8 Comments
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Lila Krishna's avatar

Sure but who is paying them, the commonwealth prize, as well as Granta Magazine?

Stephen Piccarella's avatar

I wouldn’t be surprised if the company was making these kinds of financial arrangements as well…

Andrew Khan's avatar

This seems unlikely if local authors have contacted him directly to clarify questions about the story. His non-LinkedIn social media posts read as authentic vernacular English to me. It strikes me as more likely that, as is common for a lot of people, he’s maintaining a ‘LinkedIn presence’ by essentially acting like a bot - reposting or rephrasing a bunch of generic AI-related content to make it sound like he’s up to speed with tech transformation discussions.

Stephen Piccarella's avatar

As I clarify in the original post, these are not bots, they’re dummy accounts run by humans, who would have no trouble using vernacular English or responding to requests for comment

Andrew Khan's avatar

There’s an interview with him in the Trinidad Guardian from 2018, complete with photo and location. Does that fit the model you imagine?

Stephen Piccarella's avatar

It doesn’t rule it out.

Andrew Khan's avatar

Name, age, name of wife, school location, home location, - in a suburb with a population of 8k people, employment history - including the date he left a job working for the office of the Prime Minister, information on the book of poetry he published, etc. He’s very clearly a real guy.

Stephen Piccarella's avatar

Whatever you say man