I think this was a really poor branding choice by Altman, similarity infringement or not. The tweet, the idea of even getting her to voice it in the first place.
Like, had Arnold already said no or something?
If one of your product line’s greatest obstacles is a longstanding body of media depicting it as inherently dystopian, that’s not exactly the kind of comparison you should be leaning into full force.
I think the underlying product shift is smart. Tonal cues in the generations even in the short demos completely changed my mind around a number of things, including the future direction and formats of synthetic data.
But there’s a certain hubris exposed in seeing Altman behind the scenes was literally trying (very hard) to cast the voice of Her in the product bearing a striking similarity to the film. Did he not watch through to the end?
It doesn’t give me the greatest confidence in the decision making taking place over at OpenAI and the checks and balances that may or may not exist on leadership.
It was a catchy hook, but their early 2022 projections were $100mm annual revenue and the first 9 months of 2023 as reported for the brand after acquisition was $27.6mm gross revenue. It doesn’t seem like even their 2024 numbers are close to hitting their own 2022 projection.
Being controversial can get attention and press, but there’s a limited runway to how much it offers before hitting a ceiling on the branding. Also, Soylent doesn’t seem like a product where there is a huge threat of regulatory oversight where a dystopian branding would tease that bear.
If no one knew about ChatGPT, I could see a spark of controversy helping bring awareness. But awareness probably isn’t a problem they have right now, so inviting controversy doesn’t offer much but invites a lot of issues.
I think this was a really poor branding choice by Altman, similarity infringement or not. The tweet, the idea of even getting her to voice it in the first place.
Like, had Arnold already said no or something?
If one of your product line’s greatest obstacles is a longstanding body of media depicting it as inherently dystopian, that’s not exactly the kind of comparison you should be leaning into full force.
I think the underlying product shift is smart. Tonal cues in the generations even in the short demos completely changed my mind around a number of things, including the future direction and formats of synthetic data.
But there’s a certain hubris exposed in seeing Altman behind the scenes was literally trying (very hard) to cast the voice of Her in the product bearing a striking similarity to the film. Did he not watch through to the end?
It doesn’t give me the greatest confidence in the decision making taking place over at OpenAI and the checks and balances that may or may not exist on leadership.
Maybe? I mean it worked out well for Soylent.
Has it though?
It was a catchy hook, but their early 2022 projections were $100mm annual revenue and the first 9 months of 2023 as reported for the brand after acquisition was $27.6mm gross revenue. It doesn’t seem like even their 2024 numbers are close to hitting their own 2022 projection.
Being controversial can get attention and press, but there’s a limited runway to how much it offers before hitting a ceiling on the branding. Also, Soylent doesn’t seem like a product where there is a huge threat of regulatory oversight where a dystopian branding would tease that bear.
If no one knew about ChatGPT, I could see a spark of controversy helping bring awareness. But awareness probably isn’t a problem they have right now, so inviting controversy doesn’t offer much but invites a lot of issues.
The target audience for Soylent is much weirder. Although TBF I originally thought the Soylent branding was a bad idea and I was probably wrong.