site banner
PaperclipPerfector  12hr ago (text post)   566 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 11, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

OpenAI is name-mogging Anthropic.

It wasn't too long ago that the reverse was true. With OpenAI you had models like "text-davinci-003", "GPT-4o mini" and "o1-preview". And their flagship product, ChatGPT, was created by accident with an accidental name as well.

Meanwhile with Anthropic, you had "Opus", "Sonnet", and "Haiku", fun and illustrative words to demonstrate the sizes of the different models. They obviously missed an opportunity to create a porn-centric "Limerick" model, but we can't really fault them for that. Anthropic's nominative dominance peaked earlier this year with the release of "Mythos", a model which was so powerful they had to hold it back for testing, not because of lack of compute, never that, but because of the extreme danger such a powerful, nay Mythical, model might pose to humanity. Sadly, you didn't get to use Mythos. Instead you got a version called Fable, which is like a bedtime story for children. Don't act out though, because if you say the naughty words, you get downgraded to Opus, which is now considered trash.

OpenAI meanwhile got its mojo back with its 5.6 models, named "Luna", "Terra", and "Sol" model. Okay, obviously they are stealing Anthropic's small, normal, big convention but this naming scheme has legs. That was demonstrated when they released GPT-6 "Astra". Now that's a frickin' cool name.

Rumor is the next version will be called "Aeon", which is a step backward in my book, but they've got some potential big guns to release in the future. GPT 7 – "Nova". GPT 7.1 - "Supernova". They're unlikely to use "Galaxy" due to the Samsung connection, but your own personal bot swarm might be GPT 7.2 - "Constellation". All of this sets the stage for the final hurrah GPT 8 - "Light Cone".

Anthropic's IPO is on the rocks. What can they do to reclaim nominative dominance?

Sorry, but Astra isn't a good name. It just means "star". We've got Sol already.

Astra is a cool name but it does create the risk of #asstra when they nerf it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats