I really don’t think you can justify putting this much trust in the NYT’s narrative of events and motivations here. Like, yes, Toner did publish the paper, and probably Altman did send her an email about it. Then the NYT article tacitly implies but *doesn’t explicitly say* this was the spark that set everything off, which is the sort of haha-it’s-not-technically-lying that I expect from the NYT. This post depends on that implication being true.
The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect seems pretty operative, given the first name on the relevant NYT article is the same guy who did some pretty bad reporting on Scott Alexander.
If you don’t think the latter was a reliable summary of Scott’s blog, there’s not much reason to think that the former is a reliable summary of the OpenAI situation.
I’d say that, on conflict theory terms, NYT adequately described Scott. They correctly identified him as a contrarian willing to entertain, and maybe even hold, taboo opinions, and to have polite interactions with out-and-out witches. Of course, we may think it deplorable that the ‘newspaper of record’ considers such people deserving to be publicly named and shamed, but they provided reasonably accurate information to those sharing this point of view.
The assertion is that Sam sent the email reprimanding Helen to others at OpenAI, not to Helen herself, which is a fundamentally different move.
I can’t conceive of a situation in which the CEO of a non-profit trying to turn the other employees against the people responsible for that non-profit (ie the board) would be business-as-usual.
I really don’t think you can justify putting this much trust in the NYT’s narrative of events and motivations here. Like, yes, Toner did publish the paper, and probably Altman did send her an email about it. Then the NYT article tacitly implies but *doesn’t explicitly say* this was the spark that set everything off, which is the sort of haha-it’s-not-technically-lying that I expect from the NYT. This post depends on that implication being true.
The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect seems pretty operative, given the first name on the relevant NYT article is the same guy who did some pretty bad reporting on Scott Alexander.
If you don’t think the latter was a reliable summary of Scott’s blog, there’s not much reason to think that the former is a reliable summary of the OpenAI situation.
I’d say that, on conflict theory terms, NYT adequately described Scott. They correctly identified him as a contrarian willing to entertain, and maybe even hold, taboo opinions, and to have polite interactions with out-and-out witches. Of course, we may think it deplorable that the ‘newspaper of record’ considers such people deserving to be publicly named and shamed, but they provided reasonably accurate information to those sharing this point of view.
The assertion is that Sam sent the email reprimanding Helen to others at OpenAI, not to Helen herself, which is a fundamentally different move.
I can’t conceive of a situation in which the CEO of a non-profit trying to turn the other employees against the people responsible for that non-profit (ie the board) would be business-as-usual.