Resident Evil Actor Backs Controversial AI Project ‘MemPalace’ Amid Snake Oil Allegations

On April 6, Milla Jovovich, known for her roles in Resident Evil and The Fifth Element, revealed her collaboration with Ben Sigman, the CEO of a Bitcoin lending platform, to develop MemPalace, an open-source “AI memory system.” Sigman claims that MemPalace has achieved a “perfect score on the standard benchmark,” outperforming all other products in the field, whether free or paid.

What’s particularly intriguing about this announcement is that Jovovich is reportedly one of the main developers behind MemPalace. She mentioned that her interest in creating this system stemmed from challenges she faced with AI coding while working on a significant gaming project, which led her to partner with Sigman.

However, skepticism surrounds the authenticity of their partnership, with many believing Sigman is leveraging Jovovich’s celebrity status to promote his AI venture. One user on social media remarked, “A crypto bro and an actress decided to do AI. It was shredded within minutes. Do it properly. Study math. Teach your kids math.”

Sigman has made bold assertions about MemPalace, claiming it achieved “100% recall on LongMemEval,” which he describes as the “first perfect score ever recorded.” LongMemEval is a benchmark designed to evaluate the long-term memory capabilities of chat assistants like ChatGPT and Claude. Typically, these models have selective memories, requiring users to remind them of past conversations. Sigman asserts that MemPalace does not suffer from this issue.

However, testers examining the code on MemPalace’s GitHub have disputed Sigman’s claims. One user reported, “Tested the currently viral MemPalace on MABench (Long Memory Eval). When you plug it in and have an LLM answer questions, you get the right answer 17% of the time.” Another user noted, “Real score, but measured in ‘raw mode’ — uncompressed verbatim text stored in ChromaDB, standard nearest-neighbor retrieval. The palace structure (wings/rooms/halls) is not involved. This measures ChromaDB’s default embedding model performance, not MemPalace.”

Concerns have also been raised about Jovovich’s coding contributions. A now-deleted user was initially credited with much of the work, and their name still appears in MemPalace’s GitHub files. One commenter pointed out, “No git author history, no account connected to whoever wrote the code of this codebase. It doesn’t add up.” They noted that the account responsible for the original repository was deleted shortly after its publication.

To Sigman’s credit, there is some basis for his claim that he and Jovovich are “good friends,” as she promoted his cryptocurrency book back in October 2025.

Given all this, one might wonder what the underlying motive is. If Jovovich’s role is merely promotional and MemPalace isn’t as flawless as Sigman claims, it’s unclear how they would profit from it, especially since MemPalace is open-source.

However, it raises eyebrows that a cryptocurrency named MemPalace, for which Jovovich and Sigman share a 50% creator reward, experienced a rapid pump and dump within 24 hours of the announcement. While it’s difficult to prove any direct involvement with the MemPalace coin, Sigman’s questionable crypto dealings and Jovovich’s promotion of his marketplace through his book certainly cast a shadow over their intentions.

In light of these developments, inquiries have been made to both Jovovich and Sigman to clarify their roles in MemPalace and to determine if they have any connection to the MemPalace cryptocurrency.