I would find it valuable if someone could gather an easy-to-read bullet point list of all the questionable things Sam Altman has done throughout the years.
Financial conflict-of-interest stuff—murky and not super important
Misc instances of saying-what’s-convenient (e.g. OpenAI should scale because of the prospect of compute overhang and the $7T chip investment thing) - idk, maybe, also interested in more examples
Johansson & Sky—not obvious that OpenAI did something bad, but it would be nice for OpenAI to say “we had plans for a Johansson voice and we dropped that when Johansson said no,” but if that was true they’d have said it...
What am I missing? Am I including anything misleading or not-worth-it?
Sam added in SEC filings (for AltC) that he’s YC’s chairman. Sam Altman has never been YC’s chairman. From an article posted on April 15th, 2024:
“Annual reports filed by AltC for the past 3 years make the same claim. The recent report: Sam was currently chairman of YC at the time of filing and also “previously served” as YC’s chairman.”
The journalist who replied to me said: “Whether Sam Altman was fired from YC or not, he has never been YC’s chair but claimed to be in SEC filings for his AltC SPAC which merged w/Oklo. AltC scrubbed references to Sam being YC chair from its website in the weeks since I first reported this.”
His sister’s accusations that he blocked her from parent’s inheritance and that he molested her when he was a young teenager and that he got her social media accounts flagged as spam to hide the accusations
I would not consider her claims worth including in a list of top items for people looking for an overview, as they are hard to verify or dubious (her comments are generally bad enough to earn flagging on their own), aside from possibly the inheritance one—as that should be objectively verifiable, at least in theory, and lines up better with the other items.
I’m very not sure how to do this, but are there ways to collect some counteracting or unbiased samples about Sam Altman? Or to do another one-sided vetting for other CEOs to see what the base rate of being able to dig up questionable things is? Collecting evidence in that points in only one direction just sets off huge warning lights 🚨🚨🚨🚨 I can’t quiet.
Collecting evidence in that points in only one direction just sets off huge warning lights 🚨🚨🚨🚨 I can’t quiet.
Yes, it should. And that’s why people are currently digging so hard in the other direction, as they begin to appreciate to what extent they have previously had evidence that only pointed in one direction and badly misinterpreted things like, say, Paul Graham’s tweets or YC blog post edits or ex-OAer statements.
Note, what is hard to pinpoint when it comes to S.A. is that many of the things he does have been described as “papercuts”. This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to make a convincing case for wrongdoing.
I would find it valuable if someone could gather an easy-to-read bullet point list of all the questionable things Sam Altman has done throughout the years.
I usually link to Gwern’s comment thread (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KXHMCH7wCxrvKsJyn/openai-facts-from-a-weekend?commentId=toNjz7gy4rrCFd99A), but I would prefer if there was something more easily-consumable.
[Edit #2, two months later: see https://ailabwatch.org/resources/integrity/]
[Edit: I’m not planning on doing this but I might advise you if you do, reader.]
50% I’ll do this in the next two months if nobody else does. But not right now, and someone else should do it too.
Off the top of my head (this is not the list you asked for, just an outline):
Loopt stuff
YC stuff
YC removal
NDAs
And deceptive communication recently
And maybe OpenAI’s general culture of don’t publicly criticize OpenAI
Profit cap non-transparency
Superalignment compute
Two exoduses of safety people; negative stuff people-who-quit-OpenAI sometimes say
Telling board members not to talk to employees
Board crisis stuff
OpenAI executives telling the board Altman lies
The board saying Altman lies
Lying about why he wanted to remove Toner
Lying to try to remove Toner
Returning
Inadequate investigation + spinning results
Stuff not worth including:
Reddit stuff—unconfirmed
Financial conflict-of-interest stuff—murky and not super important
Misc instances of saying-what’s-convenient (e.g. OpenAI should scale because of the prospect of compute overhang and the $7T chip investment thing) - idk, maybe, also interested in more examples
Johansson & Sky—not obvious that OpenAI did something bad, but it would be nice for OpenAI to say “we had plans for a Johansson voice and we dropped that when Johansson said no,” but if that was true they’d have said it...
What am I missing? Am I including anything misleading or not-worth-it?
Here’s new one: https://x.com/jacquesthibs/status/1796275771734155499?s=61&t=ryK3X96D_TkGJtvu2rm0uw
Sam added in SEC filings (for AltC) that he’s YC’s chairman. Sam Altman has never been YC’s chairman. From an article posted on April 15th, 2024:
“Annual reports filed by AltC for the past 3 years make the same claim. The recent report: Sam was currently chairman of YC at the time of filing and also “previously served” as YC’s chairman.”
The journalist who replied to me said: “Whether Sam Altman was fired from YC or not, he has never been YC’s chair but claimed to be in SEC filings for his AltC SPAC which merged w/Oklo. AltC scrubbed references to Sam being YC chair from its website in the weeks since I first reported this.”
The article: https://archive.is/Vl3VR
Just a heads up, it’s been 2 months!
Not what you asked for but related: https://ailabwatch.org/resources/integrity/
His sister’s accusations that he blocked her from parent’s inheritance and that he molested her when he was a young teenager and that he got her social media accounts flagged as spam to hide the accusations
I would not consider her claims worth including in a list of top items for people looking for an overview, as they are hard to verify or dubious (her comments are generally bad enough to earn flagging on their own), aside from possibly the inheritance one—as that should be objectively verifiable, at least in theory, and lines up better with the other items.
I’m very not sure how to do this, but are there ways to collect some counteracting or unbiased samples about Sam Altman? Or to do another one-sided vetting for other CEOs to see what the base rate of being able to dig up questionable things is? Collecting evidence in that points in only one direction just sets off huge warning lights 🚨🚨🚨🚨 I can’t quiet.
Yes, it should. And that’s why people are currently digging so hard in the other direction, as they begin to appreciate to what extent they have previously had evidence that only pointed in one direction and badly misinterpreted things like, say, Paul Graham’s tweets or YC blog post edits or ex-OAer statements.
Given today’s news about Mira (and two other execs leaving), I figured I should bump this again.
But also note that @Zach Stein-Perlman has already done some work on this (as he noted in his edit): https://ailabwatch.org/resources/integrity/.
Note, what is hard to pinpoint when it comes to S.A. is that many of the things he does have been described as “papercuts”. This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to make a convincing case for wrongdoing.