Philosopher king or narcissist? Sam Altman in the NYTimes [What's going on at OpenAI?]

In view of current events, I'm bumping this to the top of the queue.

If you haven't been following what's been going on at OpenAI, the New York Times has a number of pieces: OpenAI’s Chief Scientist and Co-Founder Is Leaving the Company (May 14) and this, A Safety Check for OpenAI (May 20). While I find this article less alarming, Scarlett Johansson Said No, but OpenAI’s Virtual Assistant Sounds Just Like Her, it doesn't give me great faith in OpenAI. Zvi Mowshowitz has a long blog post in which he gathers information from a variety of sources about recent resignations from OpenAI's executive ranks and about the highly restrictive exit documents employees must sign. It's not pretty.

On the one hand, I'm not as worried about the possibility of AIs going rogue as many are, and that possibility is at the heart of these events. Given that OpenAI was founded in part as a response to these fears, however, these events do not put the company in good light. It gives the impression that the company doesn't know what it's going, but is determined to see that no one knows about it. Not good.

This post was occasioned by a profile that Cade Metz published about Sam Altman on March 31, 2024. It ended on a megalomaniacal/narcissistic note.

Back on March 31, 2023, Cade Metz did an article on Sam Altman for the NYTimes. Near the beginning we have these three paragraphs:

Many industry leaders, A.I. researchers and pundits see ChatGPT as a fundamental technological shift, as significant as the creation of the web browser or the iPhone. But few can agree on the future of this technology.

Some believe it will deliver a utopia where everyone has all the time and money ever needed. Others believe it could destroy humanity. Still others spend much of their time arguing that the technology is never as powerful as everyone says it is, insisting that neither nirvana nor doomsday is as close as it might seem.

Mr. Altman, a slim, boyish-looking, 37-year-old entrepreneur and investor from the suburbs of St. Louis, sits calmly in the middle of it all. As chief executive of OpenAI, he somehow embodies each of these seemingly contradictory views, hoping to balance the myriad possibilities as he moves this strange, powerful, flawed technology into the future.

He quotes Paul Graham, a former business partner of Altman's at Y Combinator, as saying:

“Why is he working on something that won’t make him richer? One answer is that lots of people do that once they have enough money, which Sam probably does. The other is that he likes power.”

A bit later:

Mr. Graham, who worked alongside Mr. Altman for a decade, saw the same persuasiveness in the man from St. Louis.

“He has a natural ability to talk people into things,” Mr. Graham said. “If it isn’t inborn, it was at least fully developed before he was 20. I first met Sam when he was 19, and I remember thinking at the time: ‘So this is what Bill Gates must have been like.’”

Still later:

Mr. Altman is not a coder or an engineer or an A.I. researcher. He is the person who sets the agenda, puts the teams together and strikes the deals. As the president of “YC,” he expanded the firm with near abandon, starting a new investment fund and a new research lab and stretching the number of companies advised by the firm into the hundreds each year.

The final three paragraphs"

His grand idea is that OpenAI will capture much of the world’s wealth through the creation of A.G.I. and then redistribute this wealth to the people. In Napa, as we sat chatting beside the lake at the heart of his ranch, he tossed out several figures — $100 billion, $1 trillion, $100 trillion.

If A.G.I. does create all that wealth, he is not sure how the company will redistribute it. Money could mean something very different in this new world.

But as he once told me: “I feel like the A.G.I. can help with that.”

I found that a bit troubling. He can have whatever fantasies he wants, but that he felt he could share this one on the record with a NYTimes reporter, that seems like he's asserting a royal prerogative before it has been bestowed. And a prerogative rather out of place in a nominal democracy, as America still is, oligarchs not withstanding. Whatever Altman is, he's no philosopher king.

The illustration I put at the head of this post is one that Laura Salafia did for the article. What do you think she was trying to convey about Altman? Her webside is quite interesting. Here's a page labeled "Change Makers." Altman is not on it. The "Process" page is fascinating. Click on any of the images and see a quick succession of images, from initial sketch, to completed illustration.

This is the image that came to my mind when I saw her Altman illustration: