When I first read the news in Page Six that Grimes and Elon Musk may be an item, I briefly went into a sort of horror-induced anaphylactic shock. But after a few moments passed and my tongue deflated back to its normal size, I came to realize that few celebrity couplings have ever made more sense.
The short story of how they met is “Twitter;” the longer version is somehow so on the nose it nearly defies believability. The whole thing is considerably more complicated than the usual origin story, but Page Six takes a crack at it anyway.
Elon Musk, see, thought he would make a joke on Twitter, but instead of just thoughtlessly tapping the thing out and hitting “send,” he first engaged in some research. (This is why he is incredibly rich, and you and I are not.) Good thing he did, too, because it turns out the joke had been made before. By Grimes. Three years ago.
The “joke” itself is weird and complicated and obviously involves AI:
Thought experiment Roko’s Basilisk considers the hypothesis of a future where AI lords over the world and could punish those who did not help it into existence. His joke was to merge this thought experiment with a pun using “Rococo,” referring to the ornate French 18th Century Baroque style, perhaps pointing out that both concepts are complex, too extreme and ridiculous.
…
In 2015, she created a character named “Rococo Basilisk” for a video of her song “Flesh Without Blood.” “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Roko’s Basilisk,” she told Fuse. “[This character] is doomed to be eternally tortured by an artificial intelligence, but she’s also kind of like Marie Antoinette.”
“Elon was researching the idea of joking about Rococo Basilisk, and when he saw Grimes had already joked about it, he reached out to her,” says the insider. “Grimes said this was the first time in three years that anyone understood the joke. They were both poking fun at AI.”
Now they’re attending the Met Gala together. Grimes’ rep told The Fader that “We have no further comment.” Neither do I.
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Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner all got matching Avengers tattoos.
They must have really enjoyed making this movie.
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