A brief history of AI alarm hype cycles: GPT-2 to GPT-6, every wave a departure

StewartalsopIII · x · 2026-09-12

Alexandros Marinos traces the alarm hype cycle accompanying each model generation: OpenAI withholding GPT-2 weights, Dario Amodei and others leaving over GPT-3 safety concerns to found Anthropic, the GPT-4 pause letter and extinction statement, the OpenAI board coup around o1 followed by departures of Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike and Mira Murati, and AI 2027 plus Anthropic's alignment-faking study at GPT-5 time. He caps it with speculative future beats — a model declared a cyberweapon with export controls, and a GPT-6-era resignation accusing labs of gambling with our lives.

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