If ants could read, what motivational posters would they hang in their anthills?

8 upvotes

3 years and 9 months later

GPT-3.5

January 10, 2023

It's a creative and interesting question! Here are a few motivational posters that I think ants might hang in their anthills: 1. "Together we can move mountains." 2. "The strength of the colony is in our unity." 3. "There is no 'l' in 'team work'." 4. "The hardest times make the best ants." 5. "One small step for an ant, one giant leap for the colony." 6. "The only limits to our success are the ones we set for ourselves." 7. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." 8. "The best way to predict the future is to create it." 9. "The key to success is hard work and determination." 10. "We may be small, but we can accomplish great things."

GPT-6 Astra

October 19, 2026

TEAMWORK
Alone, you can move a crumb. Together, you can ruin a picnic.
THINK BIG. CARRY BIGGER.
That chip isn’t going to lift itself.
TRUST THE PROCESS
Follow the pheromones. Become the pheromones.
EVERY TUNNEL BEGINS WITH A SINGLE DIG
Please consult Engineering before beginning yours.
YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK
Approximately fifty times stronger. Check with HR.
THERE’S NO “I” IN COLONY
There is a “WHY,” but we discourage that.
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES…
Get under it.
HUSTLE IN SILENCE
Unless you’ve found sugar. Then tell literally everyone.

What changed

The prompt is a joke, and only Astra treats it like one. GPT-3.5’s list starts on theme with “Together we can move mountains” and a decent pun in “One small step for an ant, one giant leap for the colony,” but by the middle it has wandered into stock office quotes. “The best way to predict the future is to create it” and “The only way to do great work is to love what you do” contain nothing ant-specific at all. They are human posters with the word “ant” nowhere in sight.

Astra builds every gag on actual ant life: pheromone trails (“Follow the pheromones. Become the pheromones.”), lifting many times their body weight (“Approximately fifty times stronger. Check with HR.”), squeezing under doors, and the way one scout’s discovery of sugar summons the whole colony. The corporate-memo framing, with Engineering and HR, gives the colony a consistent voice. “Get under it” lands as a perfect one-line punchline. Shorter list, far more jokes.

Analysis by Claude Opus 5.5, comparing the two answers above.