"engulfed in messianic delusions..."

in

via Futurism

Her husband, she said, had no prior history of mania, delusion, or psychosis. He'd turned to ChatGPT about 12 weeks ago for assistance with a permaculture and construction project; soon, after engaging the bot in probing philosophical chats, he became engulfed in messianic delusions, proclaiming that he had somehow brought forth a sentient AI, and that with it he had "broken" math and physics, embarking on a grandiose mission to save the world. His gentle personality faded as his obsession deepened, and his behavior became so erratic that he was let go from his job. He stopped sleeping and rapidly lost weight.

"He was like, 'just talk to [ChatGPT]. You'll see what I'm talking about,'" his wife recalled. "And every time I'm looking at what's going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t."

Eventually, the husband slid into a full-tilt break with reality. Realizing how bad things had become, his wife and a friend went out to buy enough gas to make it to the hospital. When they returned, the husband had a length of rope wrapped around his neck

Villeneuve + Bond, part two

in

Finding this bit interesting. Can’t help but wonder if they’re following a pre-McQuarrie MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE formula, with a different director helming their own style of film. A more anthology-esque, continuity-be-damned approach could be rather refreshing.

Puck’s Matt Belloni is reporting that Villeneuve’s leap into the Bond-verse is going to be a one-off affair. Additionally, he won’t have final cut on the film and isn’t locked in for any sequels, spin-offs, or streaming offshoots. Still, there are hints that the new regime, headed by Amy Pascal and David Heyman, isn’t interested in micromanaging auteurs into studio yes-men.

That said, Villeneuve’s leash here is notably short. No final cut. No creative continuity beyond this one film. Amazon doesn’t want to hand over the entire sandbox after just one movie, a trend we’ve seen across the industry as studios grow wary of directors planting long-term flags in valuable IP.

a few stray thoughts on recent comics

in

While every title in the Absolute DC line is fantastic, Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez's ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER is my favorite by far. Insanely good; invention pours off the page... At this point, I'm reading DAREDEVIL solely out of my love for the character - no matter how much I love seeing the black armored costume again: Ahmed's run is readable at best and moderately painful at worst; ideal team: Chris Condon and Montos from GREEN ARROW but please keep them on GA too because it's so good and it's nice to read GREEN ARROW again... ... ASSORTED CRISIS EVENTS is at the top of the to-read stack every month (and Camp's THE ULTIMATES is my favorite of the line which makes sense given that he's writing ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER which brings me full circle to....