Are we being manipulated by brilliant UX/UI designers in the AGI pitch?

When ChatGPT 3.5 launched in November 2022 and went viral, some argued that the real breakthrough wasn’t in AI — it was in UX/UI. I agreed.

Earlier LLMs were simply trained to complete sentences or paragraphs. If you typed “In a galaxy far, far away…,” it would finish your sentence with a Star Wars-like story.

OpenAI changed the game by fine-tuning ChatGPT 3.5 to complete instructions and conversations, then released it with a chat interface.

Suddenly, LLMs seemed alive — like you were talking to a person rather than using a computer program.

Since then, two schools of thought have emerged:

One camp argues LLMs are still just very large statistical predictive engines.

The other believes we’re seeing the early sign towards AGI.

I started in the first camp but have been moving closer to the second overtime.

But this post by Nick Courtney gave me a new perspective:

https://lnkd.in/gCTxjqZc

It highlights how AI labs deliberately use anthropomorphic design choices to make AI mimic humans.

For example, showing “Thinking…” instead of “Computing…” when the system is processing.

It made me pause:

Are we moving closer to AGI — or are we being manipulated by brilliant UX design to feel like we are?

What do you think?