[P_I_Staker]

It is a personal scandal and I thought it was obvious from the press release.

Prior to the Reddit comments, I thought this might be the case, but perhaps I was somehow influenced. Actually, I thought it would be something inappropriate in the workplace.

His sister says he molested her when he was a teenager.

The way these things break, I’m not surprised it went down that way. Here’s what I thought reading the release: “They had to fire him before deciding on what to actually say eg. to formally accuse him”

It seemed like signaling that this is someone firing him kinda desperately. When you discover a diddler theres some weird shit when people panic and suddenly drop catapult them out of their lives… they just start leaping out of moving cars and shit to get away.

Keep in mind there could be ongoing investigations, definitely strategies being formed. They can get to a point in an investigation where they’re virtually 100% he molested his sister, but can’t really prove it yet. What they do have is irrefutable evidence of lying about something incredibly serious. Gets him out of the building and powers stripped today.

[whynotminot]

The sister has been making these accusations for months and nothing happened. What changed today?

[P_I_Staker]

Still wondering if I could have jumped the gun, I did NOT know these were standing accusations. Couple of things though:

- How he behaved during the investigation. Something could come to light on this matter.

- Often times what you hear is only the most rock solid stuff, we don't know what kind of rumors are circulating

- It just happens this way. Do you remember Milo? I listened to him on Joe Rogan say the exact same shit that was "discovered" some time later. This wouldn't be a new thing.

I will say I've seen stories circulating about fighting between the board. The specific way this was done just screams panic firing to get him out of the building. This is when people are made to disappear, I saw it during covid.

You would think almost any dispute would be handled with a long drawn out press blitz, transitioning, etc.

[whynotminot]

> Still wondering if I could have jumped the gun

Hmm ya think?

This is more and more, in the light of the next day, looking like a disagreement about company direction turned sloppy boardroom coup. Corporate shenanigans.

I can see why people looking for some explanation quickly reached for it, but the sister angle never made any sense. At least where that story stands right now.

[neilkk]

Note that everything below is speculation. I am merely trying to suggest an hypothesis which would answer the question of how the Annie Altman allegations could have led to this outcome. FWIW I think it's better speculation than some of the 'he did a side deal with MS' stuff above.

It seems basically impossible for OpenAI to have proved the validity of Annie Altman's claims about childhood sexual abuse. But they might have to take them seriously, especially once they were presented coherently on LessWrong.

If Sam had lied or misled the board about some aspect of his relationship with his sister, that would be a sacking offence. Eg he says "Annie's claims are completely untrue - I never abused her [maybe true or not, almost certainly unprovable], I never got her shadow banned from Instagram [by hypothesis true] and I never told her I could get her banned [untrue]." The board then engage a law firm or PI to check out the claims and they come up with a text message clearly establishing that he threatened to pull strings and get her banned. He lied to the board regarding an investigation into his good character so he's gone. And the board have the external investigator's stamp on the fact that he lied so they can cover their own ass.

Why would he tell a lie like this? Because whatever the truth of the allegations, he's arrogant and didn't take them as seriously as he should have. He mistakenly thought he could be dismissive and it wouldn't come back to bite him.

This seems consistent with the way things played out. (Note again: I'm just trying to come up with something consistent. I have no idea if this is at all accurate or the whole affair is about something completely different.) They don't have to worry about keeping him on as an advisor to cover up scandal. They can clearly state that he lied in an important matter. But they don't say what it's about - because they still have no idea whether the original allegations are true or not. They are not going to put themselves in a situation of saying "and he probably molested his sister". They wouldn't even say "it is related to abuse allegations made by a family member", which implies there might be evidence to the original allegations, and is probably defamatory. And he comes out saying that something unfair has happened, without giving any context, because he knows that even mentioning the allegations is going to lead to "but didn't he molest his sister" type comments, for the rest of time.

It's also consistent with the timing. They aren't just going to hear the Annie allegations and sack him. It takes time to look into these things. But within 6 weeks of it becoming an issue, they might be able to identify that he's either lied previously to the board about the gravity of this issue, lied during the current investigation, or something he's said publicly is clearly dishonest.

[SamAltmanRapist]

I'm virtually 100% sure he did it after just looking into it today so I can see exactly what you're saying about people backflipping out of cars and stuff to get away from it.

[P_I_Staker]

Yeah, idk news this morning seems to point otherwise. I would still be very careful with this dude. It really felt like a shoe was going to drop.

This seemed like a REALLY negative dismissal.