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Sam Altman's sister amends lawsuit accusing OpenAI CEO of sexual abuse

32 points by therobots927 7mo ago

Teever 7mo ago
Can anyone tell if me there's ever been a substantial conversatino about this topic on HN? I see occasional threads that more or less whisper about it but never a major post where people really discuss it openly.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 7mo ago
  Its pretty much impossible to have a substantial discussion because the facts (beyond the fact of the allegations) are opaque. Its a highly emotionally charged issue involving a divisive figure where pretty much no one has any access to useful facts. Discussions are destined to be all noise, no signal.
  - Teever 7mo ago
    That wasn't really the vibe in 2016 with Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. What changed?
    - salawat 7mo ago
      They weren't working on the key to break the dependence of the wealthy on the working class.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
    - dcrazy 7mo ago
      Weinstein blew open when Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan spoke to the New York Times [0]. That in turn led to more concrete public allegations against Spacey, which he tried to deflect by “choosing to live as a gay man.” [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-haras...
    - armchairhacker 7mo ago
      Harvey Weinstein had evidence and was convicted of rape. Kevin Spacey had many people accuse him. But he was cleared of all charges, and no-one seems to have evidence. Honestly, I suspect he was an innocent victim of #MeToo (an overshot of the direction that rightfully convicted people like Weinstein), and may get a revival soon (the last charges were settled in March, see the vibe of https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1q45z9e/cmv_now_that_kevin_spacey_has_been_acquitted_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1q45z9e/cmv_n...) Altman has an accusation from one person with no evidence.
    - dragonwriter 7mo ago
      > That wasn't really the vibe in 2016 with Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. It's not a vibe, its a factual description of the circumstances. Not sure what the comparison to Weinstein and Spacey in the year prior to the main accusations against either becoming public is supposed to be about, but the accusations against either, when they became public, were substantially different in scope and evidence publicly available to those against Altman. Which is not a statement on the merits of the accusations against Altman, but it is relevant to the potential for meaningful, substantive public discussion.
- believme1123e4 7mo ago
  Nobody wants to be subject of a false SA accusation, leave alone something as dramatic as this. So It's very natural for people to give benefit of doubt and stay silent when these allegations have not been proven. Even those who absolutely hate Sam Altman for other reasons.
  - therobots927 7mo ago
    Nobody wants to be molested by their older brother either.
  - PeterStuer 7mo ago
    How do you propose Annie proves this?
    - tetromino_ 7mo ago
      Using eyewitnesses to corroborate as much of her story as possible, plus any artifacts generated during the years of abuse (medical records, therapist notes, texts/letters to friends, diary entries, etc.).
MORPHOICES 7mo ago
[dead]
simianwords 7mo ago
Sam Altman gets accused of raping his own sister. Sam Altman gets accused of murdering a whistleblower employee. Sam Altman gets accused of lying and cheating the board and gets ousted. Bro is either cartoonishly evil or something else.
- mhitza 7mo ago
  > Sam Altman gets accused of lying and cheating the board and gets ousted. I haven't seen this claim made before. The reason for his ousting where never cleared up.
  - tim333 7mo ago
    The public thing was > Altman’s ouster, which is effective immediately, follows “a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the board said in a blog post Friday. I'm not sure there's much info beyond that?
- bitwank 7mo ago
  He is well known to be morally troubled— his postings here over the years gave off that vibe for most who paid attention— but even if he were a hypersexual psychopath or something like that, it doesn’t prove he molested his little sister all those times. There’s a lot of grey area in childhood sexuality, and Sam seems like a “grey area” sort of guy fwiw. He is probably mostly innocent.
  - therobots927 7mo ago
    It’s he said she said. And in this case we’re being asked to believe the very wealthy and powerful older brother over a younger sister who has to rely on “the family” for money and who “the family” claims is “mentally unwell”. Got it.
    - simianwords 7mo ago
JaceDev 7mo ago
[flagged]
falseprofit 7mo ago
Is this article just plagiarized from the Reuters one from the day before? https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-now-dismisses-lawsuit-by-sam-altmans-sister-accusing-openai-ceo-sexual-2026-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-now-dismisses...
- therobots927 7mo ago
  It’s possible. My apologies.
- jfengel 7mo ago
  It's not plagiarized; it's the same article. The Independent licenses articles from wire services like Reuters. It includes the same byline. Most news actually originates with wire services. News organizations collect the stories that seem relevant to their readership and run them. Very few actually gather news themselves, especially for news outside their immediate domain. The wire services also gather news from the original news sources (say, a local newspaper writing about news in their area) and licenses it out to others who might be interested. In this case, the journalist worked directly for Reuters. Reuters is a well-respected source, and about as close as you'll find to getting "just the facts".
gitaarik 7mo ago
> The Altman family has said Annie Altman has mental health challenges I can imagine if you're been raped by your brother during childhood. But of course now nobody will take her seriously because she has mental problems and Altman is a tech giant. Not saying she's necessarily true. And you can probably never really find out the truth about this. But I think it's noticeable that there are these issues in their family. And not surprising that heavily traumatized children end up being narcissistic psychopaths.
- sirshmooey 7mo ago
  The film Magnolia dramatizes just such a character. Her father, the perpetrator, is a well-connected, well-respected TV game show host. She's an isolated, mentally unstable drug abuser. Not hard to imagine which person people are incentivized to believe. You're right, we'll probably never know.

32 points by therobots927 7mo ago

Can anyone tell if me there's ever been a substantial conversatino about this topic on HN? I see occasional threads that more or less whisper about it but never a major post where people really discuss it openly.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 7mo ago
Its pretty much impossible to have a substantial discussion because the facts (beyond the fact of the allegations) are opaque. Its a highly emotionally charged issue involving a divisive figure where pretty much no one has any access to useful facts. Discussions are destined to be all noise, no signal.
- Teever 7mo ago
  That wasn't really the vibe in 2016 with Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. What changed?
  - salawat 7mo ago
    They weren't working on the key to break the dependence of the wealthy on the working class.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  - dcrazy 7mo ago
    Weinstein blew open when Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan spoke to the New York Times [0]. That in turn led to more concrete public allegations against Spacey, which he tried to deflect by “choosing to live as a gay man.” [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-haras...
  - armchairhacker 7mo ago
    Harvey Weinstein had evidence and was convicted of rape. Kevin Spacey had many people accuse him. But he was cleared of all charges, and no-one seems to have evidence. Honestly, I suspect he was an innocent victim of #MeToo (an overshot of the direction that rightfully convicted people like Weinstein), and may get a revival soon (the last charges were settled in March, see the vibe of https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1q45z9e/cmv_now_that_kevin_spacey_has_been_acquitted_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1q45z9e/cmv_n...) Altman has an accusation from one person with no evidence.
  - dragonwriter 7mo ago
    > That wasn't really the vibe in 2016 with Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. It's not a vibe, its a factual description of the circumstances. Not sure what the comparison to Weinstein and Spacey in the year prior to the main accusations against either becoming public is supposed to be about, but the accusations against either, when they became public, were substantially different in scope and evidence publicly available to those against Altman. Which is not a statement on the merits of the accusations against Altman, but it is relevant to the potential for meaningful, substantive public discussion.
believme1123e4 7mo ago
Nobody wants to be subject of a false SA accusation, leave alone something as dramatic as this. So It's very natural for people to give benefit of doubt and stay silent when these allegations have not been proven. Even those who absolutely hate Sam Altman for other reasons.
- therobots927 7mo ago
  Nobody wants to be molested by their older brother either.
- PeterStuer 7mo ago
  How do you propose Annie proves this?
  - tetromino_ 7mo ago
    Using eyewitnesses to corroborate as much of her story as possible, plus any artifacts generated during the years of abuse (medical records, therapist notes, texts/letters to friends, diary entries, etc.).

MORPHOICES 7mo ago

[dead]

simianwords 7mo ago

Sam Altman gets accused of raping his own sister. Sam Altman gets accused of murdering a whistleblower employee. Sam Altman gets accused of lying and cheating the board and gets ousted. Bro is either cartoonishly evil or something else.

mhitza 7mo ago
> Sam Altman gets accused of lying and cheating the board and gets ousted. I haven't seen this claim made before. The reason for his ousting where never cleared up.
- tim333 7mo ago
  The public thing was > Altman’s ouster, which is effective immediately, follows “a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the board said in a blog post Friday. I'm not sure there's much info beyond that?
bitwank 7mo ago
He is well known to be morally troubled— his postings here over the years gave off that vibe for most who paid attention— but even if he were a hypersexual psychopath or something like that, it doesn’t prove he molested his little sister all those times. There’s a lot of grey area in childhood sexuality, and Sam seems like a “grey area” sort of guy fwiw. He is probably mostly innocent.
- therobots927 7mo ago
  It’s he said she said. And in this case we’re being asked to believe the very wealthy and powerful older brother over a younger sister who has to rely on “the family” for money and who “the family” claims is “mentally unwell”. Got it.
  - simianwords 7mo ago

JaceDev 7mo ago

[flagged]

falseprofit 7mo ago

Is this article just plagiarized from the Reuters one from the day before? https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-now-dismisses-lawsuit-by-sam-altmans-sister-accusing-openai-ceo-sexual-2026-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-now-dismisses...

therobots927 7mo ago
It’s possible. My apologies.
jfengel 7mo ago
It's not plagiarized; it's the same article. The Independent licenses articles from wire services like Reuters. It includes the same byline. Most news actually originates with wire services. News organizations collect the stories that seem relevant to their readership and run them. Very few actually gather news themselves, especially for news outside their immediate domain. The wire services also gather news from the original news sources (say, a local newspaper writing about news in their area) and licenses it out to others who might be interested. In this case, the journalist worked directly for Reuters. Reuters is a well-respected source, and about as close as you'll find to getting "just the facts".

gitaarik 7mo ago

> The Altman family has said Annie Altman has mental health challenges I can imagine if you're been raped by your brother during childhood. But of course now nobody will take her seriously because she has mental problems and Altman is a tech giant. Not saying she's necessarily true. And you can probably never really find out the truth about this. But I think it's noticeable that there are these issues in their family. And not surprising that heavily traumatized children end up being narcissistic psychopaths.

sirshmooey 7mo ago
The film Magnolia dramatizes just such a character. Her father, the perpetrator, is a well-connected, well-respected TV game show host. She's an isolated, mentally unstable drug abuser. Not hard to imagine which person people are incentivized to believe. You're right, we'll probably never know.