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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

Elizabeth Lopatto is a senior writer at The Verge, where she covers how the internet is changing how we think about money: cryptocurrency, business, fintech and Elon Musk for some reason. She joined the site in 2014, as science editor, then deputy editor running science, transportation and social media, before she got tired of being an authority figure and went back to blogging.

More From Elizabeth Lopatto

Spotify’s terrible privacy settings just leaked Palmer Luckey’s bops and bangersSpotify’s terrible privacy settings just leaked Palmer Luckey’s bops and bangers
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Elizabeth Lopatto
Fortune throws its hat into the obituary slop ring.

Blackstone’s Wesley LePatner, 43, died yesterday in a mass shooting. Bloomberg wrote her a real obit (and says she’s 43, as do The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal); Fortune generated some AI slop that says she’s 44. As of this writing, the Fortune obit also contained the following paragraph:

New York Rep. Ritchie Torres posted on social media that LePatner “represented the very best of New York.” Calling her a “distinguished professional,” he honored her sense of civics, as a “. She left a lasting impact wherever she went: as a senior executive at Blackstone, a “devoted congregant” at the Altneu synagogue and a dedicated board member at the Heschel School.

Guess Fortune has decided to compete with the obituary spammers. “An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing,” the note about AI use reads.

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An in-depth profile of Luke Farritor, 23-year-old IT Renfield.

“Luke’s résumé didn’t pass muster,” says one former government official, but obviously that doesn’t matter to DOGE. Farritor is “designated a GS-15, the highest salary rank for civilians, earning $167,603,” Bloomberg reports. He’s chauffeured around in a black SUV. And he’s betting that even if DOGE is a failure, he’s written his ticket for life: “To gamble like that shows you understand the theater of Silicon Valley.”

DOGE-Pilled

[bloomberg.com]

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A crypto tycoon and a VC funded an experiment to literally block sunlight in California.

A University of Washington experiment with “a machine to create clouds” was shut down by the city of Alameda — because the scientists didn’t bother to tell the locals what they were up to, Politico writes. They were 20 minutes into the test when city officials ended the experiment.

Donors to the Marine Cloud Brightening Program include “cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, the philanthropist Rachel Pritzker and Chris Sacca, a venture capitalist.” Can’t wait to find out what new conspiracy theories this spawns!

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I just wanted to do a little media criticism!

I appeared on On the Media to discuss our story about the Anime Nazi who allegedly hacks universities. I explain why the identity of the alleged hacker is important, why the Times’ obfuscation of its sources is troubling, and what’s at stake in the Republican war on higher education: upward mobility.

This ‘violently racist’ hacker claims to be the source of The New York Times’ Mamdani scoop

They say Columbia is just one of five universities they’ve penetrated.

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Sickos.jpg

My longstanding personal obsession, Rupert Murdoch, is getting sued by Donald Trump for the story The Wall Street Journal ran yesterday about a letter to noted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

I imagine this will get either thrown out entirely or settled — Murdoch often settles — but truth is an absolute defense in a defamation case. The WSJ isn’t Fox News. It’s Murdoch’s crown jewel — one he refused to tamper with, even when it cost him a $125 million investment. A settlement could permanently damage the paper’s reputation. Who ya got?

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Welcome back to the new season of the Trump show.

We’ve talked before about the funhouse-mirror-alternative-reality that Trump (and Musk) have built. JP Brammer, who watches much more YouTube than I do, notes something weird is going on in content land — it seems Donald Trump has lost control of the plot. NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny, writing from a more anxious angle, seems to agree. Content has now outpaced reality. I guess we’re going to find out by how much.

May the Beast You Rode in on Eat You Alive

[johnpaulbrammer.substack.com]

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Elizabeth Lopatto
How about Jeffrey Epstein and AI?

After The Wall Street Journal’s scoop last night on Epstein’s relationship with Donald Trump, I was inspired to go look at some old stories about the sex criminal’s buddies.

On reread, one thing stuck out to me: how close Epstein was to the pioneers, commercializers, and money men of AI. The WSJ scoop suggests there are still new stories out there; I wonder what’s lurking in the field of artificial intelligence — surely I am not the only person who’d like to learn more.

The Columbia hack is a much bigger deal than Mamdani’s college application

A hacker has a list of millions of people by race. So why is the coverage about Zohran Mamdani?

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