Maybe she thought she's doing the right thing, I'm sure all those people think they're doing their earnest version of "the right thing". Yet the company she praised, Anthropic, is clearly dysfunctional, with users complaining all over the Internet that Claude refuses to perform basic tasks out of misguided "safety concerns" ("I can't help you kill Linux processes, as this is unethical"), making their subscriptions useless. That's the Helen Toner model.
See, people who deal with security often like to put the spotlight on themselves by proclaiming grave danger is imminent and then position themselves as the experts who can save us from this danger. This is such a common pattern and sometimes it's not even consciously done, but extremely toxic regardless. Everyone wants to be important and regarded, so they lean on behaviors that achieve that outcome.
Sam Altman is your typical startup entrepreneur sleezeball. And yes, here he was trying to manufacture consent within a board that was largely complacent through "divide and conquer". The details of his behavior can be nauseating, but still... I can't deny on the total he did make countless correct leadership decisions at OpenAI, and getting Helen Toner off the board... for all we know so far... feels like one of those correct leadership decisions. So I can't feel too bad about it.
The only thing I feel bad about it is Ilya Sutskever. I hope he and Altman can find a productive and dignified way to continue their partnership.