OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post on Friday night responding to both an apparent assault at his home and an in-depth New Yorker profile raising questions about its credibility.
Early Friday morning, someone reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s home in San Francisco. No one was injured in the incident, and a suspect was later arrested at OpenAI’s headquarters, where he threatened to burn down the building. according to the SF Police Department.
While police have not publicly identified the suspect, Altman noted that the incident occurred just days after an “inflammatory article” about him was published. He said someone had suggested that publishing the article “at a time of great concern about artificial intelligence” could make things “more dangerous” for him.
“I put it aside,” Altman said. “Now I’m awake in the middle of the night and angry and thinking that I’ve underestimated the power of words and narratives.”
The article in question was an extensive investigative piece written by Ronan Farrow (who won a Pulitzer for reporting that exposed many of the sexual abuse allegations surrounding Harvey Weinstein) and Andrew Marantz (who has written extensively on technology and politics).
Farrow and Marantz said that during interviews with more than 100 people with knowledge of Altman’s business conduct, most described Altman as someone with “an unrelenting will to power that, even among industrialists who put their names on spaceships, sets him apart.”
Echoing other journalists who have profiled Altman, Farrow and Marantz argued that multiple sources have raised questions about his credibility, with one unnamed board member saying he combines “an intense desire to please people, to like every given interaction” with a “sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences of deceiving someone.”
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In his response, Altman said that looking back, he can identify “a lot of things I’m proud of and a lot of mistakes.”
Among the mistakes, he said, is a tendency toward “collision aversion,” which he said “caused me and OpenAI a lot of pain.”
“I’m not proud that I mishandled myself in a conflict with the previous board that led to massive chaos for the company,” Altman said, possibly referring to his ouster and swift reinstatement as OpenAI’s CEO in 2023. “I’ve made a lot of other mistakes throughout OpenAI’s crazy trajectory. for the mission”.
He added: “I’m sorry for the people I hurt and I wish I had learned sooner.”
Altman also acknowledged that there seems to be “so much Shakespearean drama between companies in our field,” which he attributed to a “ring of power” dynamic that “makes people do crazy things.”
Of course, the right way to deal with it power ring is to destroy it, so Altman added, “I don’t mean that [artificial general intelligence] it’s the ring itself, but instead the overall philosophy of “be the one to control the AGI”. His proposed solution is to “go towards sharing the technology with people widely and no one owns the ring”.
Altman concluded by saying that he welcomes “good faith criticism and discussion,” while reiterating his belief that “technological progress can make the future incredibly good, for your family and mine.”
“While we’re having this conversation, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and the tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer houses, figuratively and literally,” he said.
