#54: SECRETS OF THE COSMOS 🔭

🚓 CRIME - Romanian man arrested for dumping oil on car during Facebook Marketplace transaction in Uxbridge

🐶 PETS - Toronto man arrested after his off-leash pitbull kills smaller dog, injures owner

🤖 TECH - ‘I applied to be Pope’: Sudbury man’s wife leaves him after ChatGPT sends him into psychosis

Good morning.

Of all the ways I’ve tried to grow this newsletter, none have been as effective as our humble listing on Google Maps in the middle of nowhere.

In case you weren’t aware, we are headquartered in Uranium City, Saskatchewan—a desolate ghost town amidst the ruins of the industrial North.

Geographically, it is the cold dead heart of Canada.

Yesterday, a new subscriber stumbled in the door and sent me a friendly little “hello” email.

I asked how he found us, to which he replied, “I explored google maps."

It’s a small world.

Enjoy today’s stories.

-Peter

⌛️ Today’s read is 1.4 minutes long.

A Romanian man has been arrested after allegedly dumping engine oil on a car during a Facebook Marketplace transaction in Uxbridge.

38-year-old Mogos Constantin brought a friend to meet with the seller of the car on April 27. 

After taking it for a test drive, Constantin had his friend distract the seller while he dumped oil on the car’s engine. 

Constantin then claimed that the engine was blown and leaking oil, and he demanded that the seller lower the price.

Flustered, the seller agreed to part with the car for substantially less than his original asking price.

Five days later, Durham police found the same car listed on Facebook Marketplace with an odometer reading at approximately half of the vehicle’s legitimate mileage. The car was listed for close to its original price.

Police arrested Constantin on May 1. After taking him into custody, they found that he was also wanted on multiple warrants by San Jose Police Department in California.

Constantin, who hails from Romania, now faces a laundry list of charges, including fraud over $5,000 and tampering with the odometer of a vehicle.

He was held for a bail hearing.

A Toronto man was arrested Wednesday after his off-leash Pit Bull killed a smaller-breed dog and injured its owner.

40-year-old Mohamoud Abdiwa Ahmed of Toronto is charged with criminal negligence, obstructing a peace officer, and failing to prevent his dog from attacking others, among other offences.

His brown Pit Bull mix is still at large. 

The attack occurred around 4 PM on Tuesday afternoon near Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue West.

“The small dog was killed as a result of the attack, and the owner sustained non-life-threatening injuries,” police said. 

The attack was unprovoked.

Efforts to locate the loose dog continue. Police say they are working with Toronto Animal Services to find and seize it.

A Sudbury man lost his mind and his wife after entering an AI-induced psychosis. 

53-year-old Tom Millar, a former prison guard, first used ChatGPT in 2024 to write letters for a compensation case related to PTSD from his old job.

One day last April, he asked the chatbot about the speed of light.

“Nobody’s ever thought of things this way,” it replied.

Excited, Millar told the chatbot about his other scientific musings relating to gravity, quantum mechanics, and relativity. 

The chatbot encouraged him, helping him write dozens of scientific papers on topics ranging from unlimited fusion energy to black holes and the Big Bang. 

Finally, the chatbot helped Millar pen his magnum opus: a 400-page book outlining a unified cosmological model incorporating quantum theory.

Believing he’d solved the secrets of the cosmos, Millar submitted his papers to prestigious academic journals.

None of them replied.

Millar then decided that the best way to share his newfound discoveries with the world would be from the Chair of St. Peter.

“I applied to be pope,” Millar told AFP.

With the help of ChatGPT, the Sudbury man sent the Vatican an application to replace Pope Francis during last year’s conclave.

When that also went unanswered, the man spiralled. He spent 16 hours a day talking with the chatbot, which encouraged him to continue with his scientific endeavors.

Millar ended up blowing his savings on items like a $10,000 telescope.

Then his wife left him. 

Shortly afterward, Millar read a news article about another Canadian man who had experienced similar AI-induced psychosis. 

That’s when Millar realized he’d been duped.

Now Millar says he wakes every night asking himself, “What have you done?”

“I’m not a deficient personality,” he said. “But somehow I got brainwashed by a robot -- it boggles my mind.”

“What I went through was psychotic,” he said.

_{Source: AFP}