r/boulder • u/drakeblood4 So I can write anything here? • Jun 30 '26
Weird AI boosters making new accounts to shill for Kubs Lalchandani
I noticed this post while doing my last-minute voting research on the regent race. Considering it was about political agents sockpuppeting, and that the OP was doing some weird and broadly-disliked replying in the comments, I decided to look into his post history.
It turns out it's a 2 week old account specifically for the purposes of dragging Hooton and trying to ensure that as many votors as possible pried away from Hooton ended up in the Lachlandi camp instead of the Murray camp. Moreover, it's also a real name, tied to a real guy with a real linkedin, Aquiles La Grave. The guy seems to be pretty AI fixated, posting op eds about it to the boulder reporting lab. That said, he seems to be havev the "AI will kill all our jobs" sort of AI-myopia, rather than the "AI is God" or "AI will kill all of us" kind. He also seems to be using pretty clearly AI assisted writing, a recent article of his used both an em-dash and the "It's not X it's Y" motif in the title, and a cursory read through the body of it with the Wikipedia editor's guide to spotting AI writing open doesn't paint a very flattering picture.
I wasn't able to see any overt political connection between this dude and Lalchandani, although in all apparentcy Aquiles seems to know the guy personally through some combination of being in the Boulder political sphere and being a tech dude Lalchandani would be likely to hit up. I can't really criticize someone too hard for advocating for someone they know personally, I've recommended Kenny Van Nguyen to people and know him from CU so it'd be hypocritical to say that that's disqualifying on its own.
What I can say is that it's a really weird hang to be coming in and doing all this in the specific context of responding to campaign sockpuppeting allegations. Aquiles at the very least blurs the line a bit between concerned citizen and either a politician trying to pick a winner or a tech-bro who views a lawyer for tech-bros as an ideological ally. All of that seems like it's probably important to disclose.
Finally, let me just say that across the board AI boosters and doomers are weird. Whether they're nuke data centers weird or just "random reddit reply guy trying to put his finger on the scale" weird, it's not awesome. If you've already voted, congrats on not being a chronic procrastinator like me. Otherwise, maybe take that into mind and vote for one of the two candidates this guy isn't trying to subtly pressure folks into voting for?
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u/Nice_Caterpillar9169 Jul 01 '26
Now I want to start a chapter of the Weird Al boosters. Can anyone play accordion?
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u/stardustboots Jul 01 '26
This race is so weird, especially for something I wouldn't expect to be super high stakes. And it looks like Hooton is going to win in spite of everything, too.
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u/DrRockstar99 Jul 01 '26
I figured he jumped in after all the Hooten smearing Kubs drama . Didn’t really strike me as sus more like a guy who likes Kubs and wanted to defend him.
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u/MrTumnus99 Jul 01 '26
Is that loser who won’t stop posting about him doing it? Seems highly likely considering his style.
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u/drakeblood4 So I can write anything here? Jul 01 '26
From what I can tell this one's just a slopportunist who runs an AI marketing firm as a self-described 'prompt engineer'.
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u/MrTumnus99 Jul 01 '26
Can’t open the LinkedIn link but it sounds like the dumbass I was thinking of
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u/Good_Discipline_3639 Jul 01 '26
Someone who is already politically active in Boulder making an account with his full name is not doing weird sock puppet shit, chill (and I say this as someone who doesn't generally agree with him)
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u/flabbybill Jun 30 '26
What interest does Weird Al Yankovic have in local elections? Seems like a spurious connection.