Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The past few years have seen the emergence of a great many AI companies. This is extremely exciting/alarming (delete according to whether you bought shares early), but it has also had a secondary consequence. Along with the proliferation of AI companies has come a proliferation of AI company logos.
The fascinating thing, highlighted by several publications, is that many of these logos look near-identical. According to sociologist James I. Bowie, writing for Fast Company in 2023, the trend is for a “stylized hexagon” with an implied rotation. This, he notes, is equally suggestive of “portals opening to wondrous new worlds”, “widening Yeatsian gyres” and “toilets flushing”.
Or we could look at it the way Radek Sienkiewicz, a developer who blogs as VelvetShark, does. Sienkiewicz noted that most of these logos have the following elements: a circular shape, a central opening or focal point, radiating elements from the centre and soft organic curves. This, he says, is an “apt description” of “a butthole“.
Feedback examined the logos of OpenAI, Apple Intelligence, Claude and others, and we can confirm that, yes, they do bear more than a passing resemblance to a sphincter, and once you see it you can’t unsee it. DeepSeek and Midjourney are about the only exceptions: their logos look like a whale and a sailboat on the sea. But maybe they will soon get sucked into the circular logo maelstrom.
Why so many stylised hexagons? Perhaps the whirling patterns are meant to symbolise the recursive nature of thought, the ability of AIs to iteratively improve their understanding of the world.
Not according to OpenAI, though. Its brand guidelines offer a detailed explanation for the company’s logo, which it calls “blossom” to make you think it isn’t a butthole. “At its heart, the logo captures the dynamic intersection between humanity and technology – two forces that shape our world and inspire our work. The design embodies the fluidity and warmth of human-centered thinking through the use of circles, while right angles introduce the precision and structure that technology demands.” Readers are free to make of that what they will.
Personally, Feedback has a working hypothesis about these logos. It involves the psychological phenomenon known as “groupthink”.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 04, @10:33PM (5 children)
-1: Troll
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ichthus on Monday May 05, @01:31AM (2 children)
Exactly. Only one of those logos looks... butthole-ish. And, even with that one, it's a stretch. (Truly no pun intended). The author was either hard-up for getting a study out before an impending deadline, or he just se*s butth*oles ev*rywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 05, @02:19AM
I agree, and came here to write something to the effect of: people see what they want to perceive.
- or -
People see what's already on their minds.
Weird.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Monday May 05, @06:18PM
I'd actually argue that these logos are deliberately designed to look like anal orifice. The AI business model is to stuff a lot of data into a box and then pull answers out of it's ass. I couldn't think of a better image to describe the service these AI companies provide. A good logo is much like Hieroglyphics, where the services and products of the company are know at a glance. If the ancient Egyptians created AI, they would have written about it by drawing a guy shoving hieroglyphics into a mouth of an animal and the a second guy pulling hieroglyphics out of said animal's rear end.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday May 05, @03:55AM (1 child)
We recognise that not all stories will be of interest to everybody. However, at weekends we regularly drop in a 'Random' story about something only vaguely related to our main topics. It is a light-hearted story from a reputable source, but the observations are only the views of a handful of people. If some people want to have a joke or two about the subject then I can see no harm in that - why shouldn't they?
Equally, your comment and suggested moderation are just as valid. You do not see the visual correlation that the source is talking about, and I can see the similarity but would not have considered it myself. We are all different and we have different perceptions.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by corey on Monday May 05, @08:57AM
I thought it was a nice story. You can safely ignore the parent comment and save your time. :)
(Score: 5, Funny) by krishnoid on Sunday May 04, @10:50PM
With artificial intelligence, as with entering any other portals, we probably need some analog of a flared base so you can back out of hazardous situations. Just sayin'.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 04, @11:04PM
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Sunday May 04, @11:05PM
Forget about AI, you HAVE noticed that the Marcos Pizza logo looks a lot like the Goatse guy, right?
Well, marketers are all assholes, so of course they want logos they can relate to.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 05, @12:48AM
♻️🍆🍑
(Score: 2, Funny) by zenlessyank on Monday May 05, @01:19AM
I will see myself out...
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Monday May 05, @09:44AM
"It involves the psychological phenomenon known as “groupthink”."
I would go with another it is called projecting, like you see with the Repugnant Party always, where what they are saying and doing is a result of their thinking process coming to light in the statements they make about anything as they think all others have to be doing it too. In this case they are thinking and know it is shit they are putting out so they make the logos look like an anus.
Those people are not attacking Tesla dealerships. They are tourists showing love. I learned that on Jan. 6, 2021.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 05, @01:44PM (2 children)
DEI gone wild. Neither employees nor users are welcome if they're straight. A rainbow-adjacent company for rainbow-adjacent users, everyone else stay away. Kind of like protective coloration in lower animal evolution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 05, @02:42PM
Only you are worried about the evil of rainbow colors. LOL Time to grow up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday May 05, @03:50PM
Name a business that has refused your money because you're straight. I'll wait. In my experience, gay bars and are totally fine with letting in straights in so long as they aren't jerks to anybody.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday May 05, @03:30PM
Food in...?
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday May 05, @04:28PM
It's probably some design-psychologist (I'm sure that is a thing) that consulted when the name and logotype was created and told them that a round logotype was friendly and inviting. They all want to be that. So they picked that. Instead of square and blocky logotypes which are old, hard and conservative. They don't want that. Beyond that I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder, you see what you want to see. Which tells us more about the author then the logotypes in question.
(Score: 3, Touché) by lonehighway on Monday May 05, @04:29PM
Seems to make sense since so much crap comes out of AI.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday May 05, @05:21PM
That AI and AI companies produce mostly shit.
Kind of like this article really...
(Score: 2) by MonkeypoxBugChaser on Tuesday May 06, @12:50AM
It's like that. They smell their own farts and have no souls. What better logo than a butthole for giant assholes?