Data point: It didn’t come off that way to me either, I found it sounded condescending.
I agree that “at Singularity Institute” sounds weird, but I also know that judgement on what sounds weird or what connotations come up—including things like “I’ll let you in on a secret”—vary a lot from person to person, even among people from the same language and country and background.
The phrase was intended to be friendly, precisely in order to mitigate the general expression of disagreement!
Data point: It didn’t come off that way to me either, I found it sounded condescending.
I agree that “at Singularity Institute” sounds weird, but I also know that judgement on what sounds weird or what connotations come up—including things like “I’ll let you in on a secret”—vary a lot from person to person, even among people from the same language and country and background.