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\t\t\tPhoto Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins \/ Futurism. Image ources: Craig Barritt \/ Andrej Sokolow \/ picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n
In the darker corners of the tech industry, an untold number of professionals have come to believe<\/a> in a controversial theory known as Roko\u2019s basilisk<\/a>, which holds that a future AI super intelligence would torture<\/a> any human who didn\u2019t help it come into existence.<\/p>\n Now, in a twist that should please any writer, the guy who\u2019s spearheading Meta\u2019s AI-powered smart glasses is named Rocco Basilico<\/a> \u2014 which has delighted and freaked out some online observers.<\/p>\n \u201cI grabbed my head in horror hearing that a man named ROCCO BASILICO is designing ANYTHING to do with artificial intelligence,\u201d one person posted on X<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s genuinely the worst possible name he could have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNominative determinism at its worst,\u201d one Redditor quipped<\/a>. <\/p>\n Kidding aside, Basilico is the scion of the family that owns EssilorLuxottica, the biggest eyeglass company in the world and parent company of sunglass brand Ray-Ban, and is the firm\u2019s chief wearables officer, according to Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Basilico came into Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s orbit when he cold emailed Zuck<\/a> with a pitch about a partnership, which has resulted in the now increasingly popular and AI-enhanced Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses, with plans to manufacture 10 million of these specs next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meta introduced its first smart spectacles with Ray-Ban back in 2021<\/a>, and has come out with successive iterations since, with the latest one demonstrated in an embarrassingly glitchy showcase<\/a> earlier this month in which the AI hallucinated and gave wrong instructions during a cooking demo, among other fails.<\/p>\n For any conspiracy theorists wondering why the name of Zuckerberg\u2019s AI glasses guy aligns with a nightmarish internet theory that inspired not just tech billionaire Elon Musk and music star Grimes to hook up<\/a> but also a murderous cult<\/a>, sleep easy: the demo clearly showed that the glasses weren\u2019t quite ready<\/a> for prime time.<\/p>\n Or maybe that\u2019s what a malevolent super intelligence would want us to think. But we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on this guy.<\/p>\n