-pilled
In plain wordsA slang word ending meaning someone has been won over to a belief, often suddenly and completely; 'AGI-pilled' means convinced that human-level AI is coming soon.
A combining form meaning converted to, or newly convinced of, a view, usually implying a sudden revelation after which the person sees everything differently. In AI culture the commonest forms are 'scale-pilled' (convinced that scaling compute, data and parameters will keep producing capability gains; see scaling hypothesisscaling hypothesis, n.: The bet that today's AI methods, simply made bigger with more computing power and data, will keep getting smarter — possibly all the way to human-level intelligence and beyond — without needing fundamentally new ideas.), 'AGI-pilled' (convinced that artificial general intelligenceartificial general intelligence, n.: AI that could learn and do almost any mental task a capable adult can, rather than excelling at one narrow job. Experts disagree on the exact bar and on when, or whether, it will arrive. is near), 'doom-pilled' (convinced that catastrophe is likely; see doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.) and labels for newer enthusiasms such as 'RL-pilled' or 'agent-pilled'. It serves both for self-description and for gentle mockery, and 'pill' alone can stand for the conviction itself ('the scaling pill').
She was skeptical in 2022, but two years of results left her completely scale-pilled.
Origin
From the red pill in the film The Matrix (1999), which reveals reality to whoever takes it. 'Redpilled' was adopted by online men's-rights and far-right communities in the late 2000s and 2010s; the suffix then generalized across internet culture to any conversion. 'Scale-pilled' was common among AI researchers by the early 2020s, after the success of GPT-3 (2020).
Usage note
Because of its history, 'redpilled' retains political connotations; most AI uses of the suffix are neutral, though some readers still hear the echo.
Related
- feel the AGIfeel the AGI, phr.: An AI-industry catchphrase meaning to grasp, emotionally as well as intellectually, that human-level AI may be arriving soon; it began as a chant inside OpenAI.
- scaling hypothesisscaling hypothesis, n.: The bet that today's AI methods, simply made bigger with more computing power and data, will keep getting smarter — possibly all the way to human-level intelligence and beyond — without needing fundamentally new ideas.
- doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.
- effective accelerationismeffective accelerationism, n.: An online movement, known as e/acc, that wants AI and other technology developed as fast as possible, arguing that progress is good and that safety-driven regulation does more harm than good.
- the bitter lessonthe bitter lesson, phr.: The argument, made by AI pioneer Rich Sutton in 2019, that AI has advanced mostly through general methods that use ever more computing power, not by programming in human knowledge.
- it's over, we're so backit's over, we're so back, phr.: A meme describing the mood swings of the AI world: one day bad news means 'it's over', the next a new model or result means 'we're so back'.
Mentioned in
crackedcracked, adj.: Tech slang praising someone as exceptionally, almost unfairly, skilled; a 'cracked engineer' is a prodigy who ships remarkable work very fast., feel the AGIfeel the AGI, phr.: An AI-industry catchphrase meaning to grasp, emotionally as well as intellectually, that human-level AI may be arriving soon; it began as a chant inside OpenAI., it's over, we're so backit's over, we're so back, phr.: A meme describing the mood swings of the AI world: one day bad news means 'it's over', the next a new model or result means 'we're so back'.