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Comment by postalcoder | Hacker News Reader

Very unfortunately named. OpenAI probably (and likely correctly) estimated that 13 years is enough time after the Snowden leaks to use "prism" for a product but, for me, the word is permanently tainted.

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Anecdotally, I have mentioned PRISM to several non-techie friends over the years and none of them knew what I was talking about, they know 'Snowden' but not 'PRISM'. The amount of people who actually cared about the Snowden leaks is practically a rounding error

Given current events, I think you’ll find many more people care in 2026 than did in 2024.

(See also: today’s WhatsApp whistleblower lawsuit.)

Most people don't care about the details. Neither does the media. I've seen national scandals that the media pushed one way disproven during discovery in a legal trial. People only remember headlines, the retractions are never re-published or remembered.

Guessing that Ai came up with the name based on the description of the product.

Perhaps, like the original PRISM programme, behind the door is a massive data harvesting operation.

This was my first thought as well. Prism is a cool name, but I'd never ever use it for a technical product after those leaks, ever.

I'd think that most people in science would associate the name with an optical prism. A single large political event can't override an everyday physical phenomenon in my head.

Pretty much every company I’ve worked for in tech over my 25+ year career had a (different) system called prism.

(plot twist: he works for NSA contractors)

Hehe. You got me. Also “atlas” is another one. Pretty much everyone has a system somewhere called “atlas”.

I suspect that name recognition for PRISM as a program is not high at the population level.

2027: OpenAI Skynet - "Robots help us everywhere, It's coming to your door"

Skynet? C'mon. That would be too obvious - like naming a company Palantir.

I never though of that association, not in the slightest, until I read this comment.

I followed the Snowden stuff fairly closely and forgot, so I bet they didn't think about it at all and if they did they didn't care and that was surely the right call.

Surprised they didn't do something trendy like Prizm or OpenPrism while keeping it closed source code.

Or the JavaScript ORM.

this was my first thought as well.

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