🎪 THE SILICON CIRCUS
Issue #12 | October 19, 2026
Welcome back to the Circus. This week: exam cheaters with a very good optician, two corporate rivals splitting the rent on an AI, and a plaintiff whose secret message to a court’s AI ended in a trip back to paper. Three acts, one ringmaster, zero invisible ink (we checked).
🎓 Education: Exam Applicants Passed the Proctor’s Check in Normal Glasses, Then Switched to AI Ones
Two South Korean universities caught exam applicants who passed the proctor’s glasses check, then switched to AI smart glasses once the test began. The most advanced AI detection in the room turned out to be a proctor thinking “those frames look chunky.” One applicant was barred from the university’s admissions exams for three years, while the other university’s rulebook never mentioned smart glasses at all. Clark Kent has been running this gag for more than eighty years. (via Korea Herald and Seoul Economic Daily)
💻 General Tech: Apple and Meta Are Splitting One AI Across Two Computers Like Roommates
Apple and Meta, two companies with a long history of friction, teamed up to run Meta’s 816-billion-parameter Muse Spark Open model on Mac Studios. The model is too big for one computer, so Meta’s setup takes two Macs with 512GB of memory each, splitting the load like roommates splitting the rent. Even the cheaper 256GB version starts at $10,799 a machine. Local AI used to mean “runs on my laptop.” Now it means “runs in a room, and the room has a lease.” (via AppleInsider, PPC Land, and MacDailyNews)
⚖️ Legal: A Plaintiff Hid Secret Orders for the Court’s AI in White Text
A Connecticut plaintiff representing himself hid instructions for any AI reading his filings in 3-point white type. The judge noticed extra white space when printing the documents, found the message, and sanctioned him: no more electronic filing, and printed copies delivered in person. The Jedi mind trick, it turns out, doesn’t work on judges who own a printer. (via Alston Privacy, BetaNews, and Security Affairs)
🎬 That’s a Wrap
This week in AI: the cheating got wearable, the roommates got a terabyte of memory, and the best defense against a secret message to a robot was a printer. Forward this to a friend, preferably one who has never hidden instructions in a document. Probably.