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Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

newyorker.com

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Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#71

Post by tim333 »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #53

Disclaimer: I have no association with any AI company and have never met Altman or any of the other top AI scientists. The real question is: can anyone be trusted if the fever dreams of super-intelligence come true? Go ahead and replace Sam Altman with someone else - will it make a difference? Any other CEO is going to be under the same overwhelming pressure to make a profit somehow. I think the OpenAI story is messi…

People do vary even if none are perfect. Demis Hassabis has a pretty good reputation amongst the AI leaders. Altman seems unusually shifty.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#72

Post by bookofjoe »

therobots927 wrote: post #23

Excellent work. I’ll have to wait until we get the print version delivered to finish as I’m not signed into the new Yorker on my phone. I’ve always been a huge fan of Ronan Farrow’s journalism and willingness to speak truth to power. I think he’s pulling at exactly the right thread here, and it’s very important to counteract Altman’s reputation laundering given that we run a very real risk of him weaseling his way in…

This is above your comment: https://archive.is/2026.04.06-100412/https://www.newyorker.c...

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#73

Post by throw4847285 »

bookofjoe wrote: post #72
therobots927 wrote: post #23

Excellent work. I’ll have to wait until we get the print version delivered to finish as I’m not signed into the new Yorker on my phone. I’ve always been a huge fan of Ronan Farrow’s journalism and willingness to speak truth to power. I think he’s pulling at exactly the right thread here, and it’s very important to counteract Altman’s reputation laundering given that we run a very real risk of him weaseling his way in…

This is above your comment: https://archive.is/2026.04.06-100412/https://www.newyorker.c...

I suspect that they are perfectly capable of clicking an archive link or better yet logging in as they are already a subscriber. Maybe, like me, they enjoy reading the physical magazine.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#74

Post by almostdeadguy »

ronanfarrow wrote: post #60
almostdeadguy wrote: post #54

Seems this got buried from the front page very quickly

There is dwindling space for sincere independent accountability reporting on big tech like this to a) be created, since it's incredibly resource-intensive and so many resources flow from Silicon Valley, and b) actually reach people, since more platforms are now owned or otherwise influenced by interested parties. Thank you for looking. Please do spread this kind of reporting in your communities, and subscribe to inve…

This was an excellent piece with many new pieces of information in it. Thanks to you and your coauthor for getting it released.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#75

Post by game_the0ry »

For those curious about how sama got to where he got and stayed on top for so long, I recommend you read the book: The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.

I am fairly confident when I say this -- sama is a sociopath. I don't know how anyone with solid intuition could even come to any other conclusion than the guy is deeply weird and off-putting.

Some concepts from the book:

> Core trait: The defining characteristic is the absence of conscience, meaning they feel no guilt, shame, or remorse.

> Identification: Sociopaths can be charming and appear normal, but they often lie, cheat, and manipulate to get what they want.

> The Rule of Threes: One lie is a mistake, two is a concern, but three lies or broken promises is a pattern of a liar.

> Trust your instincts over a person's social role (e.g., doctor, leader, parent)

Check and check.

OpenAI is too important to trust sama with. He needs to go. In fact, AI should be considered a public good, not a commodity pay-as-you-go intelligence service.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#76

Post by SwellJoe »

jamiequint wrote: post #65
brightbeige wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s replying on this twitter thread - perhaps someone with an account can ask there and link his comment here? https://xcancel.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532#m

Here is the actual link, not a link to some weird third-party site that can't be trusted. https://x.com/RonanFarrow/status/2041127882429206532

Whereas X can be trusted?

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#77

Post by throw4847285 »

big_toast wrote: post #61
ronanfarrow wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is dwindling space for sincere independent accountability reporting on big tech like this to a) be created, since it's incredibly resource-intensive and so many resources flow from Silicon Valley, and b) actually reach people, since more platforms are now owned or otherwise influenced by interested parties. Thank you for looking. Please do spread this kind of reporting in your communities, and subscribe to inve…

You can see the vote history here[1]. It's always hard to know exactly why something gets buried. I was a little sad to see the story down-ranked when I saw that you were here in the comments. But the discussion is generally pretty low quality with these sort of posts. People react without having read the story, or with whatever was on their mind already, or are insubstantive, or simply low effort. I don't think you'…

But isn't that circular? If the ranking algorithm used by the mods tends to devalue articles like this because they don't trust the user base to comment intelligently, doesn't that alter the culture of this site to make that more true?

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#79

Post by dang »

almostdeadguy wrote: post #54

Seems this got buried from the front page very quickly

It set off the flamewar detector. I've turned that off now.

I only saw this thread by chance and almost didn't look, because the title made the piece sound like a flamebait blog post. Fortunately I saw newyorker.com beside the title and looked more closely.

Re: Sam Altman may control our future – can he be trusted?

#80

Post by throwawayq3423 »

therobots927 wrote: post #26
Aboutplants wrote: post #22

Seeing Sam Altman slowly degrade into the realization that he is in fact not as smart as others in this space has been fascinating to watch. He used to speak with enthusiasm and confidence and now he’s like a scared little boy who got in way too deep. The last person that this happened to was Sam Bankman Fried as investors and regular folk finally realized he was full of complete shit and could only talk the game for…

[flagged]

I have a feeling he might be angling for a pardon if he ends up bringing the whole global economy down.
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