When the drama at OpenAI was unfolding in fall 2023, many people found themselves looking to roon — who was widely known for working in an undisclosed research role at OpenAI — for his perspective on the short-term future instead of the longer term thinking he has primarily become known for.
Despite his secret identity, roon has become recognized for his ability to eloquently (and sometimes, not-so-eloquently) explain elaborate ideas.
roon’s grandiloquent commentary on tech and AI attracted a following on X months before he would become widely recognized for starting the shape rotators vs. wordcel meme.
In early February 2022, VICE even interviewed him about the idea — where they also described him as a “prolific shitposter”.
deep learning vs crypto is a clear divide of rotators vs wordcels. the former offends theorycel aesthetic sensibilities but empirically works to produce absurd miracles. the latter is an insane series of nerd traps and sky high abstraction ladders yet mostly scams
— roon (@tszzl) December 21, 2021
This sounds like something a wordcel would write.
Even though roon’s day job is researching cutting-edge AI concepts for major companies... the shape rotators vs. wordcels meme has clearly taken on a life of its own.
i think wordcel is my first coinage that’s actually taken off
— roon (@tszzl) December 30, 2021
maybe i can give @vgr’s premium mediocre a run for its money https://t.co/IyHq9CQgLI
It didn’t take long for some of the most prominent personalities on the internet to get involved.
shape rotation can create a wordcel but not the other way around https://t.co/upi7Q6MSFO
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 31, 2022
This was hilarious.
— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) February 2, 2022
This was a surprise.
So goodbye STEM under the wordcel woke onslaught @pmarca https://t.co/fGW8TuuyPx
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) February 3, 2022
This was totally unexpected.
Nuggets
“in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king”
— roon (@tszzl) November 26, 2021
that’s why I’ve become the wordcel representative of shape rotators
roon is better as a concept than a person. the platonic shape rotator
— roon (@tszzl) May 8, 2021
in retrospect i should’ve been worried about the governance structure of openai pic.twitter.com/y8zrMLrBrM
— roon (@tszzl) November 21, 2023
Noah Smith
you are shilling shitcoins
— roon (@tszzl) December 6, 2023
you tweet too much and don’t build
you are bought by microsoft pic.twitter.com/eR0vFaXrj4
— roon (@tszzl) December 12, 2023
daily recitation: It’s more important that you go to sleep and think clearly the next day than burning the midnight oil to get the training job running overnight
— roon (@tszzl) June 26, 2023
Matthew Gault
all the people that can make eye contact at openai joined in the last 6 months and they’re making me uncomfortable with their eye contact
— roon (@tszzl) October 17, 2023
not to longpoast, and I can only speak for myself, but this is a very inaccurate representation of the mood from an employee perspective
— roon (@tszzl) December 8, 2023
- “employees felt pressured” -> at some point hundreds of us were in a backyard learning about the petition. people were so upset at the… https://t.co/2GbQT2L1f8
wondering what the most efficient thing to do at any given time is an anxiety response. do the fun thing. your forager instincts are often superior to your farmer timetable reasoning at finding the long tail successes
— roon (@tszzl) November 9, 2023
— roon (@tszzl) December 26, 2021
this weekend sealed the deal for me that Elon’s X takeover was actually a civilization critical purchase rather than some silly distraction or a way to center himself
— roon (@tszzl) October 10, 2023
free speech in all its glory and all its horror
how you feel about this meme is where you fall on the ai risk debate pic.twitter.com/3F6BLP7fDy
— roon (@tszzl) November 24, 2023
— roon (@tszzl) September 13, 2023
idea: technology journalist that likes technology
— roon (@tszzl) October 17, 2023