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People were quick to dunk on a recent Anthropic ad, part of a campaign designed to show the company is listening to people’s concerns about AI. The video features audio of people asking questions like “Can AI be trusted?” and “Who’s going to hit the brakes?” over flashing images that included protests, the unhoused, and a flaming home. After pivoting to a warmer tone—"Could AI help people stop feeling misunderstood?”—the ad finishes with the text, “There’s hope in hard questions,” followed by Anthropic’s tagline: “Keep thinking.”

Among the online critics was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “i thought this was satire, kept looking for the handle to be spelled c1audeai or something,” he posted to X. The ad’s most liked YouTube comment calls it “dystopian marketing slop.” Atlantic writer Lila Shroff described the ad as “tone-deaf.” In the words of one X poster, Anthropic seems to want to “scare everyone about AI, then pose as the only ones humble enough to be trusted.”

This isn’t the first time an Anthropic commercial has divided viewers. The company’s Super Bowl spot, which poked fun at OpenAI for testing ads in ChatGPT, won a Grand Prix in the Film category at Cannes Lions 2026. Yet it ranked in the bottom 3% for general audience likeability. according to one survey. Many people had no idea OpenAI was considering bringing ads to ChatGPT, so the punchline landed flat—perhaps indicative of the wider cultural disconnect between Silicon Valley and everyone else.

Ironically, the latest ad was meant to show the opposite: that Anthropic is listening. The voices came from people the company interviewed on a U.S. roadshow last spring, part of a wider effort that has surveyed more than 120,000 people across 159 countries. Daniela Amodei, Anthropic’s president, told TIME in a recent interview that the campaign was a “culmination of work that we have been doing, essentially around this concept that people's thoughts and feelings and worries and excitements and concerns about AI are not only very valid, but something that, as a company, as Anthropic—one of the leaders in actually training these models and building this technology—we really want to hear.” (Anthropic did not provide comment for this article at the time of publication.)

The controversy the ad stirred up is symptomatic of a deeper rupture. The AI industry’s warnings about AI’s risks are often dismissed as mere marketing. When Anthropic chose not to release Mythos Preview on the grounds that its cybersecurity capabilities were too dangerous to release, for example, governments took the warning seriously. But much of the public did not. Critics treated the announcement as a sophisticated marketing stunt—even though, two months earlier, a hacker had used a weaker version of Claude to help steal 150 gigabytes of data from the Mexican government, and Mythos Preview is, by independent measures, significantly more powerful. 

To be sure, Anthropic benefits from presenting its models as uniquely powerful and itself as a responsible steward of a world-changing technology. And Anthropic has walked back safety pledges before. But taking Anthropic’s warnings seriously is not the same as trusting it to solve the problem.

Part of the public cynicism is born of the fact that Anthropic is racing as hard as anyone to build the technology it’s warning us about. But that doesn’t mean those warnings are insincere. The company believes that, were they to stop building AI, others would continue, and has therefore concluded the safest path is to try to lead its development.. The first proposition is plausible; the second is arguably  self-serving. Along with OpenAI and Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic has recently said it would favor building a way to internationally coordinate  an option to one day slow down model development.

The fossil-fuel industry suppressed evidence of climate change for decades, just as Big Tobacco obscured the link between smoking and lung cancer. Had those industries spoken plainly about the dangers of their products, their motives would rightly have been scrutinized—but the candor itself would have been preferable to years of deceit. The same should be true of AI. A company that cops to the risks of its business is preferable to one that minimises or conceals them, even if you believe doing so doubles as brand-building.

The ad’s most provocative image was of American soldiers’ tombs at the Arlington National Cemetery. For some, evoking death and sacrifice was perplexing and distasteful; a step too far. “I can’t stress enough how f—ed up it is that Anthropic is running an ad that includes this image,” Zack Korman, CEO of AI cybersecurity company Embroidery posted to X. But if you believe, as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei does, that AI poses a 10% to 25% chance of a civilisation-ending catastrophe, the image of tombs is a stark acknowledgement of the stakes. Amodei’s assessment of the dangers may be right or wrong, but an ad that grapples with those risks is arguably more honest than previous campaigns that present Claude as a tool for tinkerers and problem solvers.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday, July 15, that it is now mandatory for all service members age 30 and older to test their testosterone levels every year. Younger service members have the option to get tested too. 

Hegseth said in a video titled "The High T Department of War” that service members found to have “testosterone deficiency” could choose to receive testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). Hegseth said he had authorized the screenings to ensure that service members “have the right testosterone levels” to operate at their “absolute best.” 

“This initiative—it’s not about artificial enhancement, it’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight,” Hegseth said in the video.

He didn’t specify if female service members would also be screened and have access to TRT. The Pentagon told TIME that it had no additional information to provide beyond Hegseth’s video and a department statement containing similar information. 

Doctors specializing in men’s health are divided as to whether people who don’t have symptoms of low testosterone should be tested for the condition. Many doctors also urge men to be cautious about taking TRT, which can stall sperm production and cause infertility. 

“There’s no free lunch. There are side effects,” says Dr. Jeff Morrison, a urologist at the University of Colorado. “If you are interested in further fertility, then TRT is probably not a good option.”

Morrison says he ensures that his patients—particularly younger men in their 30s and 40s—are counseled about TRT’s potential adverse effects, which also include an increased risk of blood clots, acne, breast tenderness, and irritability. TRT is also generally considered a long-term or lifelong treatment.

Hegseth didn’t mention TRT’s side effects or the long-term nature of the treatment in the video, and he did not discuss alternative interventions, such as lifestyle changes, that can raise testosterone levels. 

Morrison says he always recommends lifestyle changes to his patients with low testosterone before turning to TRT. Improving sleep, losing weight, and reducing stress are among the interventions that can boost testosterone levels, Morrison says. 

But some symptomatic people do need TRT to raise their testosterone to normal levels, and for them, the treatment can “truly be life-changing," Morrison says. “Men don’t deserve to suffer from low testosterone. But they have to be properly counseled on the risks and benefits of therapy.”

Testosterone is an essential hormone which, in men, is produced primarily in the testicles and helps regulate sex drive, sperm production, bone density, and muscle mass. Most men experience a gradual decline in testosterone starting in their late 30s or early 40s. 

But medical guidelines don’t recommend testing testosterone levels unless a man has signs or symptoms that suggest a deficiency, such as low libido, erectile dysfunction, and anemia, or has a high-risk medical condition that can cause low testosterone such as HIV.

“It’s not recommended by the American Urological Association or the Endocrine Society to routinely screen people,” says Dr. Ajay Nangia, professor of urology at the University of Kansas Health System. Primary care doctors do not routinely test men's testosterone levels. “The recommendation by Mr. Hegseth goes against these guidelines.”

But some doctors say that screening all men over age 30, including those without symptoms, could provide important health insights.

“There is no better marker for overall health for men than testosterone,” says Dr. Mohit Khera, professor of urology at Baylor College of Medicine. “Men with low testosterone are more likely to have heart attacks and strokes, diabetes, obesity, and depression. It is not just about sex.”

Low testosterone is often a signal that something is amiss in the body, says Khera. “Low T is like having the check engine light on. Maybe you’re stressed or having poor sleep or had a recent illness.” In some cases, the cause could be a disease such as cancer or a pituitary disorder.

People in the military are at increased risk of low testosterone because of the stress and rigors of the job, says Khera. Low testosterone is a common feature of Operator Syndrome, a medical phenomenon characterizing the unique stresses of being in the military, which doctors are now seeking to understand. 

Testing testosterone levels at a younger age could provide someone with a baseline number to which they could compare as they grow older, Khera says. The bigger the drop in testosterone over time, the more pronounced the negative effects, he says.

But while Khera supports screening, he said he worries about inappropriate use of TRT.

“I wouldn’t treat someone with TRT if they weren’t symptomatic” or had normal testosterone levels, says Khera, who helped publish seminal research on TRT and in 2025 led a U.S. Food and Drug Administration expert panel on the treatment. “They would be stuck on it for life, so you want it to be done properly.” .

“I’m not in the business of optimization,” he adds. “I don’t believe in taking someone who is normal to super-normal. I believe in helping someone who is truly low and has symptoms.” 

TRT was previously thought to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but newer research, including a large 2023 study that Khera co-authored, has refuted that idea.

The treatment has surged in popularity in recent years among men seeking to optimize their health, including influencers and celebrities such as Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, and Dax Shepard. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has said he takes TRT as part of his anti-aging routine.

Citing new research, HHS said in June that it is seeking to remove limits on the use of TRT products in men with age-related low testosterone and revise product warning labels related to heart and prostate cancer risks. TRT products in the U.S. are currently only FDA-approved for men who lack or have low testosterone levels linked to an associated medical condition.

It’s Oppenheimer all over again. Christoper Nolan's The Odyssey ends with Matt Damon’s Odysseus, much like the father of the atomic bomb millennia later, wracked with guilt for conjuring something that destroyed not just one city but, in his mind, an entire civilization: the Trojan Horse. In creating the vessel in which the Greeks hid to penetrate the walls of Troy and massacre its citizens to ultimately win the war, Odysseus believes he violated what characters throughout the movie refer to as “Zeus’ Law.” In doing so, he then gave tacit permission for others throughout the Mediterranean to break the rules that long held this ancient civilization together. But to understand Odysseus’ guilt, his exile, and the collapse of the Bronze Age at the end of the movie, you first have to understand xenia, the Ancient Greek concept of hospitality.

The origins of xenia

Characters in The Odyssey frequently mention “Zeus’ Law,” which at one point Telemachus (Tom Holland) uses to explain why all guests in their household, even his mother’s bawdy suitors who have taken up residence in Odysseus’ absence, must be treated well in case they are gods disguised as men. Telemachus and Penelope (Anne Hathaway), at other moments, basically define the law as the Golden Rule: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

In the Bronze Age, xenia was crucial in a civilization made up of islands. Traveling away from one’s homeland often meant being battered by the seas and landing on foreign soil seeking food, water, and respite. The ancient Greeks lived by a code: If a stranger showed up at your house, you must offer them hospitality—things like wine, food, and no chance of murder or injury while under the host’s roof. The guest, in turn, must treat the host kindly. If everyone followed this rule, which was tied closely to the Greeks’ religious beliefs, it would prevent a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. 

In the starkest terms, a person’s goodness in ancient Greek texts is in part defined by their willingness to play host: Telemachus is noble because he takes in strangers and beggars and feeds them; the suitors are not because they kick and mock those they deem beneath them. The Trojan War, according to Greek myth, begins because of a violation of xenia: the Trojan prince Paris, while staying as a guest in the Greek king Menelaus’ house, steals away his host’s wife, Helen. The Greeks’ invasion of Troy is a reaction to that violation. (Though, as Damon’s Odysseus points out in the film, Helen’s abduction is largely used as an excuse for Menelaus’ power-hungry brother, Agamemnon, to raid the rich city of Troy.) And characters throughout the story talk warily about the “Sea People,” pirates who do not obey “Zeus’ Law.” Historians theorize that, among several other factors, these sea peoples plundering the Mediterranean helped usher in a Dark Age where the ability to read and write was lost in Ancient Greece.

How Christopher Nolan weaves xenia into The Odyssey

Xenia is crucial to The Odyssey in general, but particularly to Nolan’s interpretation of the story. In Nolan’s telling, Odysseus believes that he essentially put an end to the practice of xenia by thinking up the trick of the Trojan horse, a treacherous gift that allowed the Greeks to invade Troy after spending 10 years on the beach unable to breach the walls of the great city. When the Greeks finally got inside, they raped and pillaged. They desecrated temples, took priestesses as sex slaves, and committed acts of immeasurable cruelty. Though it’s not shown in The Odyssey, Achilles’ son Neoptolemus tore Hector’s baby son Astyanax from his mother’s arms and threw him from the city walls. 

The myth goes that Athena favored the Greeks, and particularly Odysseus, throughout the Trojan War. But she was displeased with their violations in the sack of the city, which led in part to the woes that the Greeks met on the way home (along with the anger of Poseidon and Zeus at other violations like poking out the eye of the cyclops Polyphemus and eating the Sun God’s cattle). 

In Nolan’s movie, that cruelty haunts Odysseus, who seems to be suffering from not merely PTSD, but deep guilt over the death and suffering that he has brought down on both civilian Trojans and his own men. He often manifests Athena (in the form of Zendaya) and speaks with her, but later we discover that the woman he sees is not a goddess at all but in fact a priestess in the temple of Athena who was murdered during the sack of Troy. She is the symbol of all the cruelty he witnessed his men committing. 

It matters little whether the gods do not exist at all and Odysseus is just externalizing his guilt, or Athena really was angered over the desecration at Troy. The point is that, much like Nolan’s last subject, the godfather of the nuclear bomb Robert J. Oppenheimer, Odysseus cannot stand the fact that he is responsible for unleashing chaos and cruelty. They are both overcome with guilt. In Odysseus’ case, he avoids returning home because of that guilt, afraid of the world he’ll find where xenia no longer exists and filled with shame at having to face his family after committing atrocious acts. And his fears are realized when he returns to find a land where xenia is no longer observed—the suitors abuse strangers and take advantage of their hosts, Penelope and Telemachus. It feels almost as if Odysseus’ violation of the codes of ethics have given these men permission to harm his own family.

Throughout the film, we do get hints that this credo is falling apart. Polyphemus doesn’t respect xenia when he eats his guests, Odysseus’ men. Circe, too, disobeys the code, turning Odysseus’ men into pigs. But she explains that she is only doing so in self-defense, anticipating Odysseus’ crew’s own violation of the rule. By transforming them into swine, she is revealing their true nature—that they would have raped her, stolen from her, hurt her if given the chance. Circe, who is blessed with some powers of insight, turns out to be right. We see in flashbacks many of Odysseus’ men committing heinous and violent acts in Troy. And it is heavily implied that Odysseus’ ally Menelaus purposefully scarred his wife Helen’s face after the Trojan War both as a punishment and so that no man would be tempted to steal her again. 

At the end of the film, Odysseus admits that it is his men who are the Sea People—or perhaps all Greek men are. Law and order is falling apart, and he believes it’s all his fault. In fact, the mythical character of Odysseus does not deserve the blame. Most historians believe that Troy did exist, and the city was destroyed by warfare and fire. In all likelihood, the legends of those battles, passed down through song, grew into myth, hence how the character of Odysseus was probably born. And a dark age really did follow that war in which the ability to read and write was lost. Popular archeologist Eric H. Cline has theorized that many factors contributed to the period of roughly 50 years (c. 1200–1150 BCE) in which almost every major civilization in the region collapsed in rapid succession. Those reasons include the so-called Sea People—migrating groups who attacked Egypt and other coastal civilizations—as well as drought; climate change; a disruption of trade networks; earthquakes; and internal rebellions.

Nolan’s new ending for The Odyssey

Nolan changes the ending of The Odyssey from the text. According to Homer, after Odysseus arrived home and avenged himself by killing the suitors, he left again to do the gods’ bidding and honor his fallen men. But he did so alone. (And, because the Greeks had some truly bizarre preoccupations with the relationships between children and their parents, the myth gets even weirder. In other stories, Odysseus is accidentally killed by Telegonus, the son he unknowingly fathered with Circe. Telegonus goes on to marry Penelope. And Odysseus’ son with Penelope, Telemachus, marries Circe. Wild stuff!) 

The film version sees Odysseus exiled for his murder of the suitors, but he leaves with Penelope, as they once dreamed of doing when Odysseus was initially called to serve in the Trojan War. On the boat, they speak of the impending end of the Bronze Age and how their exploits will be sung about because the ability to write will be lost during the dark age. It’s a fascinating historical lens through which to reframe the myth—and also a much more romantic ending. We love a couple sailing off into the sunset. At the very least, it makes for a much more satisfying conclusion than the mom-swapping marriage of ancient lore.