Can we believe that Sam could actually be a good person? Today, Kara Swisher in her podcast on Pivot said, "Every time I tell people I actually like Sam, they become widely offended".
The issue has become polarized, for reasons I don't rightly understand, but nevertheless this is where we have ended up.
To write on the topic in this environment it would be advisable to be clear on what they are saying, what they have an issue with, and what the appropriate remedy would be.
To just throw out some insinuations in a "I'm just asking questions" manner doesn't in-itself condemn a person. It isn't happening in isolation though. No snowflake believes itself to be responsible for the avalanche.
They literally did all of that, though?
"But it's worth noting that much of Sam Altman's presentation is just a mask (one he puts a ton of effort into and is good at maintaining), even if he's still less evil than the Sacklers or a mob boss."
How do people even come up with this narrative?
Depends on what good means to you. This is a person that we have evidence on repeatedly using these kind of underhanded techniques. Maybe he's not physically hurting anyone, but this is a person I would avoid.
What in the article is underhanded? Worst case, he has undisclosed conflicts of interest.
> this is a person I would avoid
Does Altman have a Trump-like wake of ruined careers and lost riches among former allies? Everyone he's been close to seems to have done well from it.
Given the size of these deals, that's kind of a big deal. It isn't an "oops, it slipped my mind" small little conflict of interest kind of thing, imo.
For investors, sure. (And the investors are more than fine with Altman, warts and all.) For the public, eh.
He very clearly isn't being honest there, and it's so obvious that many people are starting to question everything he says.
Ricardo Montalban had a great quote about the life stages of an actor, enumerating them as follows:
1. Who is Ricardo Montalban?
2. Get me Ricardo Montalban.
3. Get me a Ricardo Montalban type.
4. Get me a young Ricardo Montalban.
5. Who is Ricardo Montalban?
As far as I can tell, Johansson’s complaint is that when OpenAI reached out to her for voice acting and she turned them down, that they instead got a Scarlett Johansson type, and that OpenAI should be categorically prohibited from hiring any voice actor who sounds like her at all. Which is not how acting has ever worked, but for some reason the topic of artificial intelligence gets a lot of people worked up to the point of artificial stupidity.
OpenAI's public claims about how they produced the Sky voice followed Johansson's public statement. They could be true or false. We don't know what claims or evidence they gave Johansson's counsel.
Agreed, and according to Midler v. Ford that is not permitted:
"We hold only that when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California."
Here, have a look:
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
https://higgslaw.com/celebrities-sue-over-unauthorized-use-o...
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-right-publicity....
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...
> You've never seen it, huh? Google is super easy to use.
Please stop acting like an asshole.
You take care now.
I’m arguing in good faith, in the sense that I’m expressing my own genuine rationale for my own opinions. Your inability to cope with that and remain civil is the only show of bad faith in this entire discussion.
You take care now. I will not be responding to you further.
But all of that is quite separate from these conflicts, which are entirely a matter for Altman and his investors, investors who have no reason to complain about him.
But when you see him being duplicitous in some situations, it's hard not to suspect it bleeds into other situations.
undisclosed = underhanded
> Does Altman have a Trump-like wake of ruined careers and lost riches among former allies? Everyone he's been close to seems to have done well from it.
I'm not talking about Trump, and I don't think Trump should be a reference for what is or isn't acceptable.
I'm not seeing good and evil in this post. It's calling Sam out for not being transparent. Given he's elevated OpenAI, in public testimony, to an extinction-level threat to humanity, that lack of transparency is of public concern.
Not being transparent doesn't make him evil, doesn't mean he is unlikeable and doesn't per se mean he's dishonest. (Though OpenAI and he do have a likeability problem, at least in politics, albeit one I think they can fix.)
Maybe next time I could press more about the transparency factor, but I thought it was concise enough.
Has he ever plead poverty?
> “He owns no stake in the ChatGPT developer, saying he doesn’t want the seductions of wealth to corrupt the safe development of artificial intelligence, and makes a yearly salary of just $65,000.”
According to OpenAI themselves.
So he takes a “low” salary and no ownership as to, according to him and the company, not influence his decisions in the pursuit of financial gain — yet that’s a complete omission of the whole truth.
I’ll stop short of calling it a flat-out lie, but a mischaracterization of reality for sure.
In my opinion a mischaracterisation of reality is just a lie with layers of indirection to weasel oneself out of it. It's definitely a lie.
Money, a little image coaching, and have Aaron Sorkin write a movie.
(We've seen a similar situation before.)
Ok but based on what ?
I never said Sam is evil, nor anything close.