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Notes -
OpenAI announces leadership transition
I posted this in Twitter and someone speculated that it's because Altman paused subscriptions on Tuesday, but that would alone seem like a pretty inconsequential reason for this sort of a major move.
One hypothesis is that it's due to the allegations of sexual abuse from his sister. But she made them a relative aeon ago, they didn't gain traction, and this isn't the kind of departure you'd see from that. Plus, another employee/board member was removed.
My guess is fraud or IP theft.
The allegations sounded like bullshit to me, she's quite fucked in the head, an equivalent of a fail-daughter. IIRC, she alleged that Sam would "enter her bed" when they were kids, and later down the line, when she messed up her life and began doing sex work, she turned down offers of financial assistance or even a home from him and their mom, and then went on to blame him for cutting off her finances.
I think accusations of childhood abuse of this ilk are fraught in the first place, doubly so when Sam is out and proud gay.
I have no idea if the allegations are accurate, but one can argue that her turning down offers of financial assistance and a home from him and their mom actually makes them more credible. One possible reason to refuse help is that the people offering it disgust you and you do not want to ever feel obligated to them in any way.
Here's a discussion about the allegations from a sympathetic source. At the time of reading it, and currently, I think it's far more likely that it's all the confabulation of a deeply disturbed individual rather than anything credible.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman-s-sister-annie-altman-claims-sam-has-severely
And
On the topic of shadowbanning:
Bruh
Altman might be a well-connected millionaire geek, but I think it's far more likely that a person with known mental illnesses claiming he's been fucking with her wifi for ages is probably just delusional. At least until we have proof that he unleashed their internal AGI or something stupid along those lines.
I agree, it sounds like schizophrenia-type delusions of persecution. Her turning down financial assistance is still odd though, but I am not sure to what extent mental illnesses affect people's ability to make those kinds of "you should obviously almost certainly take the money" decisions.
Her reading of the intentions behind offering her financial assistance/housing may still be correct; from the family's side this would just be "we'll buy her a house so we can keep tabs and make her go and get a proper career rather than whoring herself out online", which she might find unacceptably intrusive. Compare to anecdotes about homeless people who would rather risk dying of exposure than accept a shelter spot because the shelters are intolerant of drug consumption. I've also heard from Asian-American acquaintances whose life plans were too messy/unstable for their parents' liking that the parents would start pestering them with offers of buying them a house or apartment near where they (the parents) live and/or setting them up with a desk job at some company/office run by family friends, which said acquaintances would read as a transparent bid for greater control calculated to catch them in a moment of weakness.
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A lot? That's certainly my opinion on it, even if I struggle to dig up concrete evidence, I doubt anyone's done a study on the topic.
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