Here's a thought that just came up while talking with friend Steve:
It could well be that billions of dollars of investment in the world have been redirected simply because someone decided that LLMs released to the public should speak in the first person.
I don't recall that anyone seriously suggested that AI Dungeon or NovelAI were going to be AGI. But talking to something in the first person has a *big* psychological impact, perhaps enough to overcome ordinary rationality (see for instance ELIZA).
(I should note that I actually made this suggestion, when some GPT was out but I hadn't yet used it in the first person: https://ceoln.wordpress.com/2020/08/22/can-haz-agi/
On the other hand, it wasn't entirely a serious suggestion on my part; more meant to be provocative, on the theory that people would pretty much universally disagree!)
