This account is quite believable. It follows a pattern of unethical behavior from Altman. In his latest unethical binge, he illegally used Scarlett Johansson's voice and likeliness for the latest ChatGPT version with speech output. [1] His timed-announcement tweet, "Her", is quite self-incriminating. [2] Remember: inductive logic is a valuable tool for discovering truth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/2416125…
I think what happened is OpenAI was probably going to easily defend themselves from this suit until Altman tweeted about it. It seems like the company didn't really do anything wrong (in this case) but that tweet is actually going to give ScarJo the legal standing she needs to move forward and even win. It feels like leadership class in the valley is totally clueless sometimes.
Another way to view these things is that it's about managing the author's personal brand-identity, as opposed to acting as a fiduciary representative of the overall corporation. (Those CEOs tend to avoid the limelight.)
There are certain folks out there who build their celebrity with a narrative of "I'm strong and smart and successful, you can tell because I can do what I want and piss people off but my detractors are impotent and can't touch me." [0]
If you think Altman falls into that category, then "her" can be seen as a coded message: For fans, it's sly advertisement that the result is a deliberate achievement, while also maintaining a veneer of deniability for anyone who objects. ("I only meant the outcome was coincidentally similar, and you can't prove otherwise, hahaha.")
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[0] That doesn't mean the narrative is true or that they always escape consequences, but it means they can at least convince enough fans/supporters that repercussions didn't really happen, that they weren't significant, or that they were actually good because 4-D chess.