66 Comments
User's avatar
Brian J. Cook's avatar

All the electrons that will ever exist in the universe exist now. No one can make more of them. And although the supply is essential infinite, Scam Altman should not be allowed to hoard anymore of them. GTFO, Altman.

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Frederick Woodruff's avatar

To answer your question:

Yes.

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Émile P. Torres's avatar

I know, I know! It's like asking, "Was George Bush a war criminal?" :-)

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Krabat's avatar

Almost certainly

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The Standard Deviant's avatar

Have you read Sam’s online writings? He clearly shows sociopathic thinking. People like him should be taken at their word, not excused as if they don’t mean what they say. Trump is another obvious example, even if he’s become a buzzword.

https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

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Émile P. Torres's avatar

I'm reminded of this quote, too: "The most successful founders do not set out to

create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so." -- Altman

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Kim Kaiser PhD (ABD)'s avatar

Altman is more than a sociopath, he is a textbook Dark Triad Personality: narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic. A sociopath is known to have feelings of remorse and empathy at times, and is often impulsive and erratic. On the other hand, a psychopath is a person with a personality disorder characterized by a lack of empathy, remorse, and guilt, along with manipulative and antisocial behaviors. Altman is more psychopath than sociopath. IMO

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Notorious P.A.T.'s avatar

I was just thinking, don't sleep on narcissism! It might be even more dangerous than sociopathy.

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T Kamal's avatar

It's very easy. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

Sam Altman has come out and said that he's a stochastic parrot:

https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1599471830255177728

I see no need to question him further on that.

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Émile P. Torres's avatar

Right!! I remember this, and was planning on mentioning it in another article. I couldn't find the link, though -- so thanks for sharing!

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T Kamal's avatar

lol I'll never let it go, forever. This will follow him to his grave.

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Ged's avatar

I am a _very_ big believer in "When someone tells you who they are, believe them" as a general principle and a guiding principle in politics.

HOWEVER - the scope of this sentence is limited. This is about people explaining their intentions and their ideas, not necessarily the way they function.

If Sam Altman told me he was a timelord I would POTENTIALLY accept his self-id in this regard, but this would not lead me to believe that he does indeed have two hearts.

In much the same way I also don't think that Altman is a stochastic parrot. One _can_ infer from this however that he either has no idea

how

a) LLMs work

b ) Natural language processing works

c ) both

and judging from his general understanding of basically anything - to quote Ed Zitron, he is the type of guy that "knows shit about fuck" - there are strong arguments for C.

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T Kamal's avatar

sure. but taking him at his word *this* one particular time and *no other* is, I feel, funnier.

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Ged's avatar

Frankly, everything that results in assessing Altman as extremely unserious person that no one should listen to ever seems ok to me.

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T Kamal's avatar

unserious *and* boring. such a rare combination, like a shiny Pokémon.

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Notorious P.A.T.'s avatar

"When someone tells you who they are, believe them" applies, I think, more to actions than to words.

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YourBonusMom's avatar

I’m sorry but the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the title was “Does a bear shit in the woods?” 😂😂😂 But seriously, great article, thanks. 😊

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Émile P. Torres's avatar

LOL!

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Rocco Jarman's avatar

Sociopathic enough to pretend to be concerned and mindful at heart to play to an audience. So deceitful yes, duplicitous yes. The motivation to pull that off in order to win a game in which the world is put further in jeopardy, that is sociopathic.

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Tom's avatar

You can tell by his eyes and his demeanor.

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Sadie Dearing's avatar

Yep, next question!

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Émile P. Torres's avatar

Lol. Fair enough!

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Anny Soumo's avatar

He’s a narcissistic sociopath. They’re very difficult to spot, you should stay well away from them. Avoid them at all costs.

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Lady Gentle's avatar

No sane gay would have those eyebrows.

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young slovaks's avatar

Thanks for writing, I wrote a sister compendium to this, there's a lag in understanding all this outside of tech but it can close quickly: https://open.substack.com/pub/youngslovaks/p/the-honest-thing-to-do-now-is-for?r=uvt&utm_medium=ios

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Eric's avatar

Idk but calling it “compute” doesn’t seem like the mark of manipulative sociopaths…

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Sean Barnett's avatar

No, but it's certainly the kind of thing that would come out of startup land, which seems to have more than its fair share of them...

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Nathan Cohen's avatar

Not a surprise from someone who claims AI will mean the only things kids will need to learn is code..

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The Whispering Candle's avatar

Sociopaths are created. Psychopaths are born.

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Chara's avatar

I guess the question is, was he born like that or did he become like this? And if so, how and why?

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