Each of comedian Julio Torres’ projects has spoken to his ability to tell stories that are shaped by both his distinct imagination and a deep understanding of the hyperspecific idiosyncrasies that make odd people interesting. In SNL sketches like “Wells For Boys,” and his short-lived HBO series Los Espookys, Torres created windows into absurdist worlds meant to seem like places you might only visit in your dreams. But with A24’s Problemista — which he wrote, directed, and stars in — Torres uses his creative powers to paint a picture whose beauty is rooted in how real and emotionally honest it feels.
Technology
A24’s Problemista is a surreal fairy tale about finding the people who truly see you
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25333844/https___cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_f74e84a9da30937501ad1471d2b1316c3eb76929_6000x3600.jpg "A24’s Problemista is a surreal fairy tale about finding the people who truly see you")
Inspired by Torres’ own experience immigrating to the US, Problemista tells the story of Alejandro, an aspiring toymaker from El Salvador who travels to America in hopes of fulfilling his dreams of working for Hasbro. As the only child born to artist Dolores (Catalina Saavedra), Alejandro grows up experiencing their small pocket of the world as a magical, vibrant place that nourishes his unique imagination. When a young Alejandro (Logan J. Alarcon-Poucel) wishes for a life-size, castle-like playhouse where he can contemplate his feelings, Dolores uses her talents to make his dream real — not just because she can but also because she wants him to understand that he, too, is capable of transforming ideas into reality.
Dolores also wants Alejandro to know that she’ll always love him and support his choices, which her dreams tell her will one day lead him to great things. But when the time finally comes for Alejandro to set out on his own, Dolores cannot help but feel like she’s sending him off into a world that isn’t good enough for a soul as sensitive as his.
Through both Katie Byron’s impeccably offbeat production design and voiceover narration from Isabella Rossellini, Problemista clues you into how, more than being a simple chronicle of Alejandro’s journey to America, it’s really a kind of fairy tale about a profoundly sensitive and sheltered man discovering what it means to chase one’s passions.
Getting to New York City and finding a place to stay are important steps on Alejandro’s path to Hasbro, where he hopes his ideas for social-media-obsessed Cabbage Patch Kids and psychologically manipulative Barbies might land him an entry-level gig. Hopes don’t exactly pay the bills, though. And as an immigrant, Alejandro’s ability to stay in the US is contingent upon finding a job willing to sponsor him before his time runs out. It’s necessity more than anything else that leads to Alejandro working at a cryogenics startup specializing in deep-freezing artists like Bobby (RZA) who want to wake up centuries into the future. But it seems to be fate that introduces Alejandro to Bobby’s ferociously belligerent art critic wife Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton) the very same afternoon he’s fired.
While the whimsical atmosphere of playfulness that Problemista leads with never really fades away, it becomes much more unhinged once Elizabeth enters the picture with a proposal for Alejandro to become her newest in a seemingly long line of overworked assistants. In Elizabeth — a living reality distortion field whose fuse is as short as her outfits are loud — Alejando can see a woman in mourning who ultimately wants to be seen and heard more than she actually wants to fight. But shouting is Elizabeth’s default mode, and while most people experience her rageful outbursts as ordinary temper tantrums, Alejandro visualizes them as a series of battles between a bloodthirsty monster and her helpless victims.
Though Problemista’s flights of fancy bring a levity to the film, their strength lies in how powerfully they illustrate the more complex, serious ideas Torres is exploring with his script, like the ways in which the US’s visa system makes it extraordinarily difficult for immigrants to build new lives and thrive in the country. Dealing with Elizabeth and her quest to track down a series of Bobby’s egg-focused paintings is its own kind of hell that would make anyone want to dissociate. But it pales in comparison to the anxiety Alejandro lives with knowing that he’s just days away from being deported.
Even with sympathetic case workers like Khalil (Laith Nakli) rooting for him, without money, there’s no way for Alejandro to escape from the immigration system’s never-ending fees or the overdraft charges that plague his bank account. And the more time Alejandro spends trying to navigate the unfairly designed maze of near-poverty, the more he finds himself turning to the embodiment of Craigslist (Larry Owen) to find extra low-paying side hustles.
Problemista quietly weaves many of its narrative threads together in clever ways — Elizabeth is the cave-dwelling monster who haunts Dolores’ dreams, for example, and the critic’s power to will things into existence (by bullying people) reminds Alejandro of his mother’s knack for translating rough sketches into three-dimensional works of art.
But the film sometimes feels more like an ensemble of complementary stories rather than a singular narrative (which isn’t necessarily a knock against) because of how much time the film spends with side characters, pulling the focus away from Alejandro. Together, Swinton and Torres are a storm of delightful eccentricities that belie their characters’ shared yet distinct emotional vulnerabilities. As Alejandro and Elizabeth grow closer, Problemista’s forays into the absurd become even more intense and fantastical to emphasize how they represent the truth of what something is.
Those truths are often so terrifying that people don’t want to see them. But Problemista emphasizes how healing it can be to confront them through art and by trying to build meaningful connections with others even when the task seems impossible.
Problemista also stars Greta Lee, Spike Einbinder, Kelly McCormack, Megan Stalter, Charlene Incarnate, Martine Gutierrez, and Carlos E. Navedo. The film hits theaters nationwide on March 22nd.
Continue Reading
Thanks to the legal discovery process, Google’s antitrust trial with the Department of Justice has provided a fascinating glimpse into the future of ChatGPT.
An internal OpenAI strategy document titled “ChatGPT: H1 2025 Strategy” describes the company’s aspiration to build an “AI super assistant that deeply understands you and is your interface to the internet.” Although the document is heavily redacted in parts, it reveals that OpenAI aims for ChatGPT to soon develop into much more than a chatbot.
“In the first half of next year, we’ll start evolving ChatGPT into a super-assistant: one that knows you, understands what you care about, and helps with any task that a smart, trustworthy, emotionally intelligent person with a computer could do,” reads the document from late 2024. “The timing is right. Models like 02 and 03 are finally smart enough to reliably perform agentic tasks, tools like computer use can boost ChatGPT’s ability to take action, and interaction paradigms like multimodality and generative UI allow both ChatGPT and users to express themselves in the best way for the task.”
The document goes on to describe a “super assistant” as “an intelligent entity with T-shaped skills” for both widely applicable and niche tasks. “The broad part is all about making life easier: answering a question, finding a home, contacting a lawyer, joining a gym, planning vacations, buying gifts, managing calendars, keeping track of todos, sending emails.” It mentions coding as an early example of a more niche task.
Even when reading around the redactions, it’s clear that OpenAI sees hardware as essential to its future, and that it wants people to think of ChatGPT as not just a tool, but a companion. This tracks with Sam Altman recently saying that young people are using ChatGPT like a “ life advisor.”
“Today, ChatGPT is in our lives through existing form factors — our website, phone, and desktop apps,” another part of the strategy document reads. “But our vision for ChatGPT is to help you with all of your life, no matter where you are. At home, it should help answer questions, play music, and suggest recipes. On the go, it should help you get to places, find the best restaurants, or catch up with friends. At work, it should help you take meeting notes, or prepare for the big presentation. And on solo walks, it should help you reflect and wind down.”
At the same time, OpenAI finds itself in a wobbly position. Its infrastructure isn’t able to handle ChatGPT’s rising usage, which explains Altman’s focus on building data centers. In a section of the document describing AI chatbot competition, the company writes that “we are leading here, but we can’t rest,” and that “growth and revenue won’t line up forever.”
It acknowledges that there are “powerful incumbents who will leverage their distribution to advantage their own products,” and states that OpenAI will advocate for regulation that requires other platforms to allow people to set ChatGPT as the default assistant. (Coincidentally, Apple is rumored to soon let iOS users also select Google’s Gemini for Siri queries. Meta AI just hit one billion users as well, thanks mostly to its many hooks in Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.)
“We have what we need to win: one of the fastest-growing products of all time, a category-defining brand, a research lead (reasoning, multimodal), a compute lead, a world-class research team, and an increasing number of effective people with agency who are motivated to ship,” the OpenAI document states. “We don’t rely on ads, giving us flexibility on what to build. Our culture values speed, bold moves, and self-disruption. Maintaining these advantages is hard work but, if we do, they will last for a while.”
- Apple chickens out: For the first time in a decade, Apple won’t have its execs participate in John Gruber’s annual post-WWDC live podcast. Gruber recently wrote the viral “something is rotten in the state of Cupertino” essay, which was widely discussed in Apple circles. Although he hasn’t publicly connected that critical piece to the company backing out of his podcast, it’s easy to see the throughline. It says a lot about the state of Apple when its leaders don’t even want to participate in what has historically been a friendly forum.
- Elon was high: As Elon Musk attempts to reframe the public’s view of him by doing interviews about SpaceX, The New York Times reports that last year, he was taking so much ketamine that it “was affecting his bladder.” He also reportedly “traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall.” Both Musk and the White House have had multiple opportunities to directly refute this report, and they have not. Now, Musk is at least partially stepping away from DOGE along with key lieutenants like Steve Davis. DOGE may be a failure based on Musk’s own stated hopes for spending cuts, but his closeness to Trump has certainly helped rescue X from financial ruin and grown SpaceX’s business. Now, the more difficult work begins: saving Tesla.
“The way we do ranking is sacrosanct to us.” – Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Decoder, explaining why the company’s search results won’t be changed for President Trump or anyone else.
“Compared to previous technology changes, I’m a little bit more worried about the labor impact… Yes, people will adapt, but they may not adapt fast enough.” – Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on CNN raising the alarm about the technology he is developing.
“Meta is a very different company than it was nine years ago when they fired me.” – Anduril founder Palmer Luckey telling Ashlee Vance why he is linking up with Mark Zuckerberg to make headsets for the military.
- The flattening of Meta’s AI organization has taken effect, with VP Ahmad Al-Dahle no longer overseeing the entire group. Now, he co-leads “AGI Foundations” with Amir Frenkel, VP of engineering, while Connor Hayes runs all AI products. All three men now report to Meta CPO Chris Cox, who has diplomatically framed the changes as a way to “give each org more ownership.”
- Xbox co-founder J Allard is leading a new ‘breakthrough’ devices group at Amazon called ZeroOne. One of the devices will be smart home-related, according to job listings.
- C.J. Mahoney, a former Trump administration official, is being promoted to general counsel at Microsoft, which has also hired Lisa Monaco from the last Biden administration to lead global policy.
- Reed Hastings is joining the board of Anthropic “because I believe in their approach to AI development, and to help humanity progress.” (He’s joining Anthropic’s corporate board, not the supervising board of its public benefit trust that can hire and fire corporate directors.)
- Sebastian Barrios, previously SVP at Mercado Libre, is joining Roblox as SVP of engineering for several areas, including ads, game discovery, and the company’s virtual currency work.
- Fidji Simo’s replacement at Instacart will be chief business officer Chris Rogers, who will become the company’s next CEO on August 15th after she officially joins OpenAI.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to The Verge, which includes unlimited access to Command Line and all of our reporting.
As always, I welcome your feedback, especially if you have thoughts on this issue or a story idea to share. You can respond here or ping me securely on Signal.
So, you want to start making money using AI but you’re not trying to build Skynet or learn 15 coding languages first? Good, because neither am I. You don’t need to become the next Sam Altman or have a Ph.D. in machine learning to turn artificial intelligence into real income. What you do need is curiosity, a dash of creativity, and the right prompts.
💸 Enter to win $500 for you and $500 for your favorite person or charity in our Pay It Forward Sweepstakes. Hurry, ends soon!
I’ve pulled together five powerful, practical prompts you can throw into ChatGPT (or your AI tool of choice) to help you start earning extra cash this week. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams or $10K-a-month YouTube ad schemes. They’re doable, even if your calendar is already packed.
5-MINUTE CLEANUP FOR YOUR PHONE AND COMPUTER
Let’s get to it.
1. Fast-Track Your Freelance Life
Prompt to use:
“Act as a freelance business coach. Suggest 3 services I can offer on Fiverr or Upwork using AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney or Canva. I have [insert skill: writing/design/admin/accounting/managerial] experience.”
Why this works:
Freelance work is exploding right now. Platforms like Upwork and Fiverr are filled with small businesses and entrepreneurs who need help—but don’t have the budget to hire full-time staff. If you’ve got any kind of professional background, you can use AI tools to turbocharge your services. Writing blog posts? ChatGPT can give you a draft. Creating logos or social media templates? Midjourney and Canva are your new best friends.
You don’t need a team. You don’t need fancy software. You just need a good prompt and the confidence to say, “Yes, I can do that.” AI helps you scale what you already know how to do.
A man is pictured with a smartphone and laptop computer on January 31, 2019. (Neil Godwin/Future via Getty Images)
2. Make Product Descriptions Sexy Again
Prompt to use:
“Rewrite this Etsy or Shopify product description to make it more compelling and SEO-friendly. Target audience: [insert group]. Here’s the original: [paste description].”
Why this works:
Let’s face it—most product descriptions online are a snooze. But good copy sells. Whether you’re running your own shop or helping someone else with theirs, compelling product descriptions convert clicks into customers. Use ChatGPT to punch up the language, fine-tune for SEO, and speak directly to your ideal buyer.
DON’T SCAM YOURSELF WITH THE TRICKS HACKERS DON’T WANT ME TO SHARE
Remember: people don’t just want to buy a weird mug. They want to buy what it says about them. That’s where a smart rewrite can turn browsers into buyers.
3. Social Posts That Sell
Prompt to use:
“Create 5 attention-grabbing Instagram captions to promote this [product/service]. Keep the tone [fun, confident, expert] and include a strong call to action.”
Why this works:
We live in a scroll-happy world. Your social captions need to grab attention in less than three seconds. But not everyone’s a copywriter—and not everyone has time to be. AI can help you crank out engaging content in the tone and style that fits your brand. Add a great photo, post consistently, and you’re suddenly a one-person content agency without the overhead (or endless Zoom meetings).
A photo taken on October 4, 2023 in Manta, near Turin, shows a smartphone and a laptop displaying the logos of the artificial intelligence OpenAI research company and ChatGPT chatbot. (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
If you’re managing social for clients or your own biz, this prompt is gold. Use it to build content calendars, write reels scripts, or even draft ad copy.
4. Polite Emails That Save You Money
Prompt to use:
“Write a short, polite email to ask for a lower rate or discount on [tool/service/platform]. Mention that I’m a loyal customer comparing alternatives.”
Why this works:
Negotiating discounts doesn’t always feel comfortable but it absolutely works. Companies often have unpublished deals, especially for longtime users or small businesses. And customer service reps? They’re human beings. A kind, well-written email might be all it takes to get a discount on that software you’re using every month.
20 TECH TRICKS TO MAKE LIFE BETTER, SAFER OR EASIER
I’ve personally saved hundreds of dollars just by sending quick, respectful emails like this. AI can help you strike the perfect tone confident but kind, assertive but not pushy.
5. Your Passive Income Kit
Prompt to use:
“Give me 3 high-demand, low-competition ideas for a short e-book or low-content book I can sell on Amazon. I have experience in [insert topic].”
Why this works:
You have knowledge people want. Package it. Sell it. Repeat. Whether it’s a short guide on starting a backyard garden or a workbook for productivity hacks, e-books and low-content books (like journals or planners) sell surprisingly well. And AI can help you brainstorm ideas, outline chapters, even draft content to polish up.
In this photo illustration the logo of Apple Mail Programme Mail can be seen on a smartphone next to a finger on March 27, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo Illustration by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)
Upload it to Amazon KDP or Gumroad, and now you’ve got a digital product that can earn money in your sleep. People pay for convenience, and you have life experience worth sharing.
Final Thought
You don’t need to master AI to start earning with it. You just need to start using it. These five prompts are a low-risk, high-potential way to get your feet wet. And if you need a hand turning these sparks into something bigger, I’m here.
I built my multimillion-dollar business with no investors and no debt. I’ve done this without a big team or expensive consultants. And I’d love to help you do the same.
Drop me a note. I read every one.
Get tech-smarter on your schedule
Award-winning host Kim Komando is your secret weapon for navigating tech.
Copyright 2025, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Two years after legal proceedings began, the SEC has formally dropped its lawsuit against Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. It was one of the US government’s final ongoing actions against crypto companies.
Lawyers for the SEC and Binance jointly moved to dismiss the case in a filing on Thursday. It follows a 60-day pause requested by both parties in February. The case has been dismissed with prejudice, meaning the SEC can’t pursue it again. “We’re deeply grateful to [SEC] Chairman Paul Atkins and the Trump administration for recognizing that innovation can’t thrive under regulation by enforcement,” Binance told Reuters in a statement, calling the dismissal “a landmark moment.”
The SEC sued Binance in 2023, accusing it, and founder Changpeng Zhao, of operating an illegal exchange in the US and defrauding investors, along with a string of other offenses. Binance settled a separate case with the Department of Justice in 2023, which saw the company agree to pay $4.3 billion in fines. Zhao himself stepped down from the company and pled guilty to breaking anti-money-laundering laws, paying $50 million in personal fines and serving a four-month prison sentence.
The SEC dismissal is the latest sign of the Trump administration’s embrace of the cryptocurrency industry. In April it disbanded a DOJ unit dedicated to enforcing cryptocurrency fraud, and already this year the SEC has dropped investigations into both Coinbase and Robinhood. Meanwhile Trump has bolstered the crypto industry by launching a Crypto Strategic Reserve and hosting a private dinner for those willing to back (or short) his own $TRUMP meme coin.
West6 seconds ago
FBI to probe claims of 'targeted violence' against religious groups after evangelicals' protest in Seattle
Midwest7 minutes ago
Ohio teen dies after falling off float at Memorial Day parade
Southwest15 minutes ago
Texas doctor sentenced to 10 years in prison in one of the ‘most significant’ cases of patient harm
Southeast22 minutes ago
Body of missing father of five found in Georgia lake after kayaking trip
Detroit, MI3 hours ago
2025 Detroit Grand Prix: Full list of drivers for IndyCar and Indy NXT races
-
Education1 week agoVideo: Columbia University President Is Booed at Commencement Ceremony
-
Technology1 week agoAre Character AI’s chatbots protected speech? One court isn’t sure
-
News1 week agoRead the Full ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Report
-
Culture1 week agoHow Manga Megastar Junji Ito Makes Terrifying Series Like ‘Uzumaki’
-
Technology1 week agoNow you can watch the Internet Archive preserve documents in real time
-
Technology1 week agoDiscord might use AI to help you catch up on conversations
-
News1 week agoVideo: Trump Repeats False Claims to South African President
-
Science1 week agoTrump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades