// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
How an OpenAI influencer trip backfired
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What did the content creators learn about ChatGPT at the “summer club” weekend trip?
What did the content creators learn about ChatGPT at the “summer club” weekend trip?
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The brand trip is a right of passage for influencers. It’s a mark of legitimacy that a sponsor wants to invite them on an all-expenses-paid vacation, often with luxurious freebies and activities. Trips can also spur hard feelings from uninvited influencers, trigger criticism from the public, and project a certain frivolousness.
Usually it is fast fashion companies or beauty brands flying out influencers with the goal of flooding social media with sponsored content. This time, it was a major AI company.
Over the weekend, several influencers began posting about OpenAI’s “first ever brand trip,” which appears to have taken place outside of New York City at a nature-filled retreat (for those curious, it looks to be the Instagram-bait Wildflower Farms). The trip was marketed as “Summer Club,” and influencers posted photos and videos from their cabins, showing off branded merch and monogrammed pajamas and talking vaguely about the scheduled programming. Many of the content creators appear to be in the career and business niches, posting about workplace culture or about being CEOs. Grace McCarrick, who has 145,000 followers on TikTok, vlogged from her suite as she ran a bath at night. Another influencer, Nat Lucy (57,000 followers), filmed herself spotting a deer outside of her cabin. All hell broke loose.