AI fans are drooling over Sam Altman’s “Clues” and suggestions

AI enthusiasts and insiders now have their own version of this. John Herrman of New York Magazine just wrote about how there’s a bit of a crisis going on in AI fandom right now.

This is a group that is excited and positive about AI and eager for its advancement to AGI. This is different from AI detractors who fear that AGI will lead to the decimation of humanity. This AI news is excited about the next release of OpenAI. They’re palpably excited about a rumored new OpenAI project codenamed “Strawberry” and frequently use the strawberry emoji. When Sam Altman posted a photo of strawberries growing in his garden, they came back. There’s also excitement about another project (or former codename for Strawberry, since it’s all rumours) called Q*.

An influencer whose avatar X is Joaquin Pheonix in “Her” and has strawberry emojis in the name of X has recently caused quite a stir in this world. They predicted a release date for Strawberry and played up the idea that he might be an OpenAI insider, which was ultimately revealed to be totally untrue.

Meanwhile, even wilder drama just happened where another AI influence named Lily Ashwood entered an X Space (you know online drama is going to be hard to watch when a lot of it involves things that have crashed in an X Space). Ashwood had a slurred speech effect, and people speculated that he wasn’t a real human at all, but a new AI voice technology. Ashwood has since posted a video of herself dispelling the rumor, and frankly, whether someone is an AI-generated chatbot is none of my business.

To recap: what we have here is a group of extremely passionate and perhaps slightly paranoid people who believe that pseudonymous online accounts are providing them with information drops from inside powerful institutions. There are clues and hints made from code words and language and symbols. And sometimes I get a light involvement with X from Big Boss himself, just enough to fuel the true believers. Oh, and there’s something important in all of this called Q*. Does any of this sound familiar?

What fascinates me about this is not the release date of the new OpenAI product or what it will do (I mean, I’m interested in that too!). But even if AGI never happens, this shows that AI has reached a new peak: the collapse of online fandom.