Why do AI company logos look like buttholes?

lol, obviously, but there's also definitely part of me that thinks this would've worked better as a bsky post than a whole serious-sounding blog analysis. The core complaint is made explicit in the postscript:

  ...let's not pretend there isn't a serious point here about the depressing sameness in modern design

I agree in some respects (e.g. the insane number of ChatGPT clones on the appstore), but I really don't think "AI companies like using circles" is an example of that. All these companies want a 1:1 logo for their favicons and app icons, and as the author rightfully points out, circles are very popular in the 1:1 world for a reason. In addition, a few of these are used as bases for Siri-esque "thinking" animations/buttons, which also naturally lends itself to circles.

To specifically pick on their examples of bad "Big AI company" logos, and how many already "embrace meaningful abstraction":

1. Gemini is a twinkling star, and it's just not a circle at all. Using curves isn't copying other people that use curves, that's one of two ways to draw a line!

2. OpenAI isn't just "corporate euphemism", it's three interlinking chain links. I'd say that's some pretty cool abstraction, personally!

3. Meta AI's logo (?) is obviously trash, so fair enough.

4. Grok is a black hole, which is invoking the metaphor of the Vinge's Technological Singularity (i.e. the point at which an intelligence explosion leads to unforeseeable outcomes, likened to how the center of a black hole is somewhat unforeseeable in current physics).

5. Perplexity's logo is an abstraction of the pages of a book -- the designers actually have a nice blog post here: https://medium.com/smith-diction/branding-perplexity-ai-70eb...

6. "Apple Intelligence" isn't a real product and is definitely copying OpenAI's "interlocking shapes" metaphor, but I'd also say it's more triangular than circular when you really look at it. To its small credit, it definitely seems built with animation in mind.

7. Finally, Anthropic was founded by OpenAI engineers worried about existential risk, and the logo reflects that -- AFAIK, it's depicting an intelligence explosion. The parallel to Vonnegut has been noted before and is funny for a moment, but IMO "asterisks are banned" isn't a design principle to take at all seriously because of that one joke.

Remember, the alternative to this "butthole" phenomenon is a much, much darker world, one that's already in place for smaller companies: a world where every logo is a slightly-stylized brain!