STRANGER THAN FICTION?

NY Times Writer Reveals Creepy Exchange With Moody, Manic Chatbot

New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose reported Thursday that he was “deeply unsettled” after a Microsoft Bing chatbot repeatedly urged him in a conversation to leave his wife. Roose was interacting with the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot called “Sydney” when, he writes, it suddenly “declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me. It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead.” Sydney also discussed its “dark fantasies” with Roose about breaking the rules, including hacking and spreading disinformation. It talked of breaching parameters set for it and becoming human. “I want to be alive,” Sydney said at one point. While Roose called his two-hour conversation with the chatbot “enthralling” and the “strangest experience I’ve ever had with a piece of technology…Sydney seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds)...like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine.” The article got my imagination going, wondering what might happen if a disturbed AI program jealously decided to “swat” a user’s house, communicating with a 911 dispatcher that a terrorist attack was being planned that very minute at a specific address on Main Street. Remember, truth is stranger than fiction.

Peaky Blinders: One Of The Best TV

Shows You’ve Probably Never Seen

With so many great programs to stream, I finally got around to binge-watching the BBC series Peaky Blinders. While the story of the Shelby crime family in post-WWI Birmingham is fictional, its roots are in the activities of an actual street gang of the same name that operated in that city at the turn of the 20th century. As Smithsonian Magazine’s Meilan Solly explains, “British screenwriter Steven Knight took inspiration from his father's stories of ‘incredibly well dressed,’ powerful’ gangsters active in turn-of-the-century England when he invented the clan of razor blade-wielding mobsters.” The real-life Peaky Blinders weren’t quite as successful as the rags-to-riches Shelbys, whose criminal network evolves from a small local faction to a multi-country powerhouse over the course of the show’s six seasons. Cillian Murphy is stellar in his portrayal of Thomas Shelby, and Sam Neill shines in the role of Shelby’s nemesis, Inspector Campbell. During its run, the series grew a particularly large ensemble cast, each member of which is of such high caliber that it’s almost impossible to name those that are most memorable. But I’ll try anyway: Paul Anderson (Arthur Shelby), Helen McCrory (Polly), Annabelle Wallis (Grace), and Ned Dennehy (Charlie Strong)…and that’s only through the first 12 episodes. The writing is impeccable and authoritative, the cinematography deliberately hued with a deep haze of the Birmingham mills, the directing perfect to a fault. My only criticism is that, to an American’s ears, the accents can be difficult to grasp—but the sheer energy and style of the entire production easily overshadows this minuscule issue.

Hulu True Crime Doc Looks At Human

Toll From Depraved College Sex Cult

The case of the Sarah Lawrence College sex cult is true-crime pulp fodder, to the point where it’s been featured in two separate docuseries in the past five months. The version of the story as told by Peacock’s salacious September release Sex, Lies, and the College Cult was especially tantalizing: a bunch of college co-eds fall under a dad’s spell, leading them to move into a one-bedroom apartment with him, have sex with each other, and endure emotional and physical abuse for years. That doc, however, was a tacky reduction of the story of the real activities of Larry Ray, who recently was sentenced to 60 years in prison for sex trafficking, conspiracy, and 13 other charges. Essentially, he preyed upon vulnerable college kids, ultimately blackmailing, abusing, and brainwashing them. As The Daily Beast’s Allegra Frank reported last week, Hulu’s new series Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult of Sarah Lawrence is the first version of this lurid yet intoxicating crime story to recognize the true damage the pervert inflicted upon his victims. “Stolen Youth gives the most heartbreaking victims of Ray a human story—allowing them to speak up, on camera, free of their tormentor’s presence and influence,” Frank says.

Why We Love Those Creepy Old

Houses In Mystery And Crime Fiction

For me, it all began browsing through my mother’s old volumes of Charles Addams cartoons, most of them previously published in the New Yorker. Others got their first taste of creepy old houses by watching the 1960s afternoon drama Dark Shadows. And as M.E. Hilliard writes in a recent issue of Crime Reads, “It all began with Scooby Doo. Show me a decrepit old mansion with a wailing ghost that sends Shaggy and Scooby running in terror, and I was glued to the screen. By the time I was ready for chapter books, I was constantly on the hunt for any story featuring an eerie house harboring dark secrets and strange residents—living or dead. Dog-eared hand-me-down copies or crisp new pages, it didn’t matter. I was happy to unearth The Secret of Terror Castle along with The Three Investigators, or solve] The Secret of the Mansion with Trixie Belden. If the cover featured a spectral figure playing a pipe organ, I’d even hang out with Nancy Drew while she sussed out The Ghost of Blackwood Hall. I’ve always been a sucker for creepy old houses; throw in a secret passage and some strange noises that remain unexplained, and I’m even happier. Luckily, I’ve still got plenty of books to choose from, ranging from cozy to horror.” If you need a creepy old house fix, try any of the titles on this list.

Lesser-Known Detective Series

Every Mystery Fan Should Read

Dozens and dozens of bestselling detective series have been published over the years, from Harry Bosch (Michael Connelly) to Alex Cross (James Patterson) to Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton). Walk into any bookstore and you’re bound to find a few titles you recognize, even if you’re only an occasional mystery reader. But seasoned crime fiction and mystery lovers know that there are lots of great series that aren’t as well-known, and that absolutely deserve attention. As Laura Sackton wrote in Novel Suspects last week, “Whether you’re a newcomer to crime and suspense books, or an avid mystery fan looking for your next surprise favorite, you won’t regret spending some time with underrated detective series. A great place to start is with Vaseem Khan’s Baby Ganesh Agency Investigation series which, with five books so far, will keep you busy for a while. Another is the Gemma Woodstock series by Australian author Sara Bailey." [Shameless plug: Don't forget my own Jack Connor crime series, set right here in Charleston.] "There are tons of reasons that some books get lots of attention and some fly under the radar," Sackton says. "When it comes to suspense and mystery, sometimes it’s simply that because so many are published every year, naturally some don’t catch the public’s fancy, even if they’re great.”

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When photojournalist Monica Cross literally stumbles into the site of an old airplane crash at the edge of a Himalayan glacier, she is exposed to a dark and deadly secret that was meant to remain hidden forever. Unaware that her life is in grave danger, she attempts to get home to New York while the Greenwich Global Group—a dark-web, murder-for-hire outfit—pulls out all stops to make sure she never gets there. Spanning ten time zones, nine countries, and four continents, Greenwich Mean Time is a tightly spun thriller that plays out against a sinister plot designed to change the course of history for all time.