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Not sure why this is interesting; it seems like anything that becomes "popular" could be cast as a "virus", including things like "having a fridge". Why does this give particular insight?

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Smart fridges are a pathological virus, yes /jk

Even normal fridges are a memetic virus, fridges clearly live in a symbiotic relationship with humans. They make our lives better and in return we create more fridges. If they weren't useful to us, we'd stop making more fridges. Any medieval human who sees a fridge would instantly recognize why it's useful and valuable.

OP is right, anything popular is virus-like. Richard Dawkins invented the word meme for this all the way back in 1976.

"We invented a new term to express how much we dislike LLMs! Look at us, we certainly deserve your attention!."

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