Discussion

Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?

ahartmetz: Well, no, obviously not. Not one bit.

Aboutplants: Seeing Sam Altman slowly degrade into the realization that he is in fact not as smart as others in this space has been fascinating to watch. He used to speak with enthusiasm and confidence and now he’s like a scared little boy who got in way too deep.The last person that this happened to was Sam Bankman Fried as investors and regular folk finally realized he was full of complete shit and could only talk the game for so long until the truth emerged.

gchokov: He is cooked. Only a matter of time before the whole thing blows up. Once a scammer, always a scammer.

ronanfarrow: Ronan Farrow here. Andrew Marantz and I spent 18 months on this investigation. Happy to answer questions about the reporting.

cmiles8: Great reporting.Altman describes his shifting views as genuine good faith evolution of thinking. Do you believe he has a clear North Star behind all this that’s not centered on himself?

covercash: Why are all billionaires (especially tech) such villains?

sumeno: Betteridge strikes again

i7l: I feel the "always have been" meme might be a suitable insert here.

seba_dos1: I'm not sure if it's 100% strictly necessary to be a villain in order to become and remain a billionaire, but it seems like it could be and it surely helps.

just_once: Amazing that this article and an actual comment from Ronan Farrow is this far down the list while...Scientists Figured Out How Eels Reproduce (2022) has 6 times the points.

burnt-resistor: Money often changes people's attitude in a fashion similar to chronic substance abuse. Plus, there's a insular and detached bubble effect that grows around them.Also, there's the psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies of greedier people and the false "virtue" "greed is good" that is contrary to the values espoused by Adam Smith.We need standard income tax brackets of 90% after $20M/y and 99% after $100M/y.