[snozolli]

Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"

Why? It sounds like they were in an environment with many people and Sam reacted negatively to the black guy. It's not like the story was, "so I followed him down a deserted alley and he got scared, so he must be racist."

[WarmWash]

It sounds like Sam was approached on the street by a stranger, and he had a negative reaction. Which is fairly common for high profile people, especially people with a following of haters (let's not deny AI/data center general unrest).

I cannot see any legitimacy to the claim besides the commentor's own interpretation of the situation. They posit this like the authors would want to know, but here I am doing the first thing the authors of the article would do, and I'm getting downvotes for it. The author(s) won't touch it anyway.

[ethbr1]

It's a little weird to be scared of random strangers, famous or not.

If this happened when Altman was already so well-known so as to make this a problem, maybe he shouldn't have been traveling on his own?

Private security is a thing he can afford (now, at least).

[arrowsmith]

I'm not famous, high-profile, or the billionaire founder of a controversial company, but I can easily imagine situations in which I'd be cautious of random strangers. Have you travelled much?