There’s a whole genre of press releases and videos for apologies, so I’m not sure it’s such a reputational risk to admit one is wrong. It might be a bigger risk not to, it would seem.
But what you say sounds interesting.
The only venues where I've witnessed someone being attacked for apologizing or admitting an error have been online.
So you see people who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes fail upwards while those who do admit are often pushed down. How often do you see high level politicians admitting their mistakes? They almost never do since those who did never got that far.
Probably < 1% of the people in the peanut gallery have even met the person they're attacking. Without participating in online discussion forums, how many of them would even know who Ilya is, or bother attacking him?
Honestly, I think the "never apologize or admit an error" thing is memetic bullshit that is repeated mindlessly, and that few people really believe, if challenged, that it's harmful to admit an error; they're saying it because it's a popular thing to say online. I've posted the same thing too, in the past, but having given it some thought I don't really believe it myself.
Ilya should have sent that message to Sam Altman in private instead of public.
Alternative (being clueless AND unrepentant) would receive even worse reaction. Now people ISTM mostly pity Ilya as being way out of his league.
If they pile on after you have conceded, typically they come off much worse socially in my opinion.
There is a reason why CEOs are usually a showman type.
Admitting the mistake in front of strangers, usually leads to them making the shortcut next time and assuming you are wrong again.
you wont get any awards for admitting the mistake.
In my experience, it's something of a sliding scale as you go higher in the amount of politicking your environment requires.
Lower-level engineers and people who operate based on facts appreciate you admitting you were incorrect in a discussion.
The higher you go, the more what matters is how you are perceived, and the perceived leverage gain of someone admitting or it being "proven" they were wrong in a high-stakes situation, not the facts of the situation.
This is part of why, in politics, the factual accuracy of someone's accusations may matter less than how successfully people can spin a story around them, even if the facts of the story are proven false later.
I'm not saying I like this, but you can see echoes of this play out every time you look at history and how people's reactions were more dictated by perception than the facts of the situation, even if the facts were readily available.
Those who are obsessed with their reputation above morality have usually had a lot of practice punching down, and they don't really look as bad as someone being dunked on who gets confused.
I think this is like a cornerstone of bullying. It seems to work in social situations. I'm sure everyone reading this comment can picture it.