Is there a more benign explanation for these things? Altman is undeniably famously cagey and political but despite most of the tech and non-tech worlds at this point seeing him as some kind of con artist, I still kind of want to try to believe he's not.

No doubt some of OpenAI's founding principles like "stop + assist if a competitor gets to AGI first" are likely flying out the window, perhaps in part due to him and also as one might anticipate of initial lofty ideals and promises, but even with the recent New Yorker and other articles he seems like someone who maybe regularly placates people to avoid personal problems and lies to get out of trouble rather than a Machiavellian tech baron.

> he seems like someone who maybe regularly placates people to avoid personal problems and lies to get out of trouble rather than a Machiavellian tech baron.

This would be more plausible were it not for the staggering amount of wealth he’s amassed through those lies.

When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

His own sister accused him of sexual assault.

He was fired from his first startup.

He was abruptly fired from ycombinator in shady circumstances.

He was accused by the OpenAI board of lying to them, ousted, and somehow managed to regain control.

He took OpenAI from being a non-profit to a for-profit, with obvious benefits to whoever controls it.

He was massively misleading about the capabilities of his product and predicted AGI within years.

At some point the pattern of all these events should have some weight in your judgement of him, no?

> ... I still kind of want to try to believe he's not.

Asking genuinely - why?

He will say whatever it takes to get the result he wants. That's manipulative and, when pursued as a lifestyle, sociopathic.

Living like that is corrupting. When you treat humans like objects, the question of your starting intentions is really secondary.

We already reached agi a while ago.