4 ms·

I've been seeing some version of "Sam Altman is the antichrist" on every platform in the last few weeks. I'm still trying to find concretely what makes this guy

by glerk 6mo ago

I've been seeing some version of "Sam Altman is the antichrist" on every platform in the last few weeks. I'm still trying to find concretely what makes this guy so bad compared to every executive out there. So far, all I could find is: - OpenAI made a deal with the Pentagon (fair) - OpenAI changed their business model from non-profit to for-profit (fair?) - Sexual assault allegations by his sister. Sam Altman denies this and it's currently before a court. - Overpromised AI to investors (everyone does this) - Lobbying against regulations (I support) - Some vague accusations of "being a liar" and a "sociopath" by his competitors Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei. - He doesn't know how to code (lol) Is there anything that I'm missing? Does he put ketchup on his pizza?

hgoel 6mo ago
For me, he's an awful person for the smarminess in the pentagon deal (the DIC is too entwined with American industry to bemoan making any deal at all), the business model change, the behavior described in that recent article, the 180 on how he and OpenAI consider AI ethics, and the way he's gone about overpromising. It'd be one thing if he was just promising more than he could actually deliver, but he went further, making promises of buying up unrealistically large chunks of the global RAM supply, causing everyone else to suffer, with no remorse. There's also WorldCoin. I don't think a decent person would continue to push such an awful, untrustworthy system. This is a supposedly privacy-focused project that several countries are investigating for privacy violations and has been found to be in violation of privacy laws in some of them. It's almost as if he goes out of his way to do as much harm to the world as he thinks he can get away with while maintaining the facade of just doing business. I don't think he's the antichrist, I think Peter Thiel is the closest to deserving that description.
BoredPositron 6mo ago
He fucked the RAM market. Not a biggie but I am salty.
mbgerring 6mo ago
“Everyone does this,” and iirc recently a few people went to jail for it. So what’s happening with Altman?
- senordevnyc 6mo ago
  If the investors want to sue him, they can. But it’s nice that you’re worried about the billionaire class like this :)
littlexsparkee 6mo ago
- Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy - Barely gave 1% of compute (on oldest chips) to safety team after promise of 20% - Worked behind the scenes to try to land federal deal that gives mil no guardrails control and ability for mass surveillance - Lied about China AI 'Marshall Plan' to get federal funding - Tried to get MBS money ever after Jamal Kashoggi While long, I'd recommend just reading the New Yorker article
- simianwords 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - littlexsparkee 6mo ago
    I'm just listing negatives that parent missed, don't put words in my mouth
- glerk 6mo ago
  I'm just gonna address the first one, don't necessarily disagree with the rest: > Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy ChatGPT is a tool that changed people's lives. OpenAI released something that wasn't perfect, for free, and forced all their competitors to release these products publicly. You can't stop technological progress to protect old jobs, or because you are afraid people are gonna misuse it. I'm fascinated how many grown adults want to be treated like children their whole lives, but more nefariously, they want to impose this on others who want more freedom and agency. As for IP "theft", all I'm gonna say is: fuck intellectual property as a concept and the whole parasitic industry that grew around it. The only contribution of IP has been to stifle innovation and set our civilization back by decades. Making IP obsolete and unenforceable has been one of the best things to come out of LLMs and one of the great catalysts of the scientific, technological, and creative advancements that are coming in the near future. For that alone, Sam Altman deserves a statue, no matter what his other flaws are.
  - 6mo ago
scarlehoff 6mo ago
I think it is simpler than that. For a lot of people he's the one who "created the AI"* so he is the reason they have been fired. That's it, I don't think much of the rest has any weight outside internet forums like this one. *I've seen people using copilot and calling it "chatgpt".
Findecanor 6mo ago
Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei were high up at OpenAI before becoming competitors. They are just two of many people who have known Altman personally who have accused him of being a lying sociopath. I would not call that vague. It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger.
- glerk 6mo ago
  > It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger. You probably think that "sociopathy" is an incurable disease which would make him some sort of vampire. This is pure bs. The way these "personality disorders" are diagnosed is the same as taking a buzzfeed personality quiz. This is not very rigorous stuff, I would even classify it as pseudoscience. As a tangent, I really despise how they are using greek and latin roots to prompt into our brains that what their models are describing is in any way similar to actual pathologies. So yeah, maybe Sam Altman is generally a dishonest person if we believe what Ilya Sutskever, Dario Amodei, and others are saying. If that's the case (I have no reason to doubt it), he should stop lying and manipulating people, there are more satisfying ways to achieve one's objectives. But the "sociopath" label is pure bs, along with the rest of those "personality disorders". That shit is more dangerous and harmful than a million lying Sam Altmans.
poisonborz 6mo ago
> Lobbying against regulations (I support) one US mindset I can't wrap my mind around
- glerk 6mo ago
  There's a reason why OpenAI and Anthropic (and before them Google, Apple, Meta, etc.) were started in the US and not Europe. And let's not compare salaries we each get for similar work because that tends to make my European friends very sad.
  - poisonborz 6mo ago
    Yes, and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up) - and yes, there's a lot the EU could to unify its market - but it's not "less regulations". > compare salaries Let's not even begin this trope prevalet on HN, those taxes are funding a working healthcare and public infrastructure in EU.
    - glerk 6mo ago
      > and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up) That certainly helps. You could also add talent concentration due to excellent universities and top-tier companies already being here. But the truth is that you can incorporate a business in less than a week here, employment is at-will, there are no unions or other such bullshit, taxes are low, the general way you deal with regulator is ask for forgiveness instead of ask for permission, etc. Say I'm currently working on a project in the crypto or AI space. If I wanted to make it into a commercial product, do you think I'm gonna go to France or Germany? It might take me a few weeks just to get past the first layers of red-tape to get a business licence there. If I hire someone who turns out to be incompetent, I'm probably stuck with them until I gather enough evidence to justify firing. And I have to live in constant fear of the state deciding my business is illegal. > funding a working healthcare Btw the US healthcare system is the best in the world if you can afford it. Health insurance is usually provided through the employer. I can have an appointment with a doctor within days, emergency room wait time is on the order of minutes. Never had a problem with the quality of care.
rvnx 6mo ago
The jacuzzi "parties" with VCs are more than questionable
tim333 6mo ago
Whenever people object to thing-x they go for the most prominent leader of thing-x. I personally object from him trying to divert trillions in investment from potential helping the hungry type stuff which is popular to sticking slop in everything which many don't want.

by glerk 6mo ago

hgoel 6mo ago

For me, he's an awful person for the smarminess in the pentagon deal (the DIC is too entwined with American industry to bemoan making any deal at all), the business model change, the behavior described in that recent article, the 180 on how he and OpenAI consider AI ethics, and the way he's gone about overpromising. It'd be one thing if he was just promising more than he could actually deliver, but he went further, making promises of buying up unrealistically large chunks of the global RAM supply, causing everyone else to suffer, with no remorse. There's also WorldCoin. I don't think a decent person would continue to push such an awful, untrustworthy system. This is a supposedly privacy-focused project that several countries are investigating for privacy violations and has been found to be in violation of privacy laws in some of them. It's almost as if he goes out of his way to do as much harm to the world as he thinks he can get away with while maintaining the facade of just doing business. I don't think he's the antichrist, I think Peter Thiel is the closest to deserving that description.

BoredPositron 6mo ago

He fucked the RAM market. Not a biggie but I am salty.

mbgerring 6mo ago

“Everyone does this,” and iirc recently a few people went to jail for it. So what’s happening with Altman?

senordevnyc 6mo ago
If the investors want to sue him, they can. But it’s nice that you’re worried about the billionaire class like this :)

littlexsparkee 6mo ago

- Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy - Barely gave 1% of compute (on oldest chips) to safety team after promise of 20% - Worked behind the scenes to try to land federal deal that gives mil no guardrails control and ability for mass surveillance - Lied about China AI 'Marshall Plan' to get federal funding - Tried to get MBS money ever after Jamal Kashoggi While long, I'd recommend just reading the New Yorker article

simianwords 6mo ago
[flagged]
- littlexsparkee 6mo ago
  I'm just listing negatives that parent missed, don't put words in my mouth
glerk 6mo ago
I'm just gonna address the first one, don't necessarily disagree with the rest: > Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy ChatGPT is a tool that changed people's lives. OpenAI released something that wasn't perfect, for free, and forced all their competitors to release these products publicly. You can't stop technological progress to protect old jobs, or because you are afraid people are gonna misuse it. I'm fascinated how many grown adults want to be treated like children their whole lives, but more nefariously, they want to impose this on others who want more freedom and agency. As for IP "theft", all I'm gonna say is: fuck intellectual property as a concept and the whole parasitic industry that grew around it. The only contribution of IP has been to stifle innovation and set our civilization back by decades. Making IP obsolete and unenforceable has been one of the best things to come out of LLMs and one of the great catalysts of the scientific, technological, and creative advancements that are coming in the near future. For that alone, Sam Altman deserves a statue, no matter what his other flaws are.
- 6mo ago

scarlehoff 6mo ago

I think it is simpler than that. For a lot of people he's the one who "created the AI"* so he is the reason they have been fired. That's it, I don't think much of the rest has any weight outside internet forums like this one. *I've seen people using copilot and calling it "chatgpt".

Findecanor 6mo ago

Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei were high up at OpenAI before becoming competitors. They are just two of many people who have known Altman personally who have accused him of being a lying sociopath. I would not call that vague. It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger.

glerk 6mo ago
> It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger. You probably think that "sociopathy" is an incurable disease which would make him some sort of vampire. This is pure bs. The way these "personality disorders" are diagnosed is the same as taking a buzzfeed personality quiz. This is not very rigorous stuff, I would even classify it as pseudoscience. As a tangent, I really despise how they are using greek and latin roots to prompt into our brains that what their models are describing is in any way similar to actual pathologies. So yeah, maybe Sam Altman is generally a dishonest person if we believe what Ilya Sutskever, Dario Amodei, and others are saying. If that's the case (I have no reason to doubt it), he should stop lying and manipulating people, there are more satisfying ways to achieve one's objectives. But the "sociopath" label is pure bs, along with the rest of those "personality disorders". That shit is more dangerous and harmful than a million lying Sam Altmans.

poisonborz 6mo ago

> Lobbying against regulations (I support) one US mindset I can't wrap my mind around

glerk 6mo ago
There's a reason why OpenAI and Anthropic (and before them Google, Apple, Meta, etc.) were started in the US and not Europe. And let's not compare salaries we each get for similar work because that tends to make my European friends very sad.
- poisonborz 6mo ago
  Yes, and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up) - and yes, there's a lot the EU could to unify its market - but it's not "less regulations". > compare salaries Let's not even begin this trope prevalet on HN, those taxes are funding a working healthcare and public infrastructure in EU.
  - glerk 6mo ago
    > and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up) That certainly helps. You could also add talent concentration due to excellent universities and top-tier companies already being here. But the truth is that you can incorporate a business in less than a week here, employment is at-will, there are no unions or other such bullshit, taxes are low, the general way you deal with regulator is ask for forgiveness instead of ask for permission, etc. Say I'm currently working on a project in the crypto or AI space. If I wanted to make it into a commercial product, do you think I'm gonna go to France or Germany? It might take me a few weeks just to get past the first layers of red-tape to get a business licence there. If I hire someone who turns out to be incompetent, I'm probably stuck with them until I gather enough evidence to justify firing. And I have to live in constant fear of the state deciding my business is illegal. > funding a working healthcare Btw the US healthcare system is the best in the world if you can afford it. Health insurance is usually provided through the employer. I can have an appointment with a doctor within days, emergency room wait time is on the order of minutes. Never had a problem with the quality of care.

rvnx 6mo ago

The jacuzzi "parties" with VCs are more than questionable

tim333 6mo ago

Whenever people object to thing-x they go for the most prominent leader of thing-x. I personally object from him trying to divert trillions in investment from potential helping the hungry type stuff which is popular to sticking slop in everything which many don't want.