Comment by angoragoats
6 days ago
To be clear, I don’t want anyone’s house to get firebombed by any means. But the “I’m just a humble guy making mistakes and trying the best I can” attitude of this article strikes me as extremely inauthentic based on everything I know about the guy.
The post itself is authentic in that it's a set narrative for this moment. When you see the world as Sam does, this event is a specific opportunity to humanize him. Through that lens, the humility is both performative (it is!) and necessary. To be truthful would be inauthentic.
The sympathy is meant to give time and slack to accumulate power. One of the largest impediments to OpenAI right now is that people don't trust them, more and more people don't trust Sam, and their commitments are starting to not pan out (e.g. cancelling of Stargate UK, dropped product lines, etc.)
People should not read a post like this as, "how does this make me feel? how might I respond in his situation?", but rather, as he does, "how can I use this?"
You say “the post itself is authentic” and then go on to give a great explanation of exactly why I think it’s inauthentic. I think we just have different definitions of the word “authentic.”
Yes, that’s fair. A friend once asked what the distinction is between authentic and genuine. This is, I think, a great example.
The piece is authentic—as in, “that’s so Sam!”—but not genuine, as in, “I don’t believe he’s reflecting his intentions.”
This could be splitting hairs, I don’t know. The terms are different in my head but rarely do I come across an instance where it’s at all clear how.
Hes attempting to humanize himself in hopes his family home where his child lives isn't firebombed. Again.
Very reasonable response when you take a step back.
*gate. The gate to his family home.
"Our product can destroy humanity, and it's not some crank telling you this, it's the company and CEO making it themselves, but we'll continue to make it anyway, so suck it up" but also "I'm just a humble guy, why can't we all live in peace?"
Everything about Altman makes me think "scammer". If he has one super-power, it is to convince people of his own importance.
OpenAi doesn't have much time left before they are shuffled off into bankruptcy, and they certainly aren't ruling the fate of man or anything like that. It's like the CEO of Enron claiming to hold the key to the future of mankind's energy resources, and people writing ponderous articles about it and debating whether Ken Lay will be a benevolent dictator or not.
I don't want to firebomb his house, but if I did, I'm pretty sure this shitass response would've only made me want to do it even more.