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Comment by glerk | Hacker News Reader

I've been seeing some version of "Sam Altman is the antichrist" on every platform in the last few weeks. I'm still trying to find concretely what makes this guy so bad compared to every executive out there. So far, all I could find is:

- OpenAI made a deal with the Pentagon (fair)

- OpenAI changed their business model from non-profit to for-profit (fair?)

- Sexual assault allegations by his sister. Sam Altman denies this and it's currently before a court.

- Overpromised AI to investors (everyone does this)

- Lobbying against regulations (I support)

- Some vague accusations of "being a liar" and a "sociopath" by his competitors Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei.

- He doesn't know how to code (lol)

Is there anything that I'm missing? Does he put ketchup on his pizza?

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I think it is simpler than that. For a lot of people he's the one who "created the AI"* so he is the reason they have been fired.

That's it, I don't think much of the rest has any weight outside internet forums like this one.

*I've seen people using copilot and calling it "chatgpt".

For me, he's an awful person for the smarminess in the pentagon deal (the DIC is too entwined with American industry to bemoan making any deal at all), the business model change, the behavior described in that recent article, the 180 on how he and OpenAI consider AI ethics, and the way he's gone about overpromising.

It'd be one thing if he was just promising more than he could actually deliver, but he went further, making promises of buying up unrealistically large chunks of the global RAM supply, causing everyone else to suffer, with no remorse.

There's also WorldCoin. I don't think a decent person would continue to push such an awful, untrustworthy system. This is a supposedly privacy-focused project that several countries are investigating for privacy violations and has been found to be in violation of privacy laws in some of them.

It's almost as if he goes out of his way to do as much harm to the world as he thinks he can get away with while maintaining the facade of just doing business. I don't think he's the antichrist, I think Peter Thiel is the closest to deserving that description.

> Lobbying against regulations (I support)

one US mindset I can't wrap my mind around

There's a reason why OpenAI and Anthropic (and before them Google, Apple, Meta, etc.) were started in the US and not Europe. And let's not compare salaries we each get for similar work because that tends to make my European friends very sad.

Yes, and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up) - and yes, there's a lot the EU could to unify its market - but it's not "less regulations".

> compare salaries

Let's not even begin this trope prevalet on HN, those taxes are funding a working healthcare and public infrastructure in EU.

> and that reason is a big single market (and a huge military and 100 years of power play to back it up)

That certainly helps. You could also add talent concentration due to excellent universities and top-tier companies already being here. But the truth is that you can incorporate a business in less than a week here, employment is at-will, there are no unions or other such bullshit, taxes are low, the general way you deal with regulator is ask for forgiveness instead of ask for permission, etc.

Say I'm currently working on a project in the crypto or AI space. If I wanted to make it into a commercial product, do you think I'm gonna go to France or Germany? It might take me a few weeks just to get past the first layers of red-tape to get a business licence there. If I hire someone who turns out to be incompetent, I'm probably stuck with them until I gather enough evidence to justify firing. And I have to live in constant fear of the state deciding my business is illegal.

> funding a working healthcare

Btw the US healthcare system is the best in the world if you can afford it. Health insurance is usually provided through the employer. I can have an appointment with a doctor within days, emergency room wait time is on the order of minutes. Never had a problem with the quality of care.

I swear I have this same conversation every month, and I think it is repeated by others like a thousand times if one searches for it, but I think it's worth it. I see your position and arguments in x.com culture a lot.

> talent concentration, excellent universities and top-tier companies

This is all just a consequence of above. And note that talent in US historically was mostly gen 1-2-3 immigrants.

> incorporate a business in less than a week

This is one is important. EU strives for it, but I think the reasons lie in the different worldview, see below.

> no unions or other such bullshit > taxes are low > if I hire someone who turns out to be incompetent > best healthcare

See, you purely view this topic as someone wanting to minmax gains, profit, effort. Yes, this is easier to do in the US right now.

What kind of world do you build with all this? What does it all lead to? I envision something like futuristic Mexico where a few lucky get in the top ~30% who can afford healthcare and education, and live in gated apartment communities, businesses are owned by the top 2%. The rest of the population works in gig jobs and farms (and are a nuisance, until automation makes them unneeded).

How much of the US popultion has realistic access to that "best healthcare"? Children, elderly, disabled?

If it were up to "free markets", there would be no 5 day workweek, if you were born with one arm you'd die in a ditch, and cartelling businesses would be free to exploit the population, their privacy, time and assets at their will (just click agree on our T&C).

Do you care about these issues? You must not, you're a businessman and want to do business. But the state certainly should. And I wouldn't live in a state which doesn't. This is what everyone in the EU gets with your taxes. It's far from great, varies per member country, but this is the general idea. And this is something that US tech industry people have a hard time to get, who just look at comp levels think money and enough hustle can solve anything for anyone.

I recommend you to travel and see other types of societies. But even the US itself will undergo a massive change in the next decade with how its old powers, influx of people and world economy grasp evaporates.

> I recommend you to travel and see other types of societies

I actually travel pretty often to Europe and have lived there for extended periods of time. I have family and hold the passport of an EU member state.

I'm going to try to be 100% fair: people in Europe are generally poor and they don't realize it. Salaries are very low, but the cost of living is almost equivalent. I am currently enjoying a quality of life that I don't think I could have built anywhere else in the world within a single generation. If I wasn't grinding constantly, I could afford to go on vacation pretty much anywhere on earth for a few weeks without thinking about how much I would be spending. If I stopped working tomorrow, I could coast on my savings for years without cutting any expense. I will be able to pay tutors and private schools for my children without hesitating. And I'm not saying this to brag, because it is frankly not that special. I'm nowhere near the private jet class. This is "middle class" here. Almost everyone who worked in this industry (Bay Area or NYC) for a few years could tell you something similar. Tesla and BMWs are not luxury cars, the parking lot of my building is filled with them. Everyone hates tipping culture, but we tip 20-25% because it's just a rounding error and it makes the servers happy so might as well. I'm not sure if "free healthcare" can really make up for this.

It is also great to be surrounded by people who are ambitious and really value performance. The US is one of the only places in the world where high performance is rewarded to this extent. For me, this is a huge factor, and I don't think I would have learned as much as I did in the last few years if I was anywhere else.

But sure, there are tradeoffs. When my wife gave birth, she got 3 months of paid maternity leave. 3 months is considered generous here and it is a benefit provided by her company. Not everyone gets even 3 months.

And I can't deny that every time I land in Europe I go through the "this is so beautiful, I should really move here" phase. It's nice to be able to walk around or take public transit and not need a car. It's nice to hang around in a nice park instead of a shopping mall.

If Europe is more your kind of vibe, I don't judge you. But don't judge me either for valuing other things.

> See, you purely view this topic as someone wanting to minmax gains, profit, effort

My position is more nuanced, but in general, I believe that technological progress is what increases the standard of living for everyone. Competitive free market capitalism, with all its flaws, is currently the best system we have to continue moving forward.

I think their existence is a problem

“Everyone does this,” and iirc recently a few people went to jail for it. So what’s happening with Altman?

If the investors want to sue him, they can. But it’s nice that you’re worried about the billionaire class like this :)

- Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy

- Barely gave 1% of compute (on oldest chips) to safety team after promise of 20%

- Worked behind the scenes to try to land federal deal that gives mil no guardrails control and ability for mass surveillance

- Lied about China AI 'Marshall Plan' to get federal funding

- Tried to get MBS money ever after Jamal Kashoggi

While long, I'd recommend just reading the New Yorker article

I'm just gonna address the first one, don't necessarily disagree with the rest:

> Callous disregard of lost jobs, disinformation, mental health issues / deaths, IP theft, environmental cost, skill atrophy

ChatGPT is a tool that changed people's lives. OpenAI released something that wasn't perfect, for free, and forced all their competitors to release these products publicly.

You can't stop technological progress to protect old jobs, or because you are afraid people are gonna misuse it. I'm fascinated how many grown adults want to be treated like children their whole lives, but more nefariously, they want to impose this on others who want more freedom and agency.

As for IP "theft", all I'm gonna say is: fuck intellectual property as a concept and the whole parasitic industry that grew around it. The only contribution of IP has been to stifle innovation and set our civilization back by decades. Making IP obsolete and unenforceable has been one of the best things to come out of LLMs and one of the great catalysts of the scientific, technological, and creative advancements that are coming in the near future. For that alone, Sam Altman deserves a statue, no matter what his other flaws are.

It's not about stopping change, it's about a blithe, uncaring attitude about how it affects other people, along with empty assurances of UBI and abundance that we are unlikely to see / distribute broadly. People expect to get shafted and I don't blame them for worrying when you look what happened to the Rust Belt, coal miners in Appalachia, etc.

IP can hurt or help depending on the industry - how do you enable R&D-heavy industries like pharma to recoup costs over time without something like this? I don't see how you incentivize innovation without the concept but I'm open to reforms like not resetting patent timelines for minor tweaks, etc.

He fucked the RAM market. Not a biggie but I am salty.

Whenever people object to thing-x they go for the most prominent leader of thing-x.

I personally object from him trying to divert trillions in investment from potential helping the hungry type stuff which is popular to sticking slop in everything which many don't want.

The jacuzzi "parties" with VCs are more than questionable

Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei were high up at OpenAI before becoming competitors. They are just two of many people who have known Altman personally who have accused him of being a lying sociopath. I would not call that vague.

It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger.

> It is not just a question of morality. A sociopath with that amount of power can be a danger.

You probably think that "sociopathy" is an incurable disease which would make him some sort of vampire. This is pure bs. The way these "personality disorders" are diagnosed is the same as taking a buzzfeed personality quiz. This is not very rigorous stuff, I would even classify it as pseudoscience. As a tangent, I really despise how they are using greek and latin roots to prompt into our brains that what their models are describing is in any way similar to actual pathologies.

So yeah, maybe Sam Altman is generally a dishonest person if we believe what Ilya Sutskever, Dario Amodei, and others are saying. If that's the case (I have no reason to doubt it), he should stop lying and manipulating people, there are more satisfying ways to achieve one's objectives.

But the "sociopath" label is pure bs, along with the rest of those "personality disorders". That shit is more dangerous and harmful than a million lying Sam Altmans.

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