Ha, I was giving an AI bootcamp to a room full of people and someone asked me my opinion of Altman. I hesitated for a second and replied that I would not trust Altman further than I could throw a rock about anything.
If Graham says this guy will always stop at nothing to get whatever he wants, which I absolutely believe, then why would you trust anything that comes out of a person like that’s mouth?
10 hours ago a post made the frontpage here [0] about how OpenAI is backing a law that "would limit liability for AI-enabled mass deaths or financial disasters". Now he's here saying he believes that "working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people, and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for [him]".
I know he doesn't believe a word of what he wrote in that post except, perhaps, that he cannot sleep and is pissed. I know I should be used to people openly lying with no consequence, but it still amazes me a bit.
I think it's good for CEOs of powerful companies to make statements about how they don't want too much personal power and it's important to ensure everyone does well, even and perhaps especially if there's reason to suspect they don't believe it. Saying it doesn't solve the problem, but it helps create a permission structure for the rest of us to get it to actually happen.
The reason he's saying that is because he doesn't want you to create that structure. He wants you to not create the laws or checks & balances on him because you "trust that he doesn't really want the power".
OpenAI has also repeatedly and quietly lobbied against them.
You linked a vague PDF whose promised actions are:
> To help sustain momentum, OpenAI is: (1) welcoming and organizing feedback through newindustrialpolicy@openai.com; (2) establishing a pilot program of fellowships and focused research grants of up to $100,000 and up to $1 million in API credits for work that builds on these and related policy ideas; and (3) convening discussions at our new OpenAI Workshop opening in May in Washington, DC.
Welcoming and organizing feedback!
A pilot!
Convening discussions!
This "commitment" pales in comparison to the money they've spent lobbying against specific regulation that cedes power.
Yeah a company causing mass death or other disasters is maybe the single clearest signal that they should go bankrupt and someone else should take over (if the tech is really that important).
I don't think that's unpopular, it is pretty well written. But the "I believe" section is extraordinarily hard to believe given Altman's history.
> Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people
> We have to get safety right
> AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated
None of these statements, IMO, reflect his actions over the past 5 years.
> we urgently need a society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help navigate through a difficult economic transition in order to get to a much better future
I agree with this, but there is a near 0% chance of that happening anytime soon in the US. I think he probably is aware of this.
Just my opinion, but it comes off as very insincere.
To be clear, what happened is still awful and there's absolutely no justification for it.
He doesn't trust it for anything else either as far as I can tell. In an interview he's boasted about how he uses a paper notebook for everything all day.
it's "written well" but not at all a smart piece of writing. leading with a photo of a cute baby before engaging in an extended defense of one's own integrity is so obvious as to be insulting
If Graham says this guy will always stop at nothing to get whatever he wants, which I absolutely believe, then why would you trust anything that comes out of a person like that’s mouth?