Comment by hahahacorn
6 days ago
Of Altman in this blog. Put another way I didn’t read those traits from this post and I’m curious what I’m missing.
6 days ago
Of Altman in this blog. Put another way I didn’t read those traits from this post and I’m curious what I’m missing.
Altman's alleged sociopathic behavior is front-and-center, after the recent New Yorker piece: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135)
His response here is a synthesis of 1) addressing the "incendiary article" 2) conflating it with a recent attack on himself and 3) joking about having "fewer explosions in fewer homes" at the end. As a reader it's hard to tell if he wants us to empathize with him or laugh at his misfortune. The self-depricating humor does not mix well with photos of his family and an (ostensibly) life-threatening situation.
From the outside looking in, Altman is stressed and showing the same traits that people are accusing him of. He "brushed [...] aside" the article without ever thinking about addressing it, and now he's sitting down "in the middle of the night and pissed" like some Jobsian seraph, furiously condemning society at-large for not understanding his vision where AGI is the end-times. This is probably reassuring news for the market, but on an individual level I'm having a hard time believing in Altman's narrative. OpenAI is a Department of Defense contractor, it's hard to believe that Altman is capable of resisting coercion when they've already capitulated for peanuts. If Sam was a sociopath, it would probably be very easy for him to justify this with threats of AGI and promises about how much safer we are with him in control. Coincidentally exactly what he spends much of this article reiterating, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
FWIW, reading your response makes it absolutely clear that you started with a conclusion (Altman is a sociopath) and worked backwards from there, instead of trying to reason through the motivations of his actions from first principles.
He very well could be! I’m not commenting on Altman because I don’t know.
But if you applied the same logic to myself in a relatively similar situation, I’d be appalled at your lack of empathy and emotional intelligence.
I never accused him of being a sociopath, several people in the VC community did. In my comment, I deliberately emphasize that it's an allegation, and give him the benefit of the doubt that this is all a genuine shock to him. Altman has seen spurious attacks on his character before, it would be silly to accuse him outright.
All that aside, this blogpost is still tone-deaf. It's hard to see how a photo of his husband will inspire unity with the GOP administration that he relies on for protection. Blue-collar communities are not going to read his description of an AGI apocalypse and reconcile it with OpenAI's defense contracts. Altman himself empathizes with the "anti-technology" sentiment precipitating his pushback, but refuses to denounce the "AGI" nonsense and apocalyptic marketing spiel. The post is a contradiction from front-to-back, and Altman does nothing to assuage it.
If he actually wants to rally the public, why can't we see a real demonstration of how AGI is dangerous to democracy? Why can't Altman apologize for his role in enabling war crimes and extrajudicial surveillance? OpenAI's reputation is in the gutter, and Sam's "blame the government" attitude is likely responsible for torpedoing public trust.
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