Purposefully Malicious

I try to avoid writing about specific culture war issues. This is partly cowardice on my part — I've been burned by the online mob — and also a bit of "I'm above it all" vanity. Mostly, though, culture war topics are boring.

It's not that I don't care or hold any positions. It's just that writing involves a lot of solitary hours spent reading your own words, and that's only fun if they sound unique and clever. Impossible when the culture war has already been covered from every conceivable angle, as well as several nonsense ones.

Occasionally, however, the wheel turns in such a way that it's both in my area of expertise and too interesting to ignore. That happened recently when Elon Musk's AI offering went bizarrely bonkers about white genocide in South Africa. I'll state no position — the Rainbow Nation has elected representatives, mass media and a flourishing commentariat to speak for it. What interests me is the way the AI behaved.

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