Sam Altman fires back at 'incendiary' New Yorker article after home attack

On Friday evening, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a blog post responding to an apparent attack on his home and a detailed New Yorker profile that raised questions about his trustworthiness.

Early Friday morning, a person reportedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s residence. No injuries occurred, and according to the San Francisco Police Department, a suspect was later arrested at OpenAI’s headquarters after threatening to burn down the building.

Although police have not publicly named the suspect, Altman noted that the incident came a few days after an “incendiary article” about him was published. He mentioned that someone suggested the article’s release, “at a time of great anxiety about AI,” could make things “more dangerous” for him.

“I brushed it aside,” Altman said. “Now I’m awake in the middle of the night, angry, and realizing I underestimated the power of words and narratives.”

The article in question was a lengthy investigative piece by Ronan Farrow, who won a Pulitzer for exposing the sexual abuse allegations surrounding Harvey Weinstein, and Andrew Marantz, who has written extensively about technology and politics.

According to Farrow and Marantz, in interviews with over 100 people familiar with Altman’s business conduct, most described him as having “a relentless will to power that sets him apart, even among industrialists who put their names on spaceships.”

Echoing other journalists who have profiled Altman, Farrow and Marantz noted that many sources questioned his trustworthiness. One anonymous board member said he combines “a strong desire to please people and be liked in every interaction” with “a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences of deceiving someone.”

In his response, Altman said that looking back, he sees “a lot of things I’m proud of and a bunch of mistakes.”

Among the mistakes, he mentioned a tendency to be “conflict-averse,” which has “caused great pain for me and OpenAI.”

“I am not proud of how I handled the conflict with our previous board, which created a huge mess for the company,” Altman said, likely referring to his 2023 ousting and quick reinstatement as CEO. “I have made many other mistakes throughout OpenAI’s insane trajectory. I’m a flawed person in the middle of an exceptionally complex situation, trying to improve a little each year, always working for the mission.”

He added, “I am sorry to those I’ve hurt and wish I had learned faster.”

Altman also acknowledged that there seems to be “so much Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field,” which he attributed to a “‘ring of power’ dynamic” that “makes people do crazy things.”

Of course, the correct way to deal with the ring of power is to destroy it, so Altman added, “I don’t mean that [artificial general intelligence] is the ring itself, but instead the totalizing philosophy of ‘being the one to control AGI.’” His proposed solution is “to orient towards sharing the technology broadly with people, and for no one to have the ring.”

Altman concluded by saying he welcomes “good-faith criticism and debate,” while reiterating his belief that “technological progress can make the future unbelievably good, for your family and mine.”

“While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally,” he said.