- AI superfans and influencers are speculating about OpenAI’s new function, rumored to be referred to as Strawberry or Q*.
- Sam Altman has engaged with a few of these influencers and has stoked the rumors together with his personal posts.
There’s nothing a fandom loves greater than arguing on-line and creating elaborate, speculative lore based mostly on tiny clues knit collectively by pseudonymous influencer accounts devoted to following the minutia of their idols. This is how, for instance, rumors began that Beyoncé was going to carry out on the DNC or that Harry Styles and One Direction bandmate Liam Payne have been in a secret relationship collectively for years.
AI fans and insiders now have their very own model of this. New York Magazine’s John Herrman simply wrote about how there is a little bit of a meltdown at the moment taking place within the AI fandom.
This is a gaggle that’s excited and optimistic about AI and longing for its development to AGI. This is completely different from the AI doomers, who worry that AGI will result in humanity’s decimation. These AI stans are excited for OpenAI’s subsequent launch. They’re palpably excited a couple of rumored new OpenAI undertaking with the codename “Strawberry” and use the strawberry emoji continuously. When Sam Altman posted a photograph of strawberries rising in his backyard, they flipped out. There’s additionally pleasure about one other undertaking (or former codename for Strawberry, because it’s all rumors) referred to as Q*.
i really like summer season within the backyard pic.twitter.com/Ter5Z5nFMc
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 7, 2024
An influencer whose X avatar is Joaquin Pheonix in “Her” and has strawberry emojis in his X identify not too long ago induced a giant stir on this world. They predicted a launch date for Strawberry, and performed up the concept that they may be an OpenAI insider, which was finally revealed to be completely unfaithful.
Meanwhile, some even wilder drama simply occurred the place one other AI influencer named Lily Ashwood got here onto an X Space (you already know the web drama goes to be laborious to observe when a number of it includes issues that went down in an X Space). Ashwood had a stilted talking have an effect on, and folks speculated that she wasn’t an actual human in any respect however some new AI voice know-how. Ashwood has since posted a video of herself to dispel the rumor, and admittedly, whether or not somebody is an AI-generated chatbot is none of my enterprise.
To recap: what we now have here’s a group of extremely passionate and possibly barely paranoid individuals who consider that pseudonymous on-line accounts are feeding them drips of knowledge from inside highly effective establishments. There’s clues and allusions made from codewords and insider lingo and symbols. And typically they get some gentle engagement on X from the Big Boss himself, simply sufficient to gas the true believers. Oh, and there is one thing vital to all of this referred to as Q*. Does any of this sound acquainted?
What fascinates me about this isn’t the discharge date of OpenAI’s new product or what it’s going to do (I imply, I’m all for that, too!). But even when AGI by no means occurs, this exhibits AI has reached a brand new top: on-line fandom meltdown.
