Whatever you might think of the merits of the AI boom/bubble (delete as appropriate), generative AI is absolutely the current wearer of the crown awarded to the Buzziest Technology in Silicon Valley. As such, it’s the natural successor to previous holders of that title—cryptocurrency, the NFT, etc.—as a magnet for grifters and mountebanks of every stripe.

In entirely unrelated news, hey, remember Cody Wilson? The guy who founded a non-profit called Defense Distributed? If not, let us refresh your memory: Defense Distributed is a Texas-based non-profit that exists to pursue that most sacred and American of missions: to make sure as many people as possible own guns. (Reassuringly, its homepage assures the world that “Since January 1 2022, no warrants have been served to defdist.org principals or employees. No searches or seizures have been performed on defdist.org assets.” Sweet!)

Defense Distributed gained notoriety in the mid-2010s for publishing blueprints for 3D printable firearms. Wilson himself gained significantly further notoriety in 2019 for pleading guilty to “injury to a child” after facing some unseemly charges you’d better just read for yourself. He duly resigned from Defense Distributed and spent the next decade slithering through various crypto-related ventures. Around this time, he also sunset a project that was a right-wing version of Patreon called—and we’re not joking here—“Hatreon.”

” The gun in question is called a WASP, which is perhaps an unfortunate choice of name from someone who’s been required to register as a sex offender , but hey, who are we to quibble with the sort of genius who could come up with a name like “GatGPT”?

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