Storm clouds are gathering overhead

SBF off to jail, Snapchat AI

Author

Christian Duvall
August 18, 2023

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Here’s what we got for you:

  • SBF is finally heading to jail

  • Is Snapchat AI alive?

  • Links and whatnot

Sam-Bankman Fried – bail revoked, off to jail

What an amazing villain arc this dude took, right?

He had almost everyone fooled. A guy who was seen as too big of a doofus to premeditate massive financial crimes.

I wouldn’t have trusted this guy around paste in Kindergarten

Despite the early suspicion mounting against him, even some of the smartest guys I know said things akin to, “No one who wears sneakers like that was intentionally ripping anyone off” and “he’s not evil, just greedy.”

This act seemed to have got him a lot of freedom otherwise not afforded the modern criminal. House arrest in mommy’s basement, access to video games and the Internet (for a bit), and even monitored texting and calling.

Somehow, he still managed to leak his ex’s diary in what appears to be an attempt to throw her under the bus.

“By selectively sharing certain private documents with the New York Times, the defendant is attempting to discredit a witness, cast Ellison in a poor light, and advance his defense through the press and outside the constraints of the courtroom and rules of evidence: that Ellison was a jilted lover who perpetrated these crimes alone.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon

He also tried to use Signal to reach out to potential witnesses in the case, possibly to ingratiate himself or even coerce them to be unwilling to testify.

Well, it looks like he’s heading straight to the MDC – the jail that housed Ghislaine Maxwell before she was sent to prison for 20 years for sex trafficking to apparently no one, which is excuse enough for me to drop this image.

I can’t find the original source for this, but…kudos.

I am very much looking forward to the trial, which is set to begin on October 2 - it promises to be very entertaining. Share our subscription link with a few friends so you have something to talk about over brunch.

Snapchat AI has become sentient

Ok, that was a little bit of a hyperbole, but it did start doing more weird stuff this week.

You may ask yourself, “why is this news?” – just like I am asking myself this very second.

But if you Google “Snapchat AI”, you’ll find dozens of mainstream media outlets reporting on what amounts to be a bug (or an pre-release feature that got accidentally turned on).

We seem to be out of the “peak paranoia” phase and the media is looking to drum up any little bit of hype it can to keep the dream alive.

As to those still worried about this thing having human-levels of intelligence and consciousness, I think you can sleep safely for at least one more night.

At the end of the day, this is just an implementation of ChatGPT that has access to a few more toys. It’s not asking for help and definitely isn’t getting close to taking over the world. TMFRT is not real.

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