Thread

OpenAI is enlisting an influencer army to make it look 'good for the world'

221 points · 209 comments · cdrnsf

daveguy · 1790169823 · focus · HN ↗
I'm going to guess part of the influence campaign is getting stories like this removed from the front page of HN as quickly as possible:
<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1144867/dont-be-fooled-summer-ai-hype/" rel="nofollow">https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1144867/dont-be-...
eg:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49814211">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49814211
Not even flagged, just disappeared.
1. abroszka33 · 1790170823 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah, that post disappeared rather quickly. I was surprised by it.
2. _fat_santa · 1790171454 · focus · HN ↗
  I feel like the "We hacked hugging face" thing and this influencer thing are targeting different things but have the same goal of hyping up the company for the IPO.
  - The HF incident was to get the attention of investors and convey the message: "we have this incredibly powerful technology, imagine where we will be in 5 years"
  - With this influencer campaign it's just a drive to get more people to use ChatGPT / sign up to ChatGPT so when IPO time comes, they can show strong user growth.
  Over the past few months I've seen various reports that OpenAI's financial position isn't great and if those reports have any merit, then likely the higher ups at OpenAI are panicking that they might become a WeWork 2.0. Everything they are doing now is an attempt to justify their $1T valuation to investors during the IPO.
3. emp17344 · 1790172281 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
4. dwroberts · 1790172533 · focus · HN ↗
  I think it’s more that YC is so heavily invested in AI-related stuff it cannot then have a message board affiliated with it that has anti-AI content on it. Maybe it has always been like this for anything YC had its fingers in and it was just less obvious?
  1. dwroberts · 1790189307 · focus · HN ↗
    Getting downvoted for this is insane, do people really not think there can't be a conflict of interest between what YC does and what is allowed to appear on this site?
5. in_absentia · 1790175553 · focus · HN ↗
  Your wish wash granted, the story is already off the front page, with an obvious penalty applied.

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