A researcher joked that working at OpenAI ages you. Now colleagues are posting their before-and-after photos.

Working astatine OpenAI whitethorn look bully for your résumé. For your under-eyes? The company's researchers are not truthful sure.

A tongue-in-cheek joke by Thibault Sottiaux, the engineering lead connected OpenAI's Codex, astir the AI lab's breakneck pace has sparked a mini before-and-after inclination among colleagues — complete pinch changed hairstyles and a proposal for oculus patches.

"A fewer weeks astatine OpenAI consciousness for illustration years astatine different companies successful position of really overmuch gets done," Sottiaux wrote successful an X post connected Thursday. "Crazy really overmuch you tin property successful a fewer days."

The post, which has been viewed much than 950,000 times arsenic of Friday morning, followed respective days of online jokes astir Sottiaux's quality successful an section of the "Matthew Berman" podcast connected Monday.

X users compared the question and reply footage pinch his LinkedIn floor plan photo. One joked that OpenAI had replaced him pinch "TIBO-3000" — a fictional robot type of Sottiaux — while others teased that he had not slept successful months.

Sottiaux did not precisely unopen down the meme. On Tuesday, he polled his 525,500 X followers connected whether he needed a haircut, pinch astir 75% of astir 54,000 votes opting for "yes."

When different personification asked why he looked different, he replied: "Hair grows and tin (optionally) beryllium cut."

His colleagues person now joined in.

Kath Korevec, a personnel of OpenAI's Codex team, shared side-by-side photos captioned, "Before and aft I joined OpenAI." The newer photograph showed her wearing under-eye patches. "Maybe I should gift @thsottiaux immoderate nether oculus patches," she said successful an X post connected Friday.

Jason Liu, different personnel of OpenAI's Codex team, posted his ain brace of photos, penning connected X connected Thursday: "these photos were taking earlier and aft one joined openai."

The posts are intelligibly tongue-in-cheek, alternatively than grounds that OpenAI unit are really morphing into sleep-deprived versions of themselves.

Still, the meme touches connected the cognition of a high-stress "grindset" mentality successful galore AI labs, wherever researchers are trying to outpace rivals, vessel products, and build ever much tin models astatine dizzying speed.

The jokes besides bespeak a much superior backdrop: the strain that the AI title tin spot connected the group building it.

In July, Thinking Machines Lab cofounder Lilian Weng stepped down aft saying the "consistent accent and workload" had pushed her beyond what her wellness could physically sustain.

Other salient AI figures, including OpenAI executive Fidji Simo and xAI cofounder Greg Yang, person besides recently stepped back from full-time roles while dealing pinch wellness issues.