Very close to James Poulson’s #2
Quora is being used to provide inputs for an AI that will take over the world in around 5–6 years when it starts to act sentient.
is a theory so pervasively expressed on Quora, I’m not convinced it actually is a conspiracy theory.
The point of Quora according to Quora Inc. is to provide a repository of the world’s knowledge, and to supplant Google and Wikipedia as the first place people go to for answers.
*snort*
There is some incredulity about this mission statement. What does one impute to Quora, given this incredulity?
The point of Quora isn’t to provide a social media space for smart and shy people, made unique through BNBR. (Scott Welch has identified that as an opportunity.)
The point of Quora isn’t to make money. (On this and the foregoing see also “Connect Your Twitter Account” and What It Says by Paul Denlinger on Rage against Quora and Why knowledge should be cumulative, not repetitive by Paul Denlinger on Rage against Quora.)
In fact, there’s widespread confusion about what the point of Quora actually is, as far as Quora Inc. is concerned. (If you don’t accept the mission statement at face value. And that mission statement doesn’t turn a profit—although there’s a lot going on in Silicon Valley that seems Utopian Socialist, when it comes to turning a profit.)
The conspiracy theory runs, that the point of Quora is to train up AI and Natural Language Processing bots; and the commercial value of Quora is in the bots, not the wetware slaving over the answers the bots analyse.
The thing about conspiracy theories of course, is they arise from refusals to accept Hanlon’s razor.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.