I’m confused by this post. Sam Altman isn’t an EA, afaik, and hasn’t claimed to be, afaik, and afaik no relatively in-the-know EAs thought he was, or even in recent years thought he was particularly trustworthy, though I’d agree that many have updated negative over the last year or two.
But a substantial number of EAs spent the next couple of weeks or months making excuses not to call a spade a spade, or an amoral serial liar an amoral serial liar. This continued even after we knew he’d A) committed massive fraud, B) used that money to buy himself a $222 million house, and C) referred to ethics as a “dumb reputation game” in an interview with Kelsey Piper.
This wasn’t because they thought the fraud was good; everyone was clear that SBF was very bad. It’s because a surprisingly big number of people can’t identify a psychopath. I’d like to offer a lesson on how to tell. If someone walks up to you and says “I’m a psychopath”, they’re probably a psychopath.
Very few EAs that I know did that (I’d like to see stats, of the dozens of EAs I know, none publicly/to my knowledge did such a thing except if I remember right Austin Chen in an article I now can’t find). And for people who did defend Sam, I don’t know why you’d assume that the issue is them not being able to identify psychopaths, as opposed to being confused about the crimes SBF committed and believing they were the result of a misunderstanding or something like that
Agree that this post is confusing in parts and that Altman isn’t EA-aligned. (There were also some other points in the original post that I disagreed with.)
But the issue of “not calling a spade a spade” does seem to apply, at least in SBF’s case. Even now, after his many unethical decisions were discussed at length in court, some people (e.g., both the host and guest in this conversation) are still very hesitant to label SBF’s personality traits.
This doesn’t need to be about soul searching or self-flagellation—I think it can (at times) be very difficult to recognize when someone has low levels of empathy. But sometimes (both in one’s personal life and in organizations) it’s helpful to notice when someone’s personality places them at higher risk of harmful behavior.
Very strong +1, this is nothing like the SBF situation and there’s no need for soul searching of the form “how did the EA community let this happen” in my opinion
I had substantial discussions with people on this, even prior to Sam Altman’s firing; every time I mentioned concerns about Sam Altman’s personal integrity, people dismissed it as paranoia.
In OpenAI’s earliest days, the EA community provided critical funds and support that allowed it to be established, despite several warning signs already having appeared regarding Sam Altman’s previous behavior at Y Combinator and Looped.
I think this is unlike the SBF situation in that there is a need for some soul-searching of the form “how did the EA community let this happen”. By contrast, there was very little need for it in the case of SBF.
Like I said, you investigate someone before giving money, not afterreceiving money. The answer to SBF is just “we never investigated him because we never needed to investigate him; the people who should have investigated him were his investors”.
With Sam Altman, there’s a serious question we need to answer here. Why did EAs choose to sink a substantial amount of capital and talent into a company run by a person with such low integrity?
In the conversations I had with them, they very clearly understood the charges against him and what he’d done. The issue was they were completely unable to pass judgment on him as a person.
This is a good trait 95% of the time. Most people are too quick to pass judgment. This is especially true because 95% of people pass judgment based on vibes like “Bob seems weird and creepy” instead of concrete actions like “Bob has been fired from 3 of his last 4 jobs for theft”.
However, the fact of the matter is some people are bad. For example, Adolf Hitler was clearly a bad person. Bob probably isn’t very honest. Sam Altman’s behavior is mostly motivated by a desire for money and power. This is true even if Sam Altman has somehow tricked himself into thinking his actions are good. Regardless of his internal monologue he’s still acting to maximize his money and power.
EAs often have trouble going “Yup, that’s a bad person” when they see someone who’s very blatantly a bad person.
I’m confused by this post. Sam Altman isn’t an EA, afaik, and hasn’t claimed to be, afaik, and afaik no relatively in-the-know EAs thought he was, or even in recent years thought he was particularly trustworthy, though I’d agree that many have updated negative over the last year or two.
Very few EAs that I know did that (I’d like to see stats, of the dozens of EAs I know, none publicly/to my knowledge did such a thing except if I remember right Austin Chen in an article I now can’t find). And for people who did defend Sam, I don’t know why you’d assume that the issue is them not being able to identify psychopaths, as opposed to being confused about the crimes SBF committed and believing they were the result of a misunderstanding or something like that
Agree that this post is confusing in parts and that Altman isn’t EA-aligned. (There were also some other points in the original post that I disagreed with.)
But the issue of “not calling a spade a spade” does seem to apply, at least in SBF’s case. Even now, after his many unethical decisions were discussed at length in court, some people (e.g., both the host and guest in this conversation) are still very hesitant to label SBF’s personality traits.
This doesn’t need to be about soul searching or self-flagellation—I think it can (at times) be very difficult to recognize when someone has low levels of empathy. But sometimes (both in one’s personal life and in organizations) it’s helpful to notice when someone’s personality places them at higher risk of harmful behavior.
Very strong +1, this is nothing like the SBF situation and there’s no need for soul searching of the form “how did the EA community let this happen” in my opinion
I had substantial discussions with people on this, even prior to Sam Altman’s firing; every time I mentioned concerns about Sam Altman’s personal integrity, people dismissed it as paranoia.
In OpenAI’s earliest days, the EA community provided critical funds and support that allowed it to be established, despite several warning signs already having appeared regarding Sam Altman’s previous behavior at Y Combinator and Looped.
I think this is unlike the SBF situation in that there is a need for some soul-searching of the form “how did the EA community let this happen”. By contrast, there was very little need for it in the case of SBF.
Like I said, you investigate someone before giving money, not after receiving money. The answer to SBF is just “we never investigated him because we never needed to investigate him; the people who should have investigated him were his investors”.
With Sam Altman, there’s a serious question we need to answer here. Why did EAs choose to sink a substantial amount of capital and talent into a company run by a person with such low integrity?
In the conversations I had with them, they very clearly understood the charges against him and what he’d done. The issue was they were completely unable to pass judgment on him as a person.
This is a good trait 95% of the time. Most people are too quick to pass judgment. This is especially true because 95% of people pass judgment based on vibes like “Bob seems weird and creepy” instead of concrete actions like “Bob has been fired from 3 of his last 4 jobs for theft”.
However, the fact of the matter is some people are bad. For example, Adolf Hitler was clearly a bad person. Bob probably isn’t very honest. Sam Altman’s behavior is mostly motivated by a desire for money and power. This is true even if Sam Altman has somehow tricked himself into thinking his actions are good. Regardless of his internal monologue he’s still acting to maximize his money and power.
EAs often have trouble going “Yup, that’s a bad person” when they see someone who’s very blatantly a bad person.