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Kind of ironic that people are jumping in here to defend Sam Altman on the message board of Y Combinator, which also fired him from an executive leadership role
by snowwrestler 2y ago
Kind of ironic that people are jumping in here to defend Sam Altman on the message board of Y Combinator, which also fired him from an executive leadership role for similar reasons.
- dmix 2y agoAssuming Helen's account is fully accurate, of course. The same person who was pushed out after her coup attempt failed. Which was very likely motivated by much more than Sam lying as she has stated in other articles about how she wants AI she regulated by gov, how GPT shouldn't have been released to the public because it's dangerous, and her interim CEO she pushed as Sams temporary replacement who made statements about wanting to pause AI development for safety reasons.
- wyldfire 2y ago> pushed out If what she said was true, I'd leave the board if I were in her position. I would understand why they decided to take him back but decide that it's not worth working with someone who can't be trusted.
- FireBeyond 2y ago> Sam lying as she has stated in other articles about how she wants AI she regulated by gov Hell, Sam wants AI regulated by government... ... after OAI is well-established and locked in, of course. A little ladder-pulling and regulatory capture is something he's entirely aligned upon.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Terr_ 2y ago> A little ladder-pulling and regulatory capture is something he's entirely aligned upon. I'd say it should be the default-expectation for anybody operating as a professional Venture Capitalist these days, and AFAIK there's no personal record to indicate otherwise.
- cjbprime 2y agoPeople are always pushed out after a failed coup attempt. It signifies the end of a working trust relationship. The fact that they were pushed out afterwards does not provide evidence for whether their reasons were good ones.
- qp11 2y ago[flagged]
- boringg 2y agoHe’s not a very defensible person blindly ambitious about power. Kind of weird to be cheering for Elon to knock off Microsoft/OpenAI effort. Also funny to think of Google as an also ran offering for AI.
- wrycoder 2y agoDefinitely can’t do it with Grok. I’ve been disappointed with how weak it is.
- tsunamifury 2y agoWhen it comes to business google is not not an also ran, it has the relationships to monetize the product, vs openAI which has none and a massive trust issue.
- unyttigfjelltol 2y agoBoth have a "trust" issue. I don't disagree OpenAI's issue is worse, and that just moves the needle from "concerning" to" toxic".
- adastra22 2y agoOpenAI has Microsoft for that.
- boringg 2y agoGoogle needs a step function change in capability for it to be at the lead of the pack. It's often not in the conversation for innovative tech in the space right now. I consider that to be an also-ran.
- m3kw9 2y agoI would not mindlessly think you know how everything went down just by a few articles.
- navigate8310 2y agoBelieve it or not sama actually delivered something believable and actionable to the general masses while being the CEO of OAI while others all they did was to either lecture or publish papers.
- sho_hn 2y agoEnds don't always justify means.
- xyzzy4747 2y agoThe parent comment didn’t say ends always justify means. In this case all Sam did was step on a few toes and hurt the egos of a few board members. Meanwhile they also launched some revolutionary products that also didn’t hurt anyone. So what’s the big deal?
- jjulius 2y agoThis comment chain is doing a really great job of validating this[1] comment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40507268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40507268
- pdonis 2y ago> In this case all Sam did was step on a few toes and hurt the egos of a few board members. No, he lied to other board members, multiple times.
- xyzzy4747 2y agoSounds like he outsmarted them and they were holding back the organization.
- pdonis 2y agoLying is not "outsmarting", it's lying. As for "holding back the organization", if we're talking about existential risk, I want them to be held back. These people have no business being stewards of any technology that might be an existential risk.
- Teever 2y agoDid that stuff with his sister ever get resolved?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Hizonner 2y ago"Resolved" in that it seems to get no attention, and hasn't since shortly after it originally blew up. As far as I know, she never retracted her claim of "sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, and financial abuse". And he never admitted to any of the above.
- Teever 2y agoYeah it's pretty wild that more people don't talk about that given how much time people spend gossiping about him like he was a tabloid celebrity.
- ethbr1 2y agoYeah, it's weird when unfavorable topics suddenly aren't reported...
- Auracle 2y agoI have no horse in this race but I’m glad that - for once - people aren’t taking claims with absolutely no evidence seriously. That’s no way to function as a society. For all we know she could be jealous, have mental issues, or have a different bone to pick with him and thought that’d be the best way to hurt him. If I had his money I could see some of my own relatives doing similar things after being denied handouts, for instance.
- pests 2y agoOh okay then we should just dismiss it?
- m3kw9 2y agoAlso ironic people jumping to attack Altman from every negative article about him without knowing all the details and the contexts
- mewpmewp2 2y agoAll of it is only as ironic as Alanis Morissette
- jollofricepeas 2y ago[flagged]
- mewpmewp2 2y ago[flagged]
- cjbgkagh 2y agoI keep thinking HN has become Reddit, but as Reddit keeps declining it’s possible that both are declining proportionally at the same rate for the same reasons.
- rootusrootus 2y agoIt could be an influx of people who were more active on Reddit and have looked for greener pastures recently. Or we as a community are evolving into a position where puns and memes are completely acceptable, and even get upvoted.
- Terr_ 2y agoIf I had my 'druthers, there's be separate kinds of upvotes for funny and informative. That said, moving the two existing arrows much further apart is even more important. :P
- 2y ago
- stale2002 2y ago[flagged]
- Terr_ 2y ago> does not address the substance of any claims for openAI specifically Well, so what? Parent-poster is suggesting there's a pattern to Altman's conduct in a similar set of situations, and a precedent that we should bear in mind when looking at more-recent stuff. By it's very nature, that kind of argument has to focus on past events. While you might reasonably disagree with their conclusion, it seems you're demanding nobody consider anything except one particular event in isolation from all past history, which is absurd. > A comment that does not address the substance [...] but instead attacks it on a meta level. Yet you literally just did that. You ignored the substance of their comment--relevant past events--to attack it as too "meta."
- stale2002 2y ago> Well, so what? > While you might reasonably disagree with their conclusion What I want is for people to actually discuss the topic as opposed to doing a roundabout dismissal that is devoid of substance. > Yet you literally just did that Now you are catching on! I was worried that I was being too subtle. Indeed I did do that! Annoying isn't it? Especially when I am simply fighting fire with fire and showing why this method of communication is worthless to begin with. Wouldn't this all be better if we were talking about the actual issue, instead of responses to responses on who is being too meta? I totally agree that the whole conversation thread was a mistake from the beginning and that any further comments just destroy the conversation topic as opposed to actually addressing the substance of it. Now you know, by demonstration, of why the whole line of thinking was bad from the beginning.
- Terr_ 2y ago> What I want is for people to actually discuss the topic As I already said, they are discussing the topic of [what probably happened in a controversy between Sam Altman and the OpenAI board], by comparing it to [another controversy involving Sam Altman and another board]. That's related and relevant data. You're the one driving all the meta-noise here, with your illogical attempt to gatekeep it as off-topic. > > You ignored the substance of their comment--relevant past events--to attack it as too "meta." > Now you are catching on! I was worried that I was being too subtle. Indeed I did do that! Annoying isn't it? You're the only one who has done it so far. You're not being satirically clever, just annoying.
- benreesman 2y agoIt’s utterly mundane, completely common knowledge for those who have been around long enough to have watched both the start and end on Loopt that Altman is a dark-triad sociopath with one marketable skill: (in pg’s words) “becoming powerful”. Guy can’t code, can’t design, can’t publish, can’t climb a traditional corporate ladder with even modest guardrails against fraud, can’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar. Can lie, threaten, cajole, manipulate, bribe with zero hesitation or remorse. I’ve been short this nonsense for a decade, and it’s done no favors to me on remaining solvent, but when the market gets rational, it usually gets rational all at once. Karpathy, Ilya, Yoon right off the top of my head, countless others. LeCun woke up the other day and chose violence on X. Insiders are getting short like Goldman dealing with Burry. Guy has nine lives, already been fired for fraud like three times and he’s still living that crime life, so who knows, maybe he lasts long enough to put Ice Nine in my glass after all, but this can only happen so many times.
- nradov 2y agoHow do you "short this nonsense"? OpenAI isn't publicly traded.
- benreesman 2y agoMetaphorically, I’ve been calling the guy a crook for a long time, and this historically hasn’t been the path to anything short of the cold shoulder at best from anything YC adjacent. It was heresy as recently as a year ago, maybe less. Although a couple of the AI meme chats I’m in starting sending around a link that there’s actually a prediction market on whether he lasts in the CEO chair [1]. I’ve been too busy building shit to even look into whether I can trade it, but it’s been spiking north of 20%. [1] https://kalshi.com/markets/openaiceochange/openai-hires-another-ceo https://kalshi.com/markets/openaiceochange/openai-hires-anot...
- tim333 2y agoThat's interesting. I didn't know there was a Sam fired betting market.
- deleted 2y ago
- throwaway2037 2y agoYou wrote "fired". I tried to Google for a concrete, high quality source, but I cannot find anything. The best I could find: > Altman was allegedly fired from his role as the President of YCombinator for putting his own interests first. Note the term "allegedly". Is there a YC press release or an insider's account of his termination? Else, this is just a rumor. To be clear: I don't write this post as a shill for Altman, nor YC.
- benreesman 2y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-alt... There are other sources.
- avarun 2y agoUnsourced legacy media does not qualify as proof.
- benreesman 2y agoThis isn’t a court and neither of us is a jury. This is an Internet forum where ideally we base our speculations at best on the testimony of credible-ish primary sources rather than any personal agenda even more random. Altman will see his day in court if I have to win a Senate seat to see it happen. That determination will be binding.
- tim333 2y agoWhile a lot of the stuff Altman does is shady I'm not sure any of it would be liable for criminal prosecution? Of course there are other court cases like Musk vs OpenAI which may be on the way.
- throwaway2037 2y agoThis is good. I believe it. Thank you.
- ben_w 2y agoMy own opinion on Altman is the same as with GPT-2 getting a slow roll-out for safety: regardless of the reality, it is best to have a system and process which assumes the worst and can cope with that possibility being a reality.
- raymond_goo 2y agoNot true: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940