> I know I won't get a lot of love for this, but Sam is a really good person. I don't know him well, but I've known him since long before OpenAI.
"Good" is too blurry of a description, and I don't know Sam, but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them and found mutually satisfying resolutions to them. If all you've had is mutually beneficial interactions, then of course everyone's going to be nice - it's in everyone's interests. You need to see how they act on nontrivial conflicts (either handling present ones, or mitigating/averting future ones) to really know if someone is a genuinely good person or not.
While this could hypothetically happen within an hour of meeting someone, it's more likely to take years or even decades... or might never even happen.
Ah yes—as the saying goes: “keep your friends at the Bayes-optimal distance corresponding to your level of confidence in their out-of-distribution behavior, and your enemies closer”
> you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them
This hits a spot. I had a really nice boss.. Until we got into a conflict, then she tried to blackmail me, pressure me and break me. I learned why some people who left our company needed months to get back on their feet. I got out quite well and managed to push back, but it was a tough period.
I learned this playing video games. After a while, I figured out that if I liked someone on my team, I should only friend them if we were losing. Otherwise, I might only like them in the 50% of games we win.
I had a feeling the man was a bit of a con, of course I won't say I know for sure. But some of his actions, like his notorious eye scanning crypto project, or the fact that he was 100% in support of UBI and wanted to advocate for it only to go to different governments wanting regulations (that only benefitted them)
People really really need to pay attention to their actions, not their words, jeezus. We'll have another rogue Elon Musk who was once idol worshipped as the incredibly "brilliant" man...turned out he does some stupid things too only now he amassed billions of dollars he can pay his way out of stupid things.
"Good" is too blurry of a description, and I don't know Sam, but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that you don't truly know someone unless you've had conflicts of interest with them and found mutually satisfying resolutions to them. If all you've had is mutually beneficial interactions, then of course everyone's going to be nice - it's in everyone's interests. You need to see how they act on nontrivial conflicts (either handling present ones, or mitigating/averting future ones) to really know if someone is a genuinely good person or not.
While this could hypothetically happen within an hour of meeting someone, it's more likely to take years or even decades... or might never even happen.