Sam Altman Responds to ‘Incendiary’ New Yorker Article and Molotov Cocktail Attack
Sam Altman issued a lengthy statement following a New Yorker profile, which he called “incendiary,” that preceded a molotov cocktail attack on his home this week.
“Images have power, I hope. Normally we try to be pretty private, but in this case I am sharing a photo in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me,” Altman wrote alongside a family photo posted to his blog Friday afternoon. “The first person did it last night, at 3:45 am in the morning. Thankfully it bounced off the house and no one got hurt.”
He continued: “Words have power too. There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago. Someone said to me yesterday they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. I brushed it aside.”
Yet, as Altman noted, not long after brushing aside the profile by Ronan Farrow, titled “Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted?,” he found himself “awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives.”
“This seems like as good of a time as any to address a few things,” he continued. “First, what I believe: Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people, and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for me. AI will be the most powerful tool for expanding human capability and potential that anyone has ever seen. Demand for this tool will be essentially uncapped, and people will do incredible things with it. The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen.”
Altman then acknowledged that the “fear and anxiety about AI is justified,” stating that the industry has to get “safety right.”
Later on in his statement, he described himself as “being conflict-averse,” citing his upcoming trial with Elon Musk, in which the tech giant has asked for his removal as CEO.
“I was thinking about our upcoming trial with Elon and remembering how much I held the line on not being willing to agree to the unilateral control he wanted over OpenAI,” he added. “I’m proud of that, and the narrow path we navigated then to allow the continued existence of OpenAI, and all the achievements that followed.”
Altman went on: “I am not proud of being conflict-averse, which has caused great pain for me and OpenAI. I am not proud of handling myself badly in a conflict with our previous board that led to a huge mess for the company. I have made many other mistakes throughout the insane trajectory of OpenAI; I am a flawed person in the center of an exceptionally complex situation, trying to get a little better each year, always working for the mission. We knew going into this how huge the stakes of AI were, and that the personal disagreements between well-meaning people I cared about would be amplified greatly.”
Nonetheless, Altman said it was “another thing to live through these bitter conflicts and often to have to arbitrate them, and the costs have been serious. I am sorry to people I’ve hurt and wish I had learned more faster.”
Read his full statement here.
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