What is ‘imagine the smell’ controversy?: Cline AI head Nik Pash says ‘I’m not going to apologise’ amid criticism

martin cline AI head up Nik Pash says he won’t apologise for his “ ideate the smell” remark on a picture of the xAI Hackathon, which has prompted a massive backlash on social media. Earlier, the techie shared that his comment was taken out of context, and now he called it a “harmless joke”.

“It has been an intense 48 hours for me and my team. To be clear, I’m not going to apologize for making a harmless joke about hackathons smelling bad. I’ve been to 4 this year, they all smelled bad,” Pash wrote.

He mentioned that he has received criticism from many, including Deedy Das, an ex-Google and Facebook techie who became a partner at Menlo Ventures. Pash posted, “I do expect an apology from people like Deedy Das, who I’ve had numerous positive interactions with. Instead of being charitable with me, giving me a simulacrum of grace, they dogpiled on me and facilitated more senseless violent and truly odious death threats against me, my family, and my team.”

He continued, “This is ridiculous, and it appears that with X being monetized, people are incentivized to rage bait and amplify senseless violent threats on this platform.”

He also tagged Elon Musk in the tweet and expressed, “Elon Musk wasn’t the whole point of your twitter acquisition to LET us make jokes and have fun in peace? It appears it’s not working. Thank you to all the reasonable people that stood with me. I appreciate you all.”

Following Pash’s tweet naming him, Das publicly apologised. He wrote, “I do apologize, Nik. I genuinely didn't mean to dogpile. Let me explain my side.”

Sharing the intent behind his comment, he shared, “On X, it's painful to see constant racism against Indians. Every time I've seen ‘imagine the smell’, it's an attack on Indians. When I saw you say that, I was taken aback. Disappointed that someone from the tech community would say that. I commented ‘Isn't your founder South Asian?’ because that's what I thought you meant.”

He continued, “Sometimes on social media, the intent of a post gets lost. You didn't mean to be racist. I didn't mean to dogpile. All my interactions with you and Cline have been awesome. Hope we can clear the air. I'm sorry for what you've had to go through.”

While reacting to a picture from the xAI Hackathon showing hundreds of techies in a room trying to win the competition, Pash remarked, “Imagine the smell.” Soon after, people started accusing him of being racist. Pash later said that he was commenting on how hackathons smell, as so many people gather at such a small place to work for so long.

However, people refused to believe his explanation and alleged that his remark had a racist undertone. They continued with the same comment, even though Cline’s South Asian founder defended Pash and said that his remark had been taken out of context.

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