% to 3.4% increase for white women over the same period. And it extended a yearlong trend of the Black women’s unemployment rate increasing at a time of broad economic uncertainty.
Many roundtable attendees view those numbers as both an affront and a warning about the uneven pressures on Black women.
Everyone is missing out when were pushed out of the workforce, said Pressley, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts. That is something that I worry about now, that you have all these women with specific expertise and specializations that were being deprived of.
And when Black women do have work, she said they tend to be woefully underemployed.
Black women had the highest labor force participation rate of any female demographic in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet their unemployment rate remains higher than other demographics of women.
Historically, their unemployment rate has trended slightly above the national average, widening during periods of slowed economic growth or recession. Black Americans are overrepresented in industries like retail, health and social services, and government administration, according to a 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey.
Black women are at the center of the Venn diagram that is our society, said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a PhD candidate in public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
She pointed to April as the month when Black womens unemployment began to diverge more sharply from other groups. A policy agenda that ignores the causes, she said, could harm the broader economy.
Roundtable participants cited many long-standing structural inequities but attributed most of the latest divergence to recent federal actions. They blamed the Trump administration’s downsizing of the Minority Business Development Agency and the cancellation of some federal contracts with nonprofits and small businesses, saying those actions disproportionately impacted Black women. Others said tariff policies and mass federal layoffs also contributed to the strain.
The administration’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives was repeatedly mentioned by participants as a cause for a more hostile environment for Black women to find employment, customers, or government contracting.
There is no concrete data on how many Black federal workers were laid off, fired, or otherwise dismissed as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts through the federal government.
The attendees discussed a wide range of potential solutions to the unemployment rate for Black women, including using state budgets to bolster business development for Black women, expanding microloans to different communities, increasing government resources for contracting, requiring greater transparency on corporate hiring practices, and encouraging state and federal officials to enforce anti-discrimination policies.
I feel like I was just at church, said Ruthzee Louijeune, the Boston City Council president, as the meeting wrapped up. She encouraged attendees to keep up their efforts, and she defended DEI policies as essential to a healthy workforce and political system. Without broad-based efforts, the Democrat said, the countrys business and political leadership would be abnormal and weakened.
Any space that does not look like our country and like our cities is not normal, she said, and not the city or country we are trying to build.”
By Matt Brown, Associated Press
