In defence of the author, there is absolutely nothing about the term “AI” that just means “LLM” in an informed context (which is what Wired portends to be). And then the words “machine learning” are literally front and centre in the subtitle.

I don’t see how anyone could misunderstand this unless it was a deliberate misreading… Or else just not attempting to read it at all…

(That said, yes, I do hate the fact that product managers now love to talk about how every single feature is “AI” regardless of what it actually is/does)

It stems from an old proverb: “there is naught so queer as folk”, essentially meaning “people are strange”. The meaning of “queer” has shifted and narrowed over time to refer to sexuality, but kept its ties to this idiom, resulting in the TV show “queer as folk” and the generic phrase “queer folk”.

There is nothing especially pretentious or mythical about the word. It may just be your own assumptions/interpretations of it. Far more people have an issue with the word “queer” than they do “folk”. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but you should also aim to shake the stigma from it, as it’s not what 99.9% of people mean when they use it.

According to the rules of the post, you are now confident, persuasive, and loved!

And the best thing of all… it doesn’t just have to be a fantasy. These are all qualities that can be learned, practiced, and refined over time. It’s not easy, but it can become a reality!

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Maybe a “specious claim” or “folk wisdom” or “empty rhetoric”?

The word I would normally gravitate to is a “truism”, however that’s not really used to describe something that is necessarily false… just something that sounds insightful, but doesn’t have any meaningful depth (e.g. “every cloud has a silver lining”).

That’s an appealing ‘conspiracy’ angle, and I understand why it might seem juicy and tantalising to onlookers, but that idea doesn’t hold up to any real scrutiny whatsoever.

Why would the Board willingly trash their reputation? Why would they drag the former Twitch CEO through the mud and make him look weak and powerless? Why would they not warn Microsoft and risk damaging that relationship? Why would they let MS strike a tentative agreement with the OpenAI employees that upsets their own staff, only to then undo it?

None of that makes any sense whatsoever from a strategic, corporate “planned” perspective. They are all actions of people who are reacting to things in the heat of the moment and are panicking because they don’t know how it will end.

That doesn’t make very much sense.

Yes, the board members who are into Effective Altruism are undoubtedly a piece of the puzzle. But everything you outline isn’t just common corporate knowledge, it’s basically well-documented public record.

And remember that this is a Board that Altman effectively hand-picked. He did not appoint a host of dum-dums to oversee him.

Whatever happened, there is waaaay more to this than anyone has been told. At this point it’s all speculation, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume it’s not just a case of “we didn’t know it was expensive” or “we didn’t know how popular Sam was”.