This profile of Sam Altman in The New Yorker is extremely long. I read it on the train and while standing in line at Disneyland Paris. But for all the research the reporters did, it’s essentially just a rehashing of the “not consistently candid” argument against Sam from over two years ago.
Last year I put a stake in the ground with my essay on Sam Altman. I’ve yet to see anything to convince me I was wrong.
I think talented journalists like Ronan Farrow had a chance to do some new reporting on where AI is now, what impact it will have on the economy and society, and they instead wrote an article about personality quirks and office drama. The article is so focused on finding flaws in Sam Altman that it glosses over all the bigger picture themes about what is happening in the AI industry.
People who already dislike Sam or OpenAI will point to it as confirmation. Yet there is very little new here. The real news in the article feels out of place because it’s framed as a backdrop for this initial narrative about Sam and the blip. And some of the most interesting tidbits in the article — like that Fidji Simo might eventually succeed Sam as CEO — are dismissed as rumor just as quickly as they are introduced.
The New Yorker is the only journalism I currently pay for. Not everything they publish resonates with me, but at least once a week there is a story that I really enjoy. I don’t think this one comes together in a cohesive way.
I wrote the above last week, then scrapped the draft, deciding not to publish it. I changed my mind after reading Sam Altman’s blog post where he mentions someone throwing a Molotov cocktail at his house. A couple days later, his home was struck by gunfire.
The rhetoric around AI is too extreme. People feel very passionately about it, of course. I’ve tried to have a balanced take, with dozens of blog posts that highlight the value of AI while recognizing the risks and potential divisiveness. No personal attacks. No vilifying leaders in the industry.
But some of the blog posts I’ve read over the last year have taken the debate about AI way too far, twisting it into exaggerations that assume the worst about people. That is at best unhelpful, because it spreads misinformation, and at worst perhaps even dangerous.
