GoKawiilOn the same day that OpenAI released policy recommendations to ensure that AI benefits humanity if superintelligence is ever achieved, The New Yorker dropped a massive investigation into whether CEO Sam Altman can be trusted to actually follow through on OpenAI’s biggest promises.
Parsing the publications side by side can be disorienting.
On the one hand, OpenAI said it plans to push for policies to “keep people first” as AI starts “outperforming the smartest humans even when they are assisted by AI.” To achieve this, the company vows to remain “clear-eyed” and transparent about risks, which it acknowledged includes monitoring for extreme scenarios like AI systems evading human control or governments deploying AI to undermine democracy. Without proper mitigation of such risks, “people will be harmed,” OpenAI warned, before describing how the company could be trusted to advocate for a future where achieving superintelligence means a “higher quality of life for all.”
On the other hand, The New Yorker interviewed more than 100 people familiar with how Altman conducts business. The publication also reviewed internal memos and interviewed Altman more than 12 times. The resulting story provides a lengthy counterpoint explaining why the public may struggle to trust OpenAI’s CEO to “control the future” of AI, no matter how rosy the company’s vision may appear.
Overall, insiders painted Altman as a people-pleaser who tells others what they want to hear while questing for power in an alleged bid to always put himself first. As one board member summed up Altman, he has “two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”