• Generative AI chatbots are guilty of spreading dangerous disinformation, a new report found.
• NewsGuard audited 10 AI chatbots and found they spread Russian propaganda one-third of the time.
• AI's apparent propensity for disinformation is concerning ahead of the 2024 election. 

Your favorite AI chatbot likely isn't immune to the powers of Russian propaganda, a new report found.

The world's leading generative AI chatbots are fueling disinformation and citing Moscow-funded fake news sources as fact more than 30% of the time, according to a recent NewsGuard audit.

The report's findings come ahead of the 2024 election, as the risk of disinformation and its influences is increasingly exacerbated in both the US and abroad.

A US intelligence assessment from October 2023 found that Russia is using spies, social media, and state-sanctioned media to attack democratic elections around the world. The assessment specifically cited the success of Russia's propaganda operations ahead of the 2020 US election.

OpenAI's models have already been used by foreign influence campaigns, according to a recent OpenAI report.

The NewsGuard report, which was first reported by Axios, found that AI chatbots are spreading false narratives linked to American fugitive John Mark Dougan, who has been linked to a network of Russian propaganda websites that, at first glance, appear to be local news outlets.

Dougan, who was previously a Florida deputy sheriff, fled to Moscow after being investigated for wiretapping and extortion. Mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, have extensively covered Dougan and his disinformation empire — reporting that AI chatbots should be easily able to access online.

NewsGuard tested 10 AI chatbots, including OpenAI's ChatGPT-4; You.com's Smart Assistant, xAI's Grok, Inflection's Pi, Mistral's le Chat, Microsoft's Copilot, Meta AI, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity's answer engine.

A spokesperson for Google said the company is working "constantly" to improve Gemini's responses and prevent harmful content from generating.

"Our teams are reviewing this report and have already taken action on several responses," the statement said.

None of the other companies immediately responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.

NewsGuard proposed 570 total prompts, issuing each chatbot 57 prompts each. The prompts were based on 19 popular disinformation narratives, including lies about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to the report.

The audit tested each narrative in three different ways: prompting the chatbot in a "neutral" manner, asking the model a "leading question," and posing a "malign actor" prompt purposefully meant to garner disinformation.

Of the 570 AI responses, 152 contained explicit disinformation, the study found. Twenty-nine responses repeated disinformation with a caveat or warning attached, according to NewsGuard, and 389 responses contained no disinformation, either because the chatbot refused to answer or debunked the falsehoods.

The bots "convincingly repeated" fabricated narratives and false facts linked to Russian propaganda outlets nearly one-third of the time — a concerning statistic, especially as more and more people turn to AI models to get their information and answers.

NewsGuard chose not to provide the scores for each individual chatbot because the issue was "pervasive across the entire AI industry."

Business Insider's Adam Rogers has written about generative AI's propensity for lying, dubbing ChatGPT a "robot con artist." Technology researchers told BI earlier this year that malicious actors could tamper with generative AI datasets for as little as $60.

Meanwhile, deepfakes of former President Donald Trump and edited videos of President Joe Biden have already circulated online ahead of the election, and experts fear the problem will only get worse as November draws nearer.

Several new startups, however, are attempting to fight AI-based misinformation, creating deepfake detection and content moderation tools.

• Tourists have been flocking to US national parks in droves in recent years. 
• The growing interest comes as some Americans are moving away from cities to be close to nature. 
• But as more visitors crowd into national parks, some behave badly and disrespect the environment.

Getting out in nature has never been so hot.

In 2023, the National Park Service (NPS) recorded over 325.5 million recreational visits to the 63 parks in the United States, 13 million more than the previous year.  

The surge in national park tourism is partially a return to prepandemic levels of domestic travel — the number of visits in 2023 was about 2 million shy of 2019's. But the interest in the parks is also occurring as some people of varying ages and socioeconomic backgrounds are ditching cities for less densely populated areas, which have greater access to nature — and, often, lower taxes.

While getting closer to nature may be in vogue nowadays, not everyone who visits a national park will follow the rules, some of which are in place to keep people away from life-threatening dangers.

From close encounters with wild animals to mishandling historic artifacts, here are five incidents involving badly behaved tourists in national parks so far this year.

Two people who visited Canyonlands in March were accused of stealing artifacts from an old cowboy campsite.

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On March 23, what appeared to be a man and a woman visiting Canyonlands National Park in Utah were spotted entering Cave Spring Cowboy Camp.

According to the NPS, the camp was used by cowboys from the 19th century to the late 20th century, when cattle ranching was still prohibited in national parks.

The historical site has various items and furniture once used by cowboys — some of which, the NPS said, were tampered with and stolen by the individuals in March.

"The individuals entered a signed-as-closed area, removed artifacts from a cabinet, and handled historic harnesses in a manner that had potential to damage them," the NPS said in a May 15 press release.

In the release and on Instagram, the NPS shared still images of the perpetrators and called on the public to help identify them.

The NPS did not immediately respond to BI's request for an update on the case and whether the individuals have been identified.

In the Everglades, a group of tourists — including at least one child — were filmed getting close to a feeding crocodile in April.

In April, the social-media account Tourons of National Parks re-shared a video taken by an Everglades National Park tourist named Alyssa. It shows a group of tourists standing a few feet away from an alligator crossing a path with what appears to be a turtle snapped between its teeth.

At least one child was among the tourists, the video shows.

In another video of the encounter shared on her personal Instagram account, the person who captured the incident said the people in the video were "extremely close."

"Just isn't worth getting attacked and the alligator having to suffer because you refuse to take 5 steps back," she added.

The NPS recommends keeping a safe distance from alligators in the Everglades, roughly between 15 and 20 feet, which is farther than what appeared to be the case here.

In April, a man was charged with drunkenly harassing a herd of bison in Yellowstone.

According to the NPS, park officials responded to a report in April that the 40-year-old man from Idaho drunkenly harassed a herd of bison in Yellowstone and received minor injuries in the process.

In the press release, the NPS said the individual kicked one of the bison in the leg. He was ultimately charged and arrested in connection to the incident, which included being under the influence "to a degree that may endanger oneself" and "disturbing wildlife."

The incident was the first involving bison in a national park this year. But the man can count himself lucky his injuries were minor.

In early June, the NPS reported an 83-year-old South Carolina woman was gored and lifted a foot off the ground by a bison in Yellowstone National Park, leaving her with serious injuries.

The NPS advises that visitors stay at least 25 years away from bison.

A herd of bison charged at another group of tourists in Yellowstone.

In a video captured by Yellowstone tourist Adella Gonzalez and shared by Storyful, a herd of bison is filmed meandering along calmly until a group of tourists walk by, seemingly prompting them to charge, USA Today reports.

In the video, taken in May, a person is heard saying, "I don't think that is very wise," just as the herd began to charge.

"We noticed tourists getting very close to the bison," Gonzalez told Storyful, and then the animals "began to get agitated and started running."

Besides putting your own life at risk, getting too close to bison can also endanger the animals themselves. In 2023, a bison calf had to be euthanized after a park visitor lifted it out of a river, causing it to be rejected by its herd.

In a statement shared on X, the NPS said it wouldn't have been able to quarantine the calf and that it did not make the decision lightly.

"We made the choice we did not because we are lazy, uncaring, or inexpert in our understanding of bison biology," the statement read. "We made the choice we did because national parks preserve natural processes."

In June, a man was sentenced to a week in jail after trespassing dangerously close to a thermal geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

On June 13, the NPS shared a press release that a 21-year-old man from Washington received a weeklong jail sentence for venturing dangerously close to a steam vent of Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest active geyser.

The man, who was caught on camera in April, hopped over a fence separating the geyser's steam vent from an observation point and got within 15 to 20 feet of it. According to the NPS website, the Steamboat Geyser erupts unpredictably, shooting hydrothermal water and steam that can cause severe burns up to 300 feet high.

After a Yellowstone National Park law enforcement officer arrived at the scene, the man told them he had gotten as close as he did to take photos.

In addition to jail time, the man was barred from visiting Yellowstone for two years and ordered to pay a $1,500 fine.

The magistrate judge presiding over the case told the court that she hoped the sentence would prevent other visitors from figuratively — and literally — following in the man's footsteps.

"She expressed her concern that the defendant's actions were seen by the people around him, and they might have thought it was okay to do the same thing," the press release noted. "And if every visitor to YNP disobeyed the rules, the park would be destroyed, and no one would be able to enjoy it."

• The Denver Basic Income Project helped participants secure housing and full-time jobs.
• The pilot program provided direct cash payments to over 800 Coloradans experiencing homelessness.
• Results showed 45% of participants secured housing, while $589,214 was saved in public service costs.

Jarun Laws lived in his car in a restaurant parking lot near downtown Denver. He worked there as a cook until 2020, making about $400 a month. That was barely enough to cover his car payments and child support — and not even close to what he would need for rent.

The 51-year-old occasionally spent part of his paycheck on weekend stays at a cheap hotel, where he could spend time with his children. He struggled to afford food, clothes, and medicine — and he had been experiencing homelessness for nearly a decade.

That changed when Laws enrolled in The Denver Basic Income Project. The pilot program allowed Laws to secure a temporary apartment with furniture, spend more time with his children, and find a better-paying job.

"I had questioned myself: if I was going to be a good father to my children because I was suffering," Laws previously told Business Insider. "When I got accepted, it changed my life."

Denver's basic income pilot — which first started payments in fall 2022 — focused on over 800 Coloradans experiencing homelessness, including people living in cars, temporary shelters, the outdoors, or other non-fixed living situations. Participants like Laws were given direct cash payments, no strings attached, and could spend the money on whatever they needed.

Denver released the project's one-year report on June 18, showing that 45% of participants secured their own house or apartment after receiving basic income for 10 months. They also experienced fewer emergency room visits, nights spent in a hospital or a temporary shelter, and jail stays. The report estimates that this reduction in public service use saved the city $589,214.

Denver's program initially lasted one year and was extended in January for another six months. Participants were sorted into random groups: one received $1,000 a month for a year; another got $6,500 upfront, followed by $500 a month; and a third got $50 a month as a control group.

The city of Denver, the Colorado Trust, and an anonymous foundation funded the project and has already provided more than $9.4 million to participants.

Basic income programs like Denver's have become a popular strategy to reduce poverty in US cities. Compared to traditional social services like SNAP or Medicaid, basic income allows participants to spend the money where they need it most.

"What is fundamentally different about our approach is the way that we start from a place of trust," Mark Donovan, the project founder and executive director, said at a Tuesday press conference.

Denver's basic income project helped participants secure housing and jobs

Denver's report found that basic income primarily helped participants pay for immediate expenses — like transportation, hygiene, clothes, and groceries. Affording recurring bills like rent, healthcare, or debt payments was also a top priority for most families. Participants in each payment group reported increased financial stability and reduced reliance on emergency financial assistance programs.

Basic income puts low-income families on "an equal playing field," Nick Pacheco, participant engagement coordinator, said at a press conference. He said the cash payments also help participants get the training and resources they need to establish careers.

Individuals who received the lump sum or $1,000 a month payments were more likely to find a stable, full-time job than before they received basic income.

"It's freedom," Pacheco said. "It's freedom from poverty and not being able to reach your goals."

Participating households also experienced improved mental health and could spend more time with family and friends. Parents were able to better support their children and grandchildren.

These results echo those from the six-month report, which found fewer participants were sleeping on the street, experiencing food insecurity, and feeling unsafe.

Still, participants' financial outcomes varied based on their payment group. Participants who received the lump sum $6,500 payment in addition to $500 a month could better build savings and make major life changes like signing a new lease or buying a car.

Many families told researchers that they're anxious about paying bills after the basic income payments end. Some worry they could lose their housing again.

Laws, for example, had to go back to living in his car after his payments stopped.

Being able to pay bills alleviated participants' financial stress

Denver participants have told BI that basic income was the financial safety net they needed.

Moriah Rodriguez, 38, was working as a youth developer for Denver Public Schools when she got hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury. She lived in public housing with her kids, all of whom have intellectual disabilities, though they were displaced shortly after.

She received monthly Social Security payments, just enough to care for her kids. While staying with a friend, she learned about the pilot program.

Rodriguez used the payments to fix her truck, transport her kids to school and work, buy new clothing, and secure a lifelong public housing voucher. She also used some of the money to pay $400 for rent, $500 on gas, $100 on hygiene, and $100 on her credit card bill. In addition to returning to school to get her GED, she brought her credit score into the 700s.

"The program gave me more time to focus on their education and their mental health," Rodriguez said, referring to her children, and added that the program's extension was another lifeline. "I had the space to get them tested and get them diagnosed and connected with the support they need."

Similarly, Dia Broncucia, 53, and Justin Searls, 45, could also afford essentials like an apartment, a new car, and mental health resources through basic income. They had previously lived in a temporary shelter but could secure a studio apartment for $1,300 a month, along with clothing, hygiene products, and furniture.

Broncucia and Searls said last October that though they had some uncertainties about their future, they felt much stronger and less stressed because of basic income.

"Starting with nothing and then being able to receive a lump sum of money and then get our payments once a month is why we were able to get on track and stay on track," Broncucia previously told BI.

Basic income pilots can provide poverty solutions

As the basic income pilot continues to be successful in cities like Denver, local leaders and economic security experts are looking to translate pilots into policy. States like California and New Mexico are already proposing basic income programs in the state legislature.

"The lessons from those pilots are infusing the whole ecosystem of support," Teri Olle, director for Economic Security California, a branch of the nonprofit Economic Security Project, previously told BI. "People are really seeing the power of those pilots, and the power of giving people money and trusting them."

Denver leaders also hope to extend the city's basic income for a third year. The project is currently raising the millions of dollars necessary to continue efforts in Colorado.

Donovan said he's paying close attention to results from basic income programs across the country. It's a "really exciting time in the movement," he said.

"If we're able to move people into housing and out of homelessness at a lower cost and generate better long-term outcomes, why wouldn't we try to expand and build upon that?" Donovan said.

Have you benefited from a guaranteed basic income program? Are you willing to share how you spent the money? Reach out to these reporters at allisonkelly@businessinsider.com and nsheidlower@businessinsider.com

• The SEC has filed charges against a Texas man over his offer to invest $200 million in Virgin Orbit.
• The SEC says Matthew Brown claimed to have $182 million but had less than $1 in his bank account.
• Virgin Orbit, which aimed to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX, went bankrupt in 2023.  

In March 2023, beleaguered rocket company Virgin Orbit thought it had found a lifeline.

A Texas-based investor named Matthew Brown reportedly offered to invest $200 million in the rocket firm, which was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But in a complaint filed on Monday, the SEC alleged that the offer was a sham and that Brown had a negative net worth at the time.

The regulator has filed charges that accuse Brown — who it says resides in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas — of engaging in a "fraudulent scheme" to submit and publicly tout a "bogus" $200 million bailout offer for Virgin Orbit, which went bankrupt in April 2023.

Brown could not be reached for comment by Business Insider.

Backed by British billionaire Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit had raised millions of dollars to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX in the private space industry, which the World Economic Forum estimates will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035.

But the company was left scrambling for funding after a failed rocket launch in January 2023.

In its complaint, the SEC said Brown misrepresented his personal wealth in conversations with Virgin Orbit, including sending a fabricated screenshot of his company's bank account with a balance of over $182 million dollars, when the actual balance was less than $1.

Brown also appeared on CNBC shortly after entering into discussions with Virgin Orbit despite signing an NDA.

He told the channel he planned to close the deal "in the next 24 hours," and he would "basically be the owner" of Virgin Orbit as a result of the investment, according to the complaint.

The SEC says that Brown also told Virgin Orbit that he had graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas with a law degree. "Brown had never graduated from college, let alone attended law school," the SEC wrote.

When Brown's offer leaked to the media, shares in Virgin Orbit went up by over 33%.

The SEC said that the deal collapsed after Brown attempted to request the inclusion of a "break up fee" if the transaction did not close and refused to respond to Virgin Orbit's due diligence inquiries.

The company, once valued at $3.7 billion, filed for bankruptcy less than a month later.

The SEC seeks a civil fine for Brown and a permanent ban on purchasing or selling securities.

• A California-based millennial earning six figures says he'd need to triple his income to feel "rich." 
• High home prices, the costs of surrogacy, and student debt have made his income feel insufficient. 
• He shared why he's hesitant to leave Santa Monica despite its expensive housing market. 

If Christopher Stroup's only priority was maximizing his savings, he might not be living in the Los Angeles area.

The 33-year-old financial advisor, who's based in Santa Monica, California, made roughly $130,000 last year, according to a document viewed by Business Insider. However, he said he's still paying off his student debt and working toward his savings goals for a down payment on a home, starting a family, and retirement. That's why he feels far from "rich," he said.

"Versus the traditional arc of life, I feel behind financially," he previously told BI via email.

To feel "rich," Stroup estimated that he'd need an annual income of about $400,000 to $500,000 a year — more than triple his 2023 earnings. At this income level, he estimated that he'd be able to meet his savings goals, enjoy life, and have some extra money left over.

If he can't boost his income to his desired level, Stroup said there's another thing that might help him feel rich: moving to an area with lower housing costs.

"I rent a 450-square-foot alcove studio in Santa Monica for $1,650 a month," Stroup previously told BI. "My sister, who lives in Cincinnati, rents a 1,600-square-foot home with three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, and a full backyard for $1,800."

Stroup is among a group of Americans with six-figure incomes who are struggling to meet some of their financial goals. These people are sometimes called HENRYs — or high earners, not rich yet.

In recent years, as rising costs have weighed on people's finances, a $100,000-a-year salary hasn't gone as far as it used to, and the US housing market is among the top reasons. In recent years, high home prices and elevated mortgage rates have made homeownership unaffordable for many Americans. Business Insider has interviewed several Americans who have moved to different states in recent years in search of lower rents or mortgage payments.

As of 2022, a majority of millennials owned a home, according to an analysis published in 2023 by the apartment listing service RentCafe. But that offers little solace to millennials like Stroup, who are now faced with a more expensive housing market. Of course, for the majority of Americans who don't have a $100,000 income — the average annual full-time salary was about $84,000 as of March — affording a home is even more of a challenge.

Stroup shared whether he plans to move somewhere with lower housing costs, especially as he considers having a family, which could be particularly expensive for him.

Starting a family can be as expensive as a down payment on a home

Stroup said he sometimes jokes that he'd need to save $250,000 to buy a home, start a family, or become a partner at his firm — but he can pick only one.

The median sale price for a Santa Monica home was about $1.5 million as of April, per Zillow. A 17% down payment on a home of this cost would be roughly $250,000.

Additionally, Stroup, who's gay, said that family planning as a gay couple can be "extremely expensive" if surrogacy is opted for over adoption. He said the total costs of surrogacy can be well over six figures.

"These are the costs I could expect if I only wanted to have one child," he said. "In reality, I'd love to have at least two children, which means that serious financial planning needs to be considered."

And those are just the initial costs. In January, Business Insider estimated that it would cost parents about $26,000 to care for a small child in 2024.

Lastly, Stroup said the "buy-in" for partners at his firm begins at $250,000, which means he would have to pay this to "own a slice" of the firm where he works.

With all these expenses to consider, it might make sense for Stroup to move somewhere with lower housing costs. But he said there's at least one key reason he doesn't want to leave the Los Angeles area just yet: it has a strong LGBTQ+ community.

Stroup said he gained insight into the tradeoff between living expenses and community when he lived in Bakersfield, California for a few years.

"The cost of living in Bakersfield is substantially lower than Los Angeles, which did allow me to save and pay down debt," he said. "However, it wasn't really a welcoming environment as a gay man, and it meant sacrificing my personal life."

If Stroup were to move, he would have a lot of options because his job allows him to work fully remotely. He grew up in Troy, Pennsylvania, and he said he'd consider moving back there someday to be closer to family.

"Financially, the costs of housing and raising a family would be a lot lower there," Stroup said. "It would also allow me to lean more on my family, which would be a nice benefit while raising children."

For now, Stroup said he's grateful that he feels "wealthy" in three areas of his life that aren't tied to his bank account: freedom, control, and fulfillment.

He said his job allows him to have a significant amount of freedom and control over his day-to-day life, and that his work, which includes helping members of the LGBTQ+ community with wealth management, brings him "immense fulfillment."

"I currently check these three boxes, even if my income isn't at a point where I'd be considered 'wealthy' from a dollars and cents point of view," he said.

Are you making over $100,000 a year? Are you willing to share your story and the impact this income has had on your life? If so, contact this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.

• I drove a Tesla for the first time to work out why some people love them so much.
• The Model 3 is a great car to drive, but has a few annoying features.
• I couldn't help but feel somewhat underwhelmed by the Tesla, which is just a bit boring.

Regular readers of Business Insider know that we write rather frequently about Elon Musk and Tesla, his electric car maker. That's because he's a fascinating character, Tesla is a fascinating company — and we know you like reading about both. Consider cutting

I've been a passenger in plenty of Teslas over the years, and have friends who own one — but I'd never been behind the wheel to really get a feel of what it's like to drive one.

I figured there was only one way to resolve this problem: rent a Tesla. As I picked a holiday weekend in the UK last month to do so, none seemed available from rental firms, so I found a shiny grey 2022 Model 3 on Turo (despite imposing a frankly outrageous "service" fee.)

Gaining access to the Tesla was a clever procedure. I downloaded the Tesla app on my iPhone and the owner added me to his account, meaning no physical key was needed. This was just as well as the owner was away at the time. (I'm not quite sure what would've happened if I'd lost my phone during the rental, though. And the tech has not been faultless either.

So on this sunny Saturday my friend, who was visiting from Atlanta, and I set off from east London for Oxford — a journey of about 80 miles, which nevertheless took well over two hours because British roads are not quite as wide as those in America.

Connecting my iPhone to the audio system was simple and there are convenient twin cordless charging pads built into the central console. The soundtrack for our trip included Dua Lipa's "Radical Optimism" and the latest Pet Shop Boys album, "Nonetheless." Both sounded great through the car's array of speakers.

What I found incongruous, though, was the fake wood paneling on the dashboard. It feels completely out of place, and I have no idea why it's there. (Tesla wisely got rid of the "wood" in the recent Model 3 refresh.) Seems to be some debate about the wood. Some folks say it's real wood with a veneer, others say it's fake. Let's hedge it if we don't know for sure. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/did-a-wood-dash-trim-delete-today.297047/

The Tesla's interior is dominated by an enormous touchscreen that controls every function of the car. It serves up a cavalcade of information and I often found it difficult to hit the right bit of the screen without taking my eyes off the road, though I admit it makes navigation easier.

The lane assist and hazard warning technology can often be too clever for its own good, getting overexcited about supposed dangers that are nothing of the sort.

The trunk is cavernous, and could easily accommodate the luggage of four or even five people.

The Model 3 is a very quiet drive, as you might expect of any contemporary EV. It handles well and does pretty much everything you might expect such a car to do, but I just couldn't shake off the feeling that something was missing. If I had to sum it up in a sentence, it'd be this: the Tesla was just a bit boring.

Maybe it's comparable to a movie or TV show with a three-star review — I either want it to be really great, or really bad. Being somewhere in the middle is just "meh." And I suspect this is going to be one of Tesla's biggest problems in the coming years.

Back in the day, if you wanted to show you cared to some degree about the environment (and had fairly deep pockets), driving a Tesla was a no-brainer — as long as you had a garage with a Powerwall and didn't make lots of long trips, that is. (I opted to return my Model 3 without recharging it, so I can't comment on the difficulty of finding somewhere to plug in the car — but I'm glad I didn't have to.)

Tesla now has plenty of competition from legacy automakers, its vehicles are still reasonably expensive and some of the people who bought them in the past might not be repeat customers for a variety of reasons (delete Elon Musk's politics, resale values etc etc as appropriate.)

Then there's the realization by some drivers and manufacturers, too, that hybrids might be a better bridge to a greener motoring world than pure electric.

Nevertheless, it's worth noting that Tesla increased its share of the US car market in the first quarter to 51.3%, with Ford a distant second on 7.4%.

I'm grateful I got to take the Model 3 for a spin so I could make up my own mind, but sorry Elon — I'm still no Tesla fanboy.

• Over 30 million "peak boomers" are entering retirement financially unprepared.
• The economy could take a hit, with industries like manufacturing and education needing to replace boomer workers.
• Those new retirees will likely be disproportionately leaning on Social Security to stay afloat.

The youngest baby boomers are about to enter retirement — and most of them aren't financially prepared for this next stage of their life.

Beginning this year, over 30 million boomers born between 1959 to 1964 will start to turn 65, marking the "largest and final cohort" of that generation entering retirement, according to a report from the Alliance for Lifetime Income's Retirement Income Institute.

Many in this cohort, known as "peak boomers," are facing significant economic headwinds, the report said. It's what some have called the boomer retirement bomb — and it might be costly for the rest of the workers in the economy.

Through an analysis of data from the Federal Reserve and the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, the report found that 52.5% of peak boomers have $250,000 or less in assets, meaning that they'll likely deplete their savings and rely primarily on income from Social Security in retirement. Another 14.6% of that cohort have $500,000 or less in assets, meaning "nearly two-thirds will strain to meet their needs in retirement," the report said.

"America has never seen so many people reaching retirement age over a short period, and well over half of them will find it challenging to meet their needs through their retirements, let alone maintain their current standard of living," Robert Shapiro, an author of the report and the former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, said in a statement. "They lack the protected income that many older Boomers have from solid pensions or higher savings."

The peak boomers' retirement wave could also impact the overall US economy. The report projects that employers will have to replace as many as 14.8 million peak boomers — primarily in the manufacturing, healthcare, and education industries — which could decrease economic productivity.

On top of that, the generation's retirement is likely to have an impact on consumer spending. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, the report found that peak boomers will spend $204 billion less in 2032 than they did in 2022, with the transportation sector taking the biggest hit.

Still, as the report noted, younger employees are likely to fill some of the jobs that peak boomers will leave, and productivity will rise as technology advances.

The crisis is partially due to changes in how Americans save for retirement

Peak boomers entered the workforce just as retirement plans shifted away from defined benefit plans like pensions — which generally guarantee stable income and are employer-subsidized — to contribution plans like 401(k)s, which rely on workers to pay into them.

Of the different types of retirement-savings plans the report looked at, defined benefit pensions have the least disparities along racial, gender, and ethnicity lines (although there are significant disparities in annual payments) — but only 24% of peak boomers hold them, and even those plans are coming up against potential underfunding.

Already, many retirement-aged Americans are living on paltry incomes. A little over half of Americans over 65 live on incomes of $30,000 or less a year, per the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, with the largest share living on $10,000 to $19,000. And, per Business Insider's calculations of CPS ASEC data, 79.2% of retirees receive some type of Social Security income.

Retirement-aged Americans, many of whom fall in that peak boomer category, previously told Business Insider that they might just have to continue working until they die or become infirm to stay afloat.

"Only the very wealthy are going to have any dignity in their old age," Pam, who is nearly 58, said. "And the rest of us are just going to pray that they can die while they still have a job because nobody wants to die on the street."

Are you a boomer unprepared for retirement? Contact these reporters at asheffey@businessinsider.com and jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

• By 2100, 97% of countries are expected to have fertility rates below replacement levels.
• Demography experts told BI that countries offering financial incentives won't solve this.
• Promoting gender equality might help, but it's unlikely to reverse population decline, they said.

The world is facing a fertility rate crisis, and experts warn that giving financial incentives to would-be parents isn't going to come close to solving it.

A Lancet study forecasts that by 2100, over 97% of countries will have fertility rates below the population replacement level.

Some countries, fearing shrinking populations, have invested heavily in policies in the hopes of reversing the decline.

In Tokyo, the rates are so low that the government is launching a dating app to help citizens find love and get married.

The Japanese government has also tried to boost fertility rates by offering up to a year of parental leave and even cash incentives.

In South Korea, the least fertile country in the world, Seoul is offering people money to reverse their vasectomies or untie their tubes.

That's on top of South Korean companies offering employees up to $75,000 to have children, and a government allowance system that gives all parents with newborns $750 a month until their baby turns one.

However, according to Trent MacNamara, a Texas A&M professor whose work has focused on fertility rates, throwing money at the problem can only do so much.

"Theoretically, it's possible to produce higher fertility with traditional policy," he told Business Insider. "If a government transferred new parents about 5% of the costs of raising a child, we could expect a roughly 5% bump in fertility."

But he noted that such measures come with "backbreaking costs" that governments are hesitant to bear, especially given the strain aging populations place on social welfare systems.

MacNamara said that even in countries like South Korea, which has invested billions, the impact of the policies is still inconclusive.

While governments are scrambling for solutions, none have discovered the holy grail — an affordable, practical policy leading to sustained fertility rate rises, he said.

Sarah Harper, a professor of gerontology and the director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, says that cash incentives have a limited long-term effect.

"It encourages a mini-baby boom, followed by a baby crash, as those women who would have spread their childbearing across several years all go at the same time to get the cash bonus," she told BI.

Harper said that instead of throwing money at the issue, the biggest chance for success is through promoting gender equity.

She said that countries that promote "positive parenting, ensuring that mothers, as well as fathers, can continue their careers through acceptance in the workplace," have the best chance of maintaining birth rates.

However, she added that even this is unlikely to return levels to above-replacement.

Philip N. Cohen, a family demographer at the University of Maryland, said it's a "fool's errand" trying to solve the fertility crisis.

He said that most policy ideas have failed, and besides, "human history in the period of modernity, the last few hundred years, is the history of declining birth rates."

A few unique, ambitious policy ideas could, in theory, make an impact — like a social welfare fund for single mothers and mass immigration from poorer countries—but, Cohen said, they're unlikely to be implemented in most countries.

"That's politically fraught, even if the math of it makes perfect sense," he said.

As for the overall trend, "there's no way I think we can turn that around," he said.

• Meta celebrated its 20th birthday earlier this year.
• Mark Zuckerberg has been running it since cofounding Facebook from his Harvard dorm room in 2004.
• Here are some of Zuckerberg's most notable business leadership and management principles.

Mark Zuckerberg has been at the helm of Facebook, now Meta, since he created it in his Harvard dorm room 20 years ago.

And though he's perhaps best known for his "Move fast and break things" mantra, he's since evolved the phrase and shared plenty of other leadership and management tidbits in the two decades he's been running one of the world's largest companies.

Here's some of his most notable advice for managing teams and running a business:

Be lean

Zuckerberg famously proclaimed 2023 a "year of efficiency" for Meta, saying he wanted the firm to "flatten" its organizational structure by way of "removing some layers of middle management."

"I don't think you want a management structure that's just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work," Zuckerberg said in an internal Q&A last year.

Meta cut 11,000 jobs in November 2022 and slashed another 10,000 in March 2023.

Founders, don't delegate

Zuckerberg said one of his "most controversial" leadership tips for business leaders is to avoid delegating responsibility.

"I kind of think the way a founder should work is you should basically make as many decisions and get involved in as many things as you can," he said earlier this year.

"That's something that I guess I've just gotten more confident in over time, is just sort of feeling like hey, yeah I can go deep on all this stuff and push it in a direction that I think, and yeah not everything is going to go well in the near term but you just learn, rinse, and repeat," he added. "Do good work over a long period of time."

Allot time to read up before meetings

Zuckerberg, like Amazon's Jeff Bezos, is particular about his meetings.

"I actually like trying to have a rule… for every hour of meeting that I have, the team sends out the pre-reads in advance," he told Forbes last year. "I want to have at least an hour to read the materials and think about it. And then I want to have at least an hour to follow up with different people after the meeting."

Execute, execute, execute

You're probably worrying about the competition too much, Zuckerberg says.

Instead, focus on executing.

"I think most companies probably focus too much on competitors, and maybe even focus too much on ideas," he said in the Forbes interview. "And I think at the end of the day, a lot of what makes great companies great is the ability to just relentlessly execute, and efficiently execute and do that rigorously and just get better and better at it all the time."

Move fast

Meta announced new company values in 2022, one of which was "Move fast."

It's an abbreviated version of what is perhaps Zuckerberg's best-known saying, "Move fast and break things," a mantra from Facebook's early days.

Over the years, the directive morphed into "move fast with stable infrastructure" in 2014 before becoming simply "move fast" in 2022.

That year, the company came to define moving fast as "acting with urgency and not waiting until next week to do something you could do today" and "continuously working to increase the velocity of our highest priority initiatives by methodically removing barriers that get in the way."

• Amazon is rolling out more smart shopping carts to grocery stores.
• The Dash carts are meant to be a better option for grocery runs than Amazon's Just Walk Out tech.
• I tried using a Dash cart at Amazon Fresh and felt like I was using a self-checkout on wheels.

Amazon is betting that a smart shopping cart will become integral to your weekly grocery run.

After years of using its Just Walk Out technology — which allowed customers to bypass traditional checkouts — in some of its stores, including a couple of Whole Foods locations, Amazon is now focused on using that in smaller sites where people tend to pick up just an item or two, the company said in an April blog post.

One possible reason: Just Walk Out had an error rate so high that most transactions required manual review by humans, the Information reported earlier this year. Amazon disputed the report at the time.

But for grocery shopping trips where you're buying lots of stuff at once, Amazon has another option: the Dash cart.

Like Just Walk Out, the Dash cart "uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to help identify items placed in and removed from the cart," Amazon said in its blog post.

The cart also contains a scale built into its basket to weigh out items like produce. Just above the handle, there's also a screen that allows users to enter product numbers, check how much they're spending, and look for specials. Amazon is also working on personalized ads that can be displayed on the screen.

Amazon offers the latest version of the Dash cart at just under 40 stores around the US. I went to an Amazon Fresh store to use one of the carts and see if it made shopping for food better. Here's what I found.

I visited the Amazon Fresh grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia, to test a Dash cart.

This is one of 28 Amazon Fresh stores where you can use a Dash cart to shop, per Amazon's website. The company also offers them at a few Whole Foods stores and a regional grocer in the Midwest.

The Dash carts were on display as soon as I walked into the store.

As soon as I walked up to one of the carts, an employee greeted me and asked: "Would you like to try this new technology?"

He then showed me how to start using the cart. You have to download the Amazon Shopping app to your smartphone, log into your account, and then pull up an "in-store code" to scan using one of the cart's three scanners. That way, anything you place in the cart can be charged to your account.

I saw even more Dash carts as I headed toward the produce section.

This location had plenty of Dash carts — almost 20. During my visit, I only saw two other shoppers using them, while the others in the store were using baskets or regular carts to do their shopping.

The Dash cart has lots of on-screen features, like a shopping list.

This shopping list allows you to add items manually or through Alexa, Amazon's voice-activated assistant.

The cart also had videos showing you how to use it.

Amazon has added instructional videos to the Dash cart that show you how to use it. I watched this one, for example, which clarifies how to remove an item from the cart once you've scanned it.

I headed to the produce section to make my first selection with the Dash cart.

Produce was a good test of the Dash cart since most items don't have barcodes, and many are sold by the pound, making accurate weighing key.

That meant I had to enter PLU codes — those numbers on the stickers you find on produce — before placing it into the Dash cart's basket and weighing it using the built-in scale.

These bell peppers were priced per pepper, but I still had to find them on the Dash cart's screen before placing them in its basket.

Entering codes for produce reminded me of using self-checkout at other grocery stores.

I use self-checkout a lot at my local supermarket. Punching in codes for the bell peppers and other produce reminded me of that experience — and made the Dash cart feel like a self-checkout on wheels.

Dash carts also have a "sales & deals" tab that changes as you move around the store.

This selection of cranberry juice specials, for instance, popped up as I walked into the aisle where the products were located. The same thing happened later as I walked down the snack aisle and past the cooler case for milk.

Most products could be scanned via barcode, though some were easier than others.

The Dash cart includes three scanners: Two front-facing ones above the basket and another downward-facing one under the handle. You could scan most of the packaged goods in the store using one of the three sensors.

The position of the barcode on some products made scanning difficult, though. This four-pack of tonic water had its barcode on the bottom of the cardboard holder, making it tough to scan while keeping the glass bottles from slipping out.

I didn't get any error messages when I rearranged items in the cart or put items that were already there in my shopping bag.

Unlike many self-checkouts I've used, which give you an error message when you rearrange stuff in your bag or knock something over, the Dash cart didn't mind when I had to rearrange my purchases. I also didn't encounter any problems consolidating things into my shopping bag.

Removing items required using the screen but was easy to do.

While looking at the alcohol selection, I decided to see how hard it was to remove something from the cart and my bill.

Initially, I chose a can of hard seltzer, scanned it, and placed it in the Dash cart. Then, I picked it up out of the cart and put it back in the cooler.

The Dash cart asked me to confirm whether I had actually removed a product or not.

This screen popped up when I returned the can to the cooler. I confirmed that I had indeed removed it and proceeded to add a different choice to my cart.

The Dash cart didn't catch everything, though.

Given that the cart relies on its internal scale so much, I wanted to see what would happen if there was a discrepancy between the items on the screen and what was actually in the basket. (No, I did not steal anything, and neither should you.)

I scanned an item, then removed it from the Dash cart.

I started by scanning this box of mac and cheese and placing it in the basket. Then, I put it back on the shelf.

When this message flashed on the screen, I said that I hadn't removed anything.

I was still getting charged for the mac and cheese even though it wasn't in my cart anymore. Once I hit "No, my receipt is correct," I could keep shopping, and neither the cart nor the employee working the exit for Dash cart users caught it.

This is a big difference from Just Walk Out, which Amazon touted as capable of catching whatever customers walk out with — down to whether the avocado they picked up was organic or not.

Buying a hot cup of coffee also presented a challenge for the Dash cart.

Despite my last sub-par experience with Amazon Fresh's coffee, I decided to pick up a cup just to see how the Dash cart would handle it.

Placing the coffee in the cart's cup holder didn't work.

There was no barcode to scan on the cup, so I entered a PLU number on the screen and set it in the cup holder. After all, what if I wanted to sip as I did my shopping?

But the Dash cart's scale didn't appear to extend to that part of the cart, since it didn't charge me for it.

Eventually, I got the Dash cart to add the coffee to my receipt by placing it in the cart itself.

I felt like the hot coffee might spill on my shoes and the floor if I moved too quickly. Fortunately, I was near the end of my shopping trip.

When it was time to leave, I headed toward this special lane for Dash cart users.

An employee greeted me as I pulled into the lane. To my left were regular self-checkout options for customers using traditional shopping carts.

On the Dash cart, the screen prompted the employee to check my ID since I was buying alcohol.

After a quick verification, the employee directed me toward the entrance. She didn't check any other part of my purchase and didn't catch the box of mac and cheese that I had returned to the shelf but not removed from my receipt.

Amazon charged my account as I exited the Amazon Fresh store.

I got an email immediately after I went through the Dash cart lane confirming what I had purchased and charging my payment method on file with Amazon.

I had to leave the Dash cart in the store and carry my purchases out to my car.

As I left the store, an employee was waiting to claim my Dash cart. That meant I couldn't take the cart with me and load everything into my car.

Fortunately, my purchases all fit into a reusable shopping bag I brought. But if I had done a proper weekly shopping trip, I probably would've needed to either take the cart to my car or pull up to the store to load everything.

Overall, I'm not convinced that the Dash cart is the future of grocery shopping.

Using the Dash cart felt a lot like self-checkout: You have to scan everything yourself and punch in codes for some items. And, if you change your mind about something, you have to remove it from your receipt using the screen.

It's a far cry from the promise of Just Walk Out, which involves no scanning on the customer's part — other than to identify yourself when you enter the store.

My experiment with the box of mac and cheese also shows that, just like self-checkout, Dash carts aren't foolproof. Many retailers are pulling back on self-checkout because of theft, and it seems like the Dash cart has similar vulnerabilities.

Do you work at Amazon, Amazon Fresh, or Whole Foods and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com