It happens to the best of us: you completely botched the task of finding a Halloween costume. Naturally, you decided to solve this problem by turning to… TechCrunch? Yeah, sure, why not. I have some ideas.
Here are some last-minute technical Halloween costumes. Effort levels vary.
Recursive self-improvement
AI leaders like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman have expressed concerns that AI is growing too quickly, but if AI models become capable of “recursively self-improving,” they will be able to advance on their own without human intervention, rendering all efforts to “surf the frontier” futile.
I don’t know how to visually represent the idea of an AI building itself, but you could really lean into the “self-improvement” part and forget about the “recursive” aspect – it’s a last minute Halloween costume. You don’t need to try so hard.
Dress like the version of yourself you imagine yourself becoming each year when you make New Year’s resolutions. Carry with you a self-help or productivity book like “Atomic Habits” or anything by Malcolm Gladwell, a yoga mat, and a huge bottle of water. Leave in the middle of the party to “go to therapy” when you just want to go home. Brag to people about how great your Oura Ring’s sleep score is.
You are the epitome of someone who is trying to better themselves. You are recursive self-improvement.
A deceptively cute AI agent
Both Meta and OpenAI recently launched AI assistants with spooky and cute avatars. It’s almost like Elizabeth Holmes: they look innocent, so you underestimate their potential to cause disaster. (While we’re talking about her, you’re only allowed to wear the black turtleneck Holmes costume if you’re a natural blonde or have a blonde wig.)
What you’re going to do is make yourself look big and fluffy. Maybe you have a poofy puffer jacket, or maybe you can find some colorful feather boas to wrap yourself in. Add a distinctive hat, glasses, or other accessory to make you look more like a ChatGPT dot. If you have a colorful shirt and matching bottoms, that works too.
Throughout the night, ask people if you can get read/write access to their Gmail.
Whether you call them “evil glasses” or not, we should all agree that it would be really scary if someone started recording you without your consent – perfectly in keeping with the spirit of Halloween.
Simply take a pair of glasses – or buy a cheap pair from a convenient location – and attach a large red or white circle to a lens, mimicking the red recording light. If you want to make the costume even scarier (or you can’t make a big circular sticker), you can just wear regular glasses and say you’re “a guy who records with the hidden light.” Please don’t do it In fact record people without their consent while wearing this costume.
Mark Zuckerberg wearing a vaguely disturbing T-shirt
While we’re at it, Mark Zuckerberg’s fashion is pretty recognizable these days. He wears a lot of black T-shirts that are slightly oversized and boxy.
It can be difficult to replicate the black text on black shirt style that he gravitates toward, but you can attach a piece of paper to yourself that says “Building is my love language.”
If you’re confident in your Latin pronunciation, you can go for something really scary, like the time he wore a shirt that said “Aut Zuck aut nihil,” which means “Either Zuck or Nothing.” It’s a bit worrying.
An AI usage limit notification
For some people, there is nothing scarier than running out of Claude tokens.
Grab a piece of cardboard, print out screenshots of the notifications telling you you’ve reached your usage limit, and go scare some mood coders. I illustrated this idea using an edited stock photo. You don’t have to dress like you work at Hot Topic – that’s just the model in the picture.
A PHP vulnerability
The scary PHP ocalypse is fresh in our minds: it was only last week that AI discovered critical PHP flaws that could have been catastrophic for the Internet. The fear felt by web developers is still palpable, making it a good Halloween costume: you are a PHP vulnerability.
Here’s what you’re going to do. Buy a T-shirt and a Sharpie and write PHP on it. Keep it simple.
What about the vulnerability part? You are going to have to commit to this path. All night long, you will talk about your feelings to your friends. In fact, bare your emotions. Talk about how the recent loss of a loved one reminded you how fragile life can be. If making yourself vulnerable kills the mood, just pretend it’s part of the Halloween costume and you’re really cool and fun and never feel sad.
Bryan Johnson
The costume explains itself.
Bryan Johnson, a second time
Couple costume alert!
Maybe you have more than one Halloween party to attend this weekend, but you want your different costumes to stick to a specific theme. Once you have your sleep outfit sorted, it’s time to prepare your second costume representing the controversial biohacker: GLP-Bryan.
Johnson wrote on
Naturally, people were confused, so he shared an image to demonstrate.
Yes, this will be difficult to recreate as a Halloween costume, but if you don’t have time to buy anything else, this one will do the trick. Just wear a T-shirt and jeans, which you probably already own. It will be weird to lie on top of your partner in the middle of a party. Really weird. But that’s what you get for waiting until now to find a costume.
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