Sam lost the plot for me. He took too many interviews which led me to not trust him. Last straw came with him standing by Anthropic one day then throwing them under the bus the next. He showed little awareness on why that is problematic.
On podcasts his attitude is basically “oh yeah all of you are basically fucked our products will take everyone’s jobs in a couple years.”
Altman is a lot more coy and comes across as saying what’s politically expedient at any given point in time.
I also appreciate his honesty, and don't really understand why the others don't emulate it because there's no cost to them to be honest. At every level of society we've decided to stick our heads in the sand and pretend like this very large tsunami isn't racing toward the coast, so as someone producing this technology you can be honest (and mostly ignored by people in denial), or be cagey and mistrusted (like Sam Altman).
“It’s so dangerous, we’ve reached AGI, we just have to release models that are obviously incapable of abstraction for your safety”
Funnily enough, the same thing can be used against those who criticize his view on AI. I wonder if there is a word for this.
It should have become clear to all that he was an untrustworthy person when he was fired from OpenAI by its then-board. My understanding is their complaint was he was lying, untrustworthy, and manipulative; and enough stories came out at the time to confirm that.
I've however been on the receiving end of some very odd board behavior and most founders I know have a story or two as well. I don't always take board decisions at face value. Reality is often askew, personality disorders run rampant in places of power, and there can be unknown incentives at play.
Brockman and his wife were the biggest donors to Donald Trump's Super PAC, MAGA Inc., in 2025 with each of them donating US$12.5 million. Brockman and his wife also donated $50 million to Leading the Future, a super PAC dedicated to AI deregulation that he helped found with Andreessen Horowitz co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.