OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch triggered an industry-wide AI pivot

Evidence

But OpenAI, run by Sam Altman, went on a full-out marketing blitz for “generative AI” with the release of the image-generation software DALL-E in early 2021 and large language model ChatGPT in late 2022. Generative AI empowered everyday users to produce stunningly humanlike creations from simple text prompts. As ChatGPT stole the cultural spotlight, the tech world pivoted en masse: Major companies overhauled both their product and market strategies around AI, while venture capital poured into start-ups with even the flimsiest AI angle. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 691

Categorization

• XREF: This is the material precondition for Marx’s ‘omnivore monoculture’ argument — AI collapses the distinctiveness of creation itself.