I think in some ways we are past it; unfortunately not the funny ways. Some examples:
1. The presidents response to bombing of school girls was basically "stop hitting yourself"
2. Fox news host Dept. of Defense head and the "Dept. of War" name "change"
3. Building a grand ballroom while taking benefits away from hungry kids
4. Elon musk on stage with the chainsaw bragging about acts that save no money but did harm the poorest people on earth.
5. The fact that our media does not really care about any of this unless they get a ratings bump from it
Obviously we all could go on and on.. but the biggest loss IMO is objective truth. There are and will always be things that are true and I feel that we are losing a hold of that so that bad actors can just say to us: "no thats not what your seeing".
Its like in the movie, if they had looked at the plant growing and said: "Thats FAKE NEWS" then run to the field and claimed they did it all.
Hi @ronanfarrow — I have only had one interaction with Sam Altman in person, and I was advised to keep it to myself. I know this crowd may not care, but Altman is absolutely terrified of Black people — not in any contextual sense, but in a visceral, instinctive way. For someone who, as you put it, "controls our future," this should matter.
FYI: I am by far not the only one to have experienced this and it 100% impacts hiring and other decisions at OpenAI.
Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things.
1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim.
2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer.
3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs
I was working for a company called NationBuilder and I had the opportunity to go on a work trip. Outside of a talk he had just given I was waiting for my ride and I looked over like...damn thats the speaker. I wanted to say Hi; he damn near flagged down the police. I apologized and just decided to move on.
Note: It was in Reno, and no I don't want to go into details; the others are not hard to find because I happened upon them via blog posts so i'm sure if someone with the accumen of RF wants to know, he will find.
I have heard similar stores from several people in the years since. I AM NOT CALLING THIS PERSON RACIST. I am saying; he is observably scared of black people and that is not someone I want making descions about how the world moves foward.
Maybe just Occam's Razor -- any time I've seen Sam talk in public he just seems to be a neurotic, anxious individual that would have a hard time interacting with people in any normal context. In a world of infinite variables it's hard to say that his aversion was due to your race -- there's really not much to go on here.
Racism is a social bias that isn't "hardwired". It does not trigger the "fight or flight" response like was described in the earlier tale. Anxiety, of course, describes a "fight or flight" system that is malfunctioning. It is the most likely explanation because that is what was originally described. Mind you, the story could have been misrepresented. We do have to put our faith into what was written.
Another comment suggested that Altman was once beat up by a black man. If true, it is possible Sam has developed a conditioned response that associates black men with danger and his reaction stemmed from that. However, that isn't the same thing as racism and to try and categorize it as such would be quite disingenuous.
Thank you for sharing this. I 100% believe it, and it lines up with my experience with other people who came from similar backgrounds as Sam Altman - i.e. white, rich, privileged, and attending elite universities.
I will disagree with one part - I do believe it is racism. Most will never admit it publicly, but if they think you're one of them, it often comes out rather quickly, especially when alcohol is involved.
It's sad to me that "racism" is such a divisive word to many, and is met with defensiveness rather than introspection and communication. Trying to not be racist takes work, and communication, and is a process, not a state.
I appreciate OP's sharing as well. Also, racism isn't peddled only by rich white elite university attendees, it reaches into all the corners.
> considering you just made a sweeping negative generalization based on race without recognizing it for what it is.
I did no such thing. I'd suggest reading more carefully. Much of that background describes me as well.
> Also, I find it interesting how your list of "backgrounds that define bad people" conveniently omits a specific trait that many tech CEOs of questionable morals share, likely because it doesn't align with your agenda.
Can you elaborate instead of beating around the bush? What exactly do you think "my agenda" is? What "specific trait" are you referring to?
Interpersonal racism that produces systemic racism can be measured.
Defined as: Disparate outcomes where, holding all other things equal, the only determinative factor is race.
So, with altman, we maybe couldn't point out a single case where it was definitely interpersonal racism. He'd probably have several plausible explanations at hand, given who he is.
But, if we were to look at his hiring and firing history, we could probably measure an 'unexplainable' dearth of black people in his orgs and circles. At that point, we can say his interpersonal racism has produced a measurable systemic effect that has disenfranchised many talented black people unfairly from this digital gold rush.
I can't do this work, but I am certain someone at YC or OpenAI could, were they so inclined (they won't be).
An extranordinary claim needs a bit more evidence than one datapoint where in his defense maybe he is scared of anyone he doesn't know trying to talk on the street.
Agreed, his two posts read really weirdly. He made a deliberately vague(?) initial post to get a response and I'm not sure how I feel about his story as you've said, if I was Sam Altman I'd be wary of anyone coming up to me too.
I wonder if this stems from Sam getting beat up by a black guy. From the article:
> When Altman was sixteen or seventeen, he said, he was out late in a predominantly gay neighborhood in St. Louis and was subjected to a brutal physical attack and homophobic slurs. Altman did not report the incident, and he was reluctant to give us more details on the record, saying that a fuller telling would “make me look like I’m manipulative or playing for sympathy.”
Another black guy here, and I have to say man, if you're going to accuse someone of being racist( which you clearly are you despite the lame ass disclaimer, if his feelings towards black people is influencing hiring at OAI how is he not racist?) why don't you actually say specifically what he did?
"He damn near flagged down the police" tells us nothing about what actually happened. Did he back away? Did he look panicked? Did he say something dismissive? Did he literally call for police or security? You give all these pointless details like where you work and your height, and retreat to vagueness when coming to the actual behavior you're indicting him for.
A rich gay Jewish kid from St.Louis being weary, or even scared of black people is quite believable, a public figure screaming for police because a black guy he was next to said hi just beggars belief, especially when layered in emotionally charged nonspecific language.
And you don't even have the balls to admit you clearly think the guy who calls the cops on black people for saying hi to him, is racist, which you clearly do.
Just to clarify, because I am not sure I am reading this correctly:
Your statement that he is terrified of black people is based on you (presumably a black person) running into him outside an event, and him reacting with fear/extreme caution when you approached him?
Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"
Rock solid evidence is what brings people down. Stretched truths, assumptions, and careful half-truth wording, are all ammo the accused will use to strengthen their side.
Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"
Why? It sounds like they were in an environment with many people and Sam reacted negatively to the black guy. It's not like the story was, "so I followed him down a deserted alley and he got scared, so he must be racist."
It sounds like Sam was approached on the street by a stranger, and he had a negative reaction. Which is fairly common for high profile people, especially people with a following of haters (let's not deny AI/data center general unrest).
I cannot see any legitimacy to the claim besides the commentor's own interpretation of the situation. They posit this like the authors would want to know, but here I am doing the first thing the authors of the article would do, and I'm getting downvotes for it. The author(s) won't touch it anyway.
I'm not famous, high-profile, or the billionaire founder of a controversial company, but I can easily imagine situations in which I'd be cautious of random strangers. Have you travelled much?
Note: To all the downvotes; I did this publicly and not anon for a reason, if you will do the same I am more than willing to provide evidence for all of these claims as long as its done publicly and in the open.
PG said something along the lines of: "There should be no truth that is increasingly unpopular to speak."
If you don't believe what I shared is true, address that directly. But seeing my post sitting at 1 point and [flagged] after 2 hours is not OK. Just as DJT can't flag away his issues, you shouldn't be able to do so on HN.
One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings. I really hope that what happened to my post is not the beginning or a continuance of the end for that ethos.
> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.
That has never been the case, because HN is frequented by humans and humans are biased. Someone who claims to be unaffected by feelings is someone you cannot trust, as it means they are blind to their own shortcomings. Being robotic about the world is no way to live—that’s how you get people who are so concerned with nitpicks and “ackshually” that they completely lose sight of what’s important. They become easy to manipulate because they are more concerned with the letter of the law than its spirit or true justice.
Objectivity and empiricism are positive traits but should be employed selectively. Emotions aren’t a weakness, they are what drives us to change and improve. Understanding your own emotions equips you better to understand the world. But they too can be used to manipulate you. To truly grow, you have to employ your emotional and rational sides together. Focusing on just the rational will get you far but not all the way.
HN is primarily about curiosity—it’s in the guidelines four times—and you can’t have that without emotion.
>> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.
> That has never been the case, because HN is frequented by humans and humans are biased. Someone who claims to be unaffected by feelings is someone you cannot trust, as it means they are blind to their own shortcomings.
Yes, and HN is full of people like that: simultaneously arrogant and stupid software engineers whose arrogance is founded on their own ignorance and self-regard. "Grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings" actually sounds like a smokescreen to obscure one's bias and feelings from oneself.
> Being robotic about the world is no way to live—that’s how you get people who are so concerned with nitpicks and “ackshually” that they completely lose sight of what’s important. They become easy to manipulate because they are more concerned with the letter of the law than its spirit or true justice.
They're also easy to manipulate, because their emotions can be appealed to without them having enough awareness to be on guard. For instance: you can manipulate many software engineers by working your position into the form of a technical "system" (e.g. Econ 101) then praise them for being smart little boys for understanding and believing it.
I don't know if he is a racist or not, but forget HN. Last couple years it has gone on the deep end, not sure if delusion or $ interests, but it is impossible to have a decent conversation here. I think the only reason this article stayed up is because OAI is starting to be a bit 'toxic' now, but if this was published a year ago, it would have been flagged to oblivion.
So just ignore those points and flags. HN *used* to be a nice place for intelectual conversations, even if you disagreed with each other. Now is nothing more than bots, people with financial interests in this bubble or sycophants.
I tried to respond to your comment with some personal observations on racist currents in this community, but my comment immediately got flagged. So yeah! This site ain't what it used to be. Best for the good folks to seek community elsewhere, I reckon. I miss the old days as well, but I don't think they're coming back.
If this site ever was anti-racist, that must have been a long time ago. I threw away my old account many years ago only to come back with this one (because it's difficult to completely ignore HN if you work in tech) and the reason I threw that one away was in part the overwhelming reactionary bias in this community.
The "progressives" were at best silent "don't rock the boat" types more inclined to insist on civility than to challange reactionary sentiments while the reactionaries ranged from dog-whistling to outspoken, across the entire range of white supremacism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, zionism and so on. The only comments that would ever get flagged or downvoted were those that were explicit enough to be seen as "impolite" because they happened to spell out calls for genocide or violence rather than merely gesturing at it with the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability.
Well, I do remember it being more about the underdogs and a cheeky "fuck the system" attitude without much malice. Maybe I just wasn't tuned into this stuff back then. Now, though, both users and tech leaders can unironically parrot Stormfront rhetoric from 10 years ago (using vaguely cordial language) and no one even bats an eye. The kind of stuff that would have made you unemployable just a few years ago.
When I think of HN in the before times, I think of people like Aaron Swartz. Would he have enjoyed his technical discussions peppered with comments on how the West is being "invaded" and "outbred" by third-world hordes? Based on what I know about him -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- I'm guessing he would have noped out of that kind of community in a flash. Yet nowadays I see this kind of talk here all the time, percolating all the way up to industry leaders like Musk and DHH.
> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.
Alas, this is not my experience of HN. About neutral topics, sure. Not a lot of flaming and irrationality about e.g. C# Union Types or audio reactive LED strips or whatever.
But assert something that a large fraction of people do not want to be true and you'll get, not just downvoted, but flagged and condescension.
Just came to say, I appreciate your emotionally intelligent and balanced take on your experience, where it would have been very easy to react and let emotions take over (understandably).
It's disappointing to me that a completely factual personal experience can be relayed with zero spin – and yet some of the replies act as if it's 100% spin without any factual evidence. Some people seem to prefer to respond to an imaginary version of a conversation rather than the one that's actually happening in front of them.
Thank you for sharing this experience with us. Don't worry about the downvotes. That's just how it is here sometimes. I don't think it reflects the views of most readers.
The irony in your comment is that you accuse the OP of interpreting the world based on his own warped view of it rather than what’s actually in front of him, yet you’re doing precisely that. The OP did not call Altman racist and made a point to draw the distinction. He also claims his is not the only example of this and is effectively encouraging an investigative journalist and the rest of HN to look into it and verify for ourselves.
Some degree of skepticism is healthy here. An online comment is not definitive proof, and it’s all too easy to pile accusations as part of a comment thread that’s already critical of someone. But the way you readily armchair psychoanalyze and dismiss the OP tells me you’re not engaging in an honest way.
Time doesn't matter in relation to facts that we already knew about 100 years ago. You're actively discriminating based on something the affected people have NO control over, with no basis whatsoever other than vibes. Imagine someone took all your family's rights away and locked them all in cages, based on who your great great great grandpa was, which has never come up until now. Would that be fair? Would you care? That's a similar level of senseless discrimination.
I don't think the people discriminated against, who are people just like you and me, with feelings, families, etc. would give a shit if it was 2020 or 3020 or 1995. Acting on opinions like the one you've expressed explicitly makes the world a more unfair, worse place to live.
Which racial male group do you think is responsible for the most mass shootings and school shootings per capita? It's certainly not White men. Hint: think Popeye's Chicken. Once you figure out what per capita means.
Do you understand what the term "per capita" means? We should force people to take a test on this term before you're allowed to comment on racial issues.
While I agree with you, I also find myself wondering who draws the line. Given the current political atmosphere and its increasingly fluid relationship with "truth," I have to consider that the line for others may not be where it is for me — especially given the nuance buried in the details of many B2B deals.
Their value prop had to be strong enough to get past YC, past the other founders in the batch, past due diligence. Given that, I'm no longer comfortable casting "fraud" as a clean binary.
To be clear — I do genuinely believe they are a fraudulent company that lied and deserved to be removed. But introspectively, I have to sit with the fact that the space between "working around dumb regulations" and "outright fraud" is murkier than we'd like to admit.
The vast majority of crimes are still being prosecuted as such. You have to reach a certain size/notoriety and money to buy a POTUS pardon; I doubt that matters for a relatively unknown outfit like Delve.
When there's higher violence and lower property values in a Black neighborhood, people like OP are quick to blame Black culture. But when the "Cognitive Dark Forest" emerges from a community that shares its own common characteristics, suddenly collective accountability no longer applies.
When discussing violence in the Black community, it's "cultural." But when the subject turns to financial crimes or exploitation — where the per-capita ratios tell their own story — proportionality and population-to-crime-rate analysis mysteriously stop mattering.
It's difficult to take the "Cognitive Dark Forest" seriously as an existential concern when the people raising the alarm are so selectively offended. The crisis only becomes real when their innovations, their livelihoods, and their moats are threatened. Everyone else was supposed to just adapt.
The "Cognitive Dark Forest" is and will be continued to be perpetuated by "them" and if you really cared about the issue you would have addressed them.
I’m sorry. Why are we talking about Black neighbourhoods?
Feel like we are trying to put the author in a bad (racist or classists?) light so we do not have to address the real issues touched on by the article.
If its an interesting problem, i'll do it free. a@project20x.com
One issue I see in your messaging is that construction people usually do not speak like "completely offline, no cloud, no accounts, no subscription". When doing work for SME's one of the things I enjoy most is learning systems, tool chains, nomenclature etc... The above reads like a dev harvesting for leads.
I think people will understand it easily. It's like buying a really nice tool (which I do often). I will spend 300-400 dollars on tools I can have forever. It's easily justified if it makes my job easier.
A completely offline, no subscription lifetime app is an easy sell and exactly what people like me want.
I don't understand how anyone can rationalize this bill in the face of what OpenAI just agreed to with the DoD.
AI can surveil and direct munitions but it cant answer legal questions. Wouldn't this also violate the "no state my limit or restrict the use of AI" that the current administration is pushing?
> I don't understand how anyone can rationalize this bill in the face of what OpenAI just agreed to with the DoD.
NY doesn’t have any obligation to agree with the DoD. Also the applications seems quite different, although I don’t think AI should actually be relied on for either one!
> Wouldn't this also violate the "no state my limit or restrict the use of AI" that the current administration is pushing?
No, it doesn’t violate it. States can’t violate executive orders, because executive orders aren’t instructions for the states. The instructions are for the executive branch, for example, if this becomes law the US Attorney General will try to find some way to fight against it.
I commented this earlier and it was instantly downvoted for some reason, but I totally agree with both points; I also think they are intrinsically connected in many ways because using customer-development to understand and build an initial audience often helps identify distribution channels. Here are a few examples I have found
1) I made a product to help people manage their diets; crowded space so it was hard to find users, following Steve Blank's customer-development process I found that the product should have been made for Dietitians not for end users. This may have been obvious to most but it was but to me at the time.
2) I made a product for Medicare/Medicaid but it was hard to get my foot in the door to even be considered for any of the Gov. contracts, so following the same model again I found that if I used politicians that had made promises during their campaign that my product could help them to fulfill then I could use them as distribution channels.
One thing I disagree with or don't understand is
> ship earlier now (often free and open source) to learn faster, but it doesn’t change the attention dynamics much.
I have found the opposite, it seems like the bar is much higher now and not even the boost in productivity that I have gotten from using AI has allowed me to ship secure/high quality products as fast as I would like to; perhaps I am just too insecure about my work but its all new I guess.
1. The presidents response to bombing of school girls was basically "stop hitting yourself"
2. Fox news host Dept. of Defense head and the "Dept. of War" name "change"
3. Building a grand ballroom while taking benefits away from hungry kids
4. Elon musk on stage with the chainsaw bragging about acts that save no money but did harm the poorest people on earth.
5. The fact that our media does not really care about any of this unless they get a ratings bump from it
Obviously we all could go on and on.. but the biggest loss IMO is objective truth. There are and will always be things that are true and I feel that we are losing a hold of that so that bad actors can just say to us: "no thats not what your seeing".
Its like in the movie, if they had looked at the plant growing and said: "Thats FAKE NEWS" then run to the field and claimed they did it all.
he claimed they did it to themselves
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