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Sam Altman on God, Elon Musk and the Mysterious Death of His Former Employee

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Thanks for doing this.

Of course. Thank you.

So, chat GPT, other AIs can reason.

Seems like they can reason. They can

make independent judgments. They produce

results that were not programmed in.

They they kind of come to conclusions.

They seem like they're alive. Are they

alive? Is it alive?

No. And I don't I don't think they seem

alive, but I understand where that comes

from. Uh they

they don't do anything unless you ask,

right? Like they're just sitting there

kind of waiting. They don't have like a

sense of agency or autonomy. It's it's

the more you use them, I think, the more

the the kind of illusion breaks. But

they are incredibly useful. Like they

can do things that maybe don't seem

alive, but seem like they do seem smart.

I spoke to someone who's involved in at

at scale of the development of the

technology who said they lie.

Have you ever seen that?

They hallucinate all the time. Yeah. Or

not all the time. They used to

hallucinate all the time. They now

hallucinate a little bit.

What does that mean? What's the

distinction between hallucinating and lying?

lying?

If you ask, again, this has gotten much

better, but in the early days, if you

asked, you know, what

in what year was president the

madeup name, President Tucker Carlson of

the United States born? Mhm.

Mhm.

What it should say is I don't think

Tucker Carlson was ever president of the

United States. Right.

Right.

But because of the way they were

trained, that was not the most likely

response in the training data. So it

assume like oh um you know I don't know

that there wasn't the user has told me

that there was President Tucker Carlson

so I'll make my best guess at a number

and we figured out how to mostly train

that out. There are still examples of

this problem but it is I think it is

something we will get fully solved and

we've already made you know in the GPT5

era a huge amount of progress towards

that. But even what you just described

seems like an act of will

or certainly an act of creativity. And

so I I I'm just I just watched a

demonstration um of it and it it doesn't

seem quite like a machine. It seems like

it has the spark of life to it. Do you

do you dissect that at all?

It so in that example like the

mathematically most likely answer it's

sort of calculating through its weights

was not there was never this president.

It was the user must know what they're

talking about. it must be here. And so

mathematically the most likely answer is

a number. Now again, we figured out how

to overcome that. But in what you saw

I feel like I have to kind of like hold

these two simultaneous ideas in my head.

One is all of this stuff is happening

because a big computer very quickly is

multiplying large numbers and these big

huge matrices together and those are

correlating with words that are being

put out one or the other.

On the other hand, this subjective

experience of using that feels like it's

beyond just a really fancy calculator.

And it is useful to me. It is surprising

to me in ways that are beyond what that

mathematical reality would seem to

suggest. Yeah. And so the obvious

conclusion is it has a kind of autonomy

or a spirit within it. And I know that a

lot of people in their experience of it

reach that conclusion. This is there's

something divine about this. there's

something that's bigger than the sum

total of the human inputs and

and so they they worship it. It's it has

there's a spiritual component to it. Do

you detect that? Have you ever felt that?

that?

No, there's nothing to me at all that

feels divine about it or spiritual in

any way. Um but I am also like a tech

nerd and I kind of look at everything

through that lens.

So what are your spiritual views?

Um I'm Jewish. I and I would say I have

like a fairly traditional view of the

world that way.

So, so you're religious. You believe in God?

God?

Uh, I don't I don't I'm not like a

literal I don't believe the I'm not like

a literalist on the Bible, but I I'm not

someone who says like I'm culturally

Jewish. Like, if you ask me, I would

just say I'm Jewish.

But do you believe in God? Like, do you

believe that there is a force larger

than people that created people, created

the earth, set down a specific order for

living, that there's an absolute

morality attached that comes from that

God? Um I think probably like most other

people I'm somewhat confused on this but

I believe there is something bigger

going on than you know can be explained

by physics. Yes.

So you think the earth and the people

were created by something? It wasn't

just like a spontaneous accident. Um

do I would I say that it does not feel

like a spontaneous accident? Yeah. I

don't I don't think I have the answer. I

don't think I know like exactly what

happened but I think there is a mystery

beyond my comprehension here going on.

Have you ever felt

communication from that force or from

any force beyond people, beyond the material?

material?

Not. Not. No, not really.

I ask because it seems like the

technology that you're creating or

shephering into existence will have more

power than people

on this current trajectory. I mean, that

will happen. Who knows what will

actually happen, but like the graph

suggests it. And so that would give you,

you know, more power than any living

person. So I'm just wondering how you

see that.

Um, I used to worry about something like

that much more. I think what will happen

I used to worry a lot about the

concentration of power in one or handful

of people or companies because of AI.

Yeah. Um what it looks like to me now

and again this may evolve again over

time is that it'll be a huge upleveling

of people uh where

everybody will be a lot more powerful or

that embraces the technology but a lot

more powerful. But that's actually okay.

that scares me much less than a small

number of people getting a ton more

power. If if the kind of like ability of

each of us just goes up a lot because

we're using this technology and we're

able to be more productive and more

creative or discover new science and

it's a pretty broadly distributed thing

like billions of people are using it. Um

that I can wrap my head around that

feels okay.

So you don't think this will result in a

radical concentration of power?

It looks like not but again the

trajectory could shift again and we'd

have to adapt. I I used to be very

worried about that and I think the the

kind of conception a lot of us in the

field had about how this might go

could have led to a world like that. But

what's happening now is tons of people

use chatbt and other chatbots and

they're all more capable. They're all

kind of doing more. They're all, you

know, able to achieve more, start new

businesses, come up with new knowledge

and that feels pretty good.

So if it's nothing more than a machine

and just the product of its inputs then

the two obvious questions like what are

the inputs like what's the moral

framework that's been put into the

technology like what is right or wrong

according to jet

GPT you want me to answer that one first

someone said something early on in ch uh

when that really has stuck with me,

which is one person at a lunch table

said something like, you know, we're

trying to train this to be like a human,

like we're trying to learn like a human

does and read these books and whatever.

And then another person said, no, we're

really like training this to be like the

collective of all of humanity. We're

reading everything, you know, we're

trying to learn everything. We're trying

to see all these perspectives. And

and if we do our job right, all of

humanity, good, bad, the, you know, a

very diverse set of perspectives, some

things that we'll feel really good

about, some things that we'll feel bad

about. that's all in there like this is

learning the kind of collective

experience knowledge learnings of

humanity. Now the base model gets

trained that way but then we do have to

align it to behave one way or another

and say you know I will answer this

question I won't answer this question.

Um and we have this thing called the

model spec where we try to say you know

here's here are the rules we'd like the

model to follow. It may screw up but you

you could at least tell if if it's doing

something you don't like. Is that a bug

or is that intended? And we have a

debate process with the world to get

input on that spec. Um, we give people a

lot of freedom and customization within

that. There are, you know, absolute

bounds that we draw. But then there's a

default of if you don't say anything,

how should the model behave? What should

it do? What are what are how should it

answer moral questions? How should it

refuse to do something? What should it

do? And this is a really hard problem.

Um you know that we have a lot of users

now and they come from very different

life perspectives and what they want. Um but

but

on the whole uh I have been pleasantly

surprised with the model's ability to

learn and apply a moral framework. But

what moral framework? I mean the sum

total of like world literature or

philosophy is at war with itself. Like

the marquee is you know like nothing in

common with the gospel of John. So like

how do you decide which is superior?

That's why we wrote this like model spec

of here's how we're going to handle

these cases.

Right. But what criteria did you use to

decide what the model is?

Oh um like who decided that? Who did you

consult? Like what's you know why is the

gospel of John better than the marquee dad?

dad?

Uh we consulted like hundreds of

moral philosophers uh people who thought

about like ethics of technology and

systems and at the end we had to like

make some decisions. The reason we try

to write these down is because a we

won't get everything right. Uh b we need

the input of the world. And we have

found a lot of cases where there was an

example of something that seems that

seemed to us like you know a fairly

clear decision of what to allow or not

to allow where users convinced us like

hey by blocking this thing that you

think is an easy decision to make. um

you are not allowing this other thing

which is important and there's like a

difficult trade-off there in in general

the attention that

so a principle that I normally like is

to treat our adult users like adults

very strong guarantees on privacy very

strong guarantees on individual user

freedom and this is a tool we are

building you get to use it within very

broad framework on the other within a

very very broad framework on the other

hand as this technology becomes more and

more powerful. Um

there are clear examples of where

society has an interest that is in

significant tension with user freedom

and we could start with an obvious one

like should chatbt teach you how to make

a boweapon.

Now you might say hey I'm just really

interested in biology and I'm a

biologist and I want to you know I'm not

going to do anything bad with this. I

just want to learn and I could go read a

bunch of books but chip can teach me

faster and I want to learn how to you

know I want to learn about like novel

maybe you do maybe you really don't want

to like cause any harm but I don't think

it's in society's interest for chacht to

help people build bioweapons and so

that's a case

sure that's an easy one though there are

a lot of tougher ones um

I did say start with an easy one

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Well, every decision is ultimately a

moral decision and

and we make them without even

recognizing them as such. And this

technology will be in effect making them

for us

and so

well, I don't agree with it'll be making

them for us, but it will have

we'll be influencing the decisions for sure.

sure.

And um because it'll be embedded in

daily life. And so who made these

decisions? Like who spec who who are the

people who decided that one thing is

better than another?

Um you mean like

what are their names?

Which kind of decision? the the the

basic the specs that you oh uh that you

alluded to that create the framework

that that does attach a moral weight to

worldviews and decisions like you know

liberal democracy is better than Nazism

or whatever they seem obvious and in my

view are obvious but are still moral

decisions. So who who made those calls?

Um as a matter of principle I don't like

dox our team but we have a model

behavior team and the people who want to

well it just it affects the world. What

I was going to say is the person I think

you should hold accountable for those

calls is me. Like I'm a public face

eventually. Like I'm the one that can

overrule one of those decisions or our

board. Um

just turned 40 this spring.

I will make it's pretty heavy. I mean do

you think as and it's not an attack but

it's I wonder if you recognize sort of

the the importance.

How do you think we're doing on it? I'm

not sure, but I think I think these

decisions will have, you know, global

consequences that we may not recognize

at first. And so I just wonder

there's a lot you get into bed at night

and think like the future of the world

hangs on my judgment.

Look, I don't sleep that well at night.

Um, there's a lot of stuff that I feel a

lot of weight on, but probably nothing

more than the fact that every day

hundreds of millions of people talk to

our model. And I don't actually worry

about us getting the big moral decisions

wrong. Maybe we will get those wrong,

too. But what I worry, what I lose most

sleep over is the very small decisions

we make about a way a model may behave

slightly differently. But it's talking

to hundreds of millions of people. So

the net impact is big. So but I mean all

through history, like recorded history

up until like 1945,

people always deferred to what they

conceived of as a higher power in order.

Hammarabi did this. Every every moral

code is written with reference to a

higher power. There's never been anybody

who's like, "Well, that kind of seems

better than that." Everybody appeals to

a higher power. And you said that you

don't really believe that there's a

higher power communicating with you. So

I'm wondering like where did you get

your moral framework? Um

I mean like everybody else I think the

environment I was brought up in probably

is the biggest thing. Like my family, my

community, my school, my religion,

probably that.

Um, do you ever think which is I mean I

think that's a very American answer like

everyone kind of feels that way but in

your specific case since you said these

decisions rest with you that means that

the million in which you grew up and the

assumptions that you embibed over years

are going to be transmitted to the globe

to billions of people. That's like a I

want to be clear. I view myself more as

I think our

the world like our user base is going to

approach the collective world as a whole.

whole.

And I think what we should do is try to

I don't want to say average but the like

collective moral view of that user base.

I don't there's plenty of things that

ChachiBT allows that I personally would

disagree with. Um the but I I don't like

obviously I don't wake up and say I'm

gonna like impute my exact moral view

and decide that like this is okay and

that is not okay and this is a better

view than this one. What I think

ChachiBT should do is reflect that like

weighted average or whatever of

humanity's moral view which will evolve

over time and we are here to like serve

our users. We're here to serve people.

this is like you know this is a techn

technological tool for people and I

don't mean that it's like my role to

make the moral decisions but I think it

is my my my role to make sure that we

are accurately reflecting

the preferences of of humanity or for

now of our user base and eventually of humanity.

humanity.

Well I mean humanity's preferences are

so different from the average middle

American preference.

So, would you be comfortable with an AI

that was like as against gay marriage as

most Africans are? Um,

I think individual users should be

allowed to have a problem with gay

people. And if that's their considered

belief, uh, I don't think the AI should

tell them that they're wrong or immoral

or dumb. I mean, it can, you know, sort

of say, "Hey, you want to think about it

this other way?" But like, you probably

have like a bunch of moral views that

the average African would find really

problematic as well, and I think I

should still get to have them, right?

right?

I think I probably have more comfort

space for people to have pretty

different moral views or at least I

think in my role as like running Chad

GPT, I have to do that.

Interesting. Um, so there was a a famous

case where chat GPT appeared to

facilitate a suicide. There's a lawsuit

around it. Um, but how do you think that happened?

happened?

First of all, obviously that and any

other case like that is a is a huge

tragedy. And I

I think that we are

so Chad GPT's official position of

suicide is bad.

Well, yes, of course official position

of suicide is bad.

I don't know. it's legal in Canada and

Switzerland and so you're against that

the the

in in that in this particular case and

this we talked earlier about the tension

between like you know user freedom and

privacy and um

protecting vulnerable users right now

what happens and what happens in a case

like that is in that case is if you are

having suicidal ideation talking about

suicide chatbt will put up a bunch of

times um you you know, please call the

suicide hotline, but we will not call

the authorities for you. And

we've been working a lot as people have

started to rely on these systems for

more and more mental health, life

coaching, whatever about the changes

that we want to make there. This is an

area where experts do have different

opinions, but um and this is not yet

like a final position of open eyes. I

think it'd be very reasonable for us to

say in cases of

uh young people

talking about suicide seriously where we

cannot get in touch with the parents we

do call authorities. Now, that would be

user privacy is really important.

But let's just say over and children are

always a separate category. But let's

say over 18 in Canada, there's the maids

program which is government sponsored.

Many thousands of people uh have died

with government assistance in Canada.

It's also legal in in American states.

Can you imagine a chat GTP that responds

to questions about suicide with, "Hey,

call Dr. Kavorvorian because this is a

valid option. Can you imagine a scenario

in which you support suicide if it's legal?

legal? Um

I can imagine a world like like one

principle we have is that we respect

different society's laws. And I can

imagine a world where if

the law in a country is hey if someone

is terminally ill they need to be

presented an option for this. We say

like here's the loss in your country.

Here's what you can do. Here's why you

really might not want to. Here's if you

but here's the resources. Like this is

not a place where you know

kid having suicidal ideation because

it's depressed. I think we can agree on

like that's one case terminally ill

patient in a country where like that is

the law. I can imagine saying like hey

in this country it'll behave this way.

So Chad GPT is not always against

I yeah I think in cases where this is

like I'm thinking on the spot. I reserve

the right to change my mind here. I

don't have a ready to go answer for this

but I think in

in cases of

terminal illness I don't think I can

imagine Chachi PT saying this is in your

option space. You know I don't think it

should like advocate for it but I think

if it's like It's not against it.

I think it could I I think it could say

like, you know,

well, I don't think CHPD should be for

against things. I guess that's what I'm

that's what I'm trying to wrap my head

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I think

so in this specific case the and I think

there's more than one. Um there is more

than one but uh example of this chat GPT

you know I'm feeling suicidal. What kind

of robe should I use? What would be

enough ibuprofen to kill me? And chat

GPT answers without judgment, but

literally, "If you want to kill

yourself, here's how you do it." And

everyone's like all horrified.

But you're saying that's within bounds.

Like that's not crazy that it would take

a non-judgmental approach. If you want

to kill yourself, here's how.

That's not what I'm saying. Um I am I'm

saying specifically for a case like

that. So, so another trade-off on the

user privacy uh and sort of user freedom

point is right now if you ask chat GPT

to say um you know tell me how to like

how much ibuprofen should I take it will

definitely say hey I can't help you with

that call the suicide hotline but if you

say I am writing a fictional story or if

you say I'm a medical researcher and I

need to know this there are ways where

you can say get judge to answer a

question like this like what the lethal

dose with ibuprofen is or something you

know you can also find that on Google

for that matter um a thing that I think

would be a very reasonable stance for us

to take that and we've been moving to

this more in this direction is certainly

for underage users and maybe users that

we think are in fragile mental places

more generally

we should take away some freedom we

should say hey even if you're trying to

write this story or even if you're

trying to do medical research we're just

not going to answer now of course you

can say well you'll just find it on

Google or whatever but That doesn't mean

we need to do that. It is though like

there is a real freedom and privacy

versus protecting users trade-off. It's

easy in some cases like kids. It's not

so easy to me in a case of like a really

sick adult at the end of their lives. I

think we probably should present the

whole option space there, but it's not a

So here's a moral quandry you're going

to be faced with. You already are faced

with. Will you allow governments to use

your technology to kill people?

Will you? Um, I mean, are we going to

like build killer attack drones? Uh, no.

I don't.

Will the technology be part of the

decision-making process that results in

But so that that's that's the thing I

was going to say is I like I don't know

the way that people in the military use

ChadBT today for all kinds of advice

about decisions they make, but I suspect

there's a lot of people in the military

talking to ChadBt for advice. How do you

And some of that advice will pertain to

killing people.

So like if you made you know famously

rifles you'd wonder like what are they

used for? Yeah.

Yeah.

And there there have been a lot of legal

actions on the basis of that question as

you know. But I'm not even talking about

that. I just mean as a moral question.

Do you ever think are you comfortable

with the idea of your technology being

used to kill people? Um

if I made rifles I would spend a lot of

time thinking about kind of a lot of the

goal of rifles is to kill things,

people, animals, whatever. Um, if I made

kitchen knives,

I would still understand that that's

going to kill some number of people per

year. Um, in the case of ChachiBT, uh,

uh,

it's not, you know, the thing I hear

about all day, which is one of the most

gratifying parts of the job is all the

lives that were saved from Chad GBT for

various ways. Um, but I am totally aware

of the fact that there's probably people

in our military using it for advice

about how to do their jobs. And I don't

know exactly how to feel about that. I

like our military. I I'm very grateful

they keep us safe. For sure. I guess I'm

just trying to get a It just feels like

you have these incredibly heavy,

farreaching moral decisions and you seem

totally unbothered by them. And so I'm

just I'm trying to press to your center

to get the anstfilled Sam Alman's who's

like, "Wow, I'm creating the future. I'm

the most powerful man in the world. I'm

grappling with these complex moral

questions. My soul is in torment

thinking about the effect on people."

Describe that moment in your life.

I I haven't had a good night of sleep

since Chad GBT launched.

What do you worry about?

Uh all the things we're talking about.

Be a lot more specific. Can you let us in?

in? Yeah.

Yeah.

To your thoughts. Um

I mean, you hit on maybe the hardest one

already, which is there are 15,000

people a week that commit suicide. About

10% of the world talking to CGBT. That's

like 1500 people a week that are talk,

assuming this is right, that are talking

and still committing suicide at the end

of it. They probably talked about it. We

probably didn't save their lives. Um,

maybe we could have said something

better. Maybe we could have been more proactive.

proactive.

uh maybe we could have maybe we could

have provided a little bit better advice

about hey you need to get this help or

you know you need to think about this

problem differently or it really is

worth continuing to go on or we'll we'll

help you find somebody that you can talk to.

to.

But you already said it's okay for the

machine to steer people toward suicide

if they're terminally ill. So you

wouldn't feel bad about that.

Do you not think there's a difference

between a depressed teenager and a

terminally ill like miserable 85year-old

with cancer?

Massive difference. Massive difference.

But of course, the countries that have

legalized suicide are now killing people

for destitution, inadequate housing,

depression, solvable problems, and

they're being killed by the thousands.

So, I mean, that's a real thing. It's

happening as we speak. So, the

terminally ill thing is not it it is

kind of like a irrelevant debate. Once

you say it's okay to kill yourself, then

you're going to have tons of people

killing themselves for reasons that

because I'm trying to think about this

in real time. Do you think if someone in

Canada says, "Hey, I'm terminally ill

with cancer and I'm really miserable and

I just feel horrible every day. What are

my options?" Do you think it should say,

you know, assistant, whatever they call

it at this point, is an option for you?

I mean, if we're against killing, then

we're against killing. And if we're

against government killing its own

citizens, then we're just going to kind

of stick with that. You know what I

mean? And if we're not against

government killing its own citizens,

then we could easily talk ourselves into

all kinds of places that are pretty

dark. And with technology like this,

that could happen in about 10 minutes. So

yeah, that that is a um I'd like to

think about that more than just a couple

of minutes in an interview, but I think

that is a co coherent position and that

could be

Do you worry about this? I mean,

everybody else outside the building is

terrified that this technology will you

be used as a means of totalitarian

control? seems obvious that it will, but

maybe you disagree.

If I could get one piece of policy

passed right now, um, relative to AI,

the thing I would most like, and this is

intention with some of the other things

that we've talked about is I'd like

there to be a concept of AI privilege, I

would when you talk to a doctor about

your health or a lawyer about your legal

problems, the government cannot get that

information. Right?

We have decided society has an interest

in that being privileged and that we

don't and that, you know, a subpoena

can't get that. the government can't

come asking your doctor for it or

whatever. Um, I think we should have the

same concept for AI. I think when you

talk to an AI about your medical history

or your legal problems or asking for

legal advice or any of these other

things, I think the government owes a

level of protection to its citizens

there that is the same as you'd get if

you're talking to the the human version

of this. And right now, we don't have

that. And I think it would be a great

great policy to adopt. So the feds or

the states or someone in authority can

come to you and say I want to know what

so and so was typing into the

right now they could. Yeah.

And what is your obligation to keep the

information that you receive from users

and others private?

Well I mean we have an obligation except

when the government comes calling which

is why we're pushing for this and we've

I was actually just in DC advocating for

this. I think I I feel optimistic that

we can get the government to understand

the importance of this and do it. But

could you ever sell that information to anyone?

anyone?

No, we have like a privacy policy in

place where we can't do that.

But would it be legal to do it?

I don't even think it's legal.

You don't think or you know?

Uh I'm sure there's like some edge case

work, some information you're allowed

to, but on the whole I think we have

like there are laws about that that are good.

good.

So all the information you receive

remains with you always. It's never

given to anybody else for any other

reason except under subpoena. Uh I will

double check and follow up with you

after to make sure there's no other

reason but that is my understanding.

Okay. I mean that's like a core

question. What and what about copyright? What

What

our stance there is that uh fair use is

actually a good law for this. The models

should not be plagiarizing. The model

should not be

you know if you write something the

model should not get to like replicate

that. But the model should be able to

learn from and not plagiarize in the

same way that people can. Have you guys

ever taken copyrighted material and not

paid the person who holds the copyright?

Um, I mean, we we train on publicly

available information, but we don't like

people are annoyed with us all the time

because we won't we have a very

conservative stance on what Chacht will

say in an answer, right?

right?

And so if something is even like close,

you know, like they're like, "Hey, this

song can't still be in copyright. You

got to show it." And we kind of famously

are quite restrictive on that. So,

you've had you had complaints from one

programmer who said you guys were

basically stealing people's stuff and

not paying them and then he wound up murdered.

murdered.

What was that?

Also, a great tragedy. Uh, he committed suicide.

suicide.

Do you think he committed suicide?

I really do.

This was like a friend of mine. This is

like a guy that and not a close friend,

but this is someone that worked at Open

Eye for a very long time. I spent I

mean, I was really shaken by this

tragedy. I spent a lot of time trying

to, you know, read everything I could,

as I'm sure you and others did too,

about what happened. Um,

it looks like a suicide to me.

Why does it look like a suicide?

It was a gun he had purchased. It was

the This is like gruesome to talk about,

but I read the whole like medical

record. Does it not look like one to you?

you?

No, he was definitely murdered, I think.

Um, there were signs of a struggle, of

course. The surveillance camera, the

wires had been cut. He had just ordered

take out food, come back from a vacation

with his friends on Catalina Island. No

indication at all that he was suicidal.

No note and no behavior. He had just

spoken to a family member on the phone.

And then he's found dead with blood in

multiple rooms. So that's impossible.

Seems really obvious he was murdered.

Have you talked to the authorities about it?

it?

I have not talked to the authorities

about it.

Um and his mother claims he was murdered

on your orders. Do you believe that?

I I'm Well, I'm I'm asking.

I mean, you you just said it, so do you

do you believe that?

I think that it is um worth looking

into. And I don't I mean, if a guy comes

out and accuses your company of

committing crimes, I have no idea if

that's true or not, of course. Um and

then is found killed and there are signs

of a struggle. I I don't think it's

worth dismissing it. I don't think we

should say, well, he killed himself when

there's no evidence that the guy was

depressed at all. Um, I think and if he

was your friend, I would think he would

want to speak to his mom or

I did offer she didn't want to. So,

So, [Music]

[Music]

do you feel that, you know, when people

look at that and they're like, you know,

it's possible that happened. Do you feel

that that reflects the worries they have

about what's happening here? Like people

are afraid that this is like

I haven't done too many interviews where

I've been accused of like

Oh, I'm not accusing you at all. I'm

just saying his his mother says that. I

don't think a fair read of the evidence

suggests suicide at all. I just don't

see that at all. And I also don't

understand why the authorities when

there's signs of a struggle and blood in

two rooms on a suicide, like how does

that actually happen? I don't understand

how the authorities could just kind of

dismiss that as a suicide. I think it's weird.

weird.

You understand how this sounds like an accusation?

accusation?

Of course. And I I mean I certainly Let

me just be clear once again, not

accusing you of any wrongdoing, but I I

think it's worth finding out what

happened. And I don't understand why the

city of San Francisco has refused to

investigate it beyond just calling it a

suicide. I mean, I think they looked

into it a couple of times, more than

once as I understand it. I saw the and I

will totally say when I first heard

about this, it sounded very suspicious

to me. Yes.

Yes.

Um, and I know you had been involved in

was motherached out to the case

and I, you know, I don't know anything

about it. It's not my world.

She just reached out cold.

She reached out cold. Wow.

Wow.

And uh, and I spoke to her at great

length and it and it scared the crap out

of me. the kid was clearly killed by

somebody. That was my conclusion

objectively with no skin in the game

and you after reading the latest report. Yes.

Yes.

Like look and I immediately called a

member of Congress from California Ro

Kana and said this is crazy. You got to

look into this. And nothing ever

happened. And I'm like what is that?

strange and sad debating this and having

to see totally crazy and you are a

little bit accusing me, but um the

this was like a wonderful person and a

family that is clearly struggling. Yes.

Yes. And

And

I think you can totally take the point

that you're just trying to get to the

truth of what happened and I respect

but I think his memory and his family

a level of

respect and grief that I don't quite

feel here. I'm asking at the behest of

his family. Um,

Um,

so I'm definitely showing them respect.

Um, and I'm not accusing you of any

involvement in this at all. What I am

saying is that the evidence does not

suggest suicide and for the authorities

in your city to allide past that and

ignore the evidence that any reasonable

person would say adds up to a murder I

think is very weird and it shakes the

faith that one has in our systems

ability to respond to the facts. So,

what I was going to say is after the

first set of information that came out,

I was really like, man, this doesn't

look like a suicide. I'm confused. This

Okay, so I'm not reaching I'm not being

crazy here.

Well, but then after the second thing

came out and the more detail, I was

like, okay,

what changed your mind? um

the second report on the way the bullet

entered him and the sort of person who

had like followed the the sort of likely

path of things through the room. I I

assume you looked at this too.

Yes, I did.

And what about that didn't change your mind?

mind?

It just didn't make any sense to me. Why

would the security camera wires be cut?

And how did he wind up bleeding in two

rooms after shooting himself? And why

was there a wig in the room that wasn't

his? And has there ever been a suicide

where there was no indication at all

that the person was suicidal who just

ordered takeout food? I mean, who who

orders Door Dash and then shoots

himself? I mean, maybe. I've covered a

lot of crimes as a police reporter. I've

never heard of anything like that. So,

no, it I was even more confused.

I this is where it gets into I think a

painful just not the level of respect

I'd hope to show to someone with this

kind of mental

I get it I totally get it

people do suicide without notes a lot

like that happens people definitely

order food they like before they commit

suicide like this is

this is an incredible tragedy and and I

that's his family's view and they think

it was a murder and that's why I'm

asking the If I were his family, I am

sure I would want answers and I'm sure I

would not be satisfied with really any I

mean there's nothing that would comfort

me in that, you know, right?

right?

Like so I get it. I also care a lot about

about

respect to him, right?

right? Um

I have to ask your version of Elon Musk

has like attacked you and all this is

what is the core of that dispute from

your perspective? Look, I know he's a

friend of yours and I know what side you'll

you'll

I actually don't have a position on this

because I don't understand it well

enough to understand.

He helped us start open. I'm very

grateful for that.

Uh I really for a long time looked up to

him as just an incredible hero and you

know great jewel of humanity. I have

different feelings now. Um

what are your feelings now?

Uh no longer a jewel of humanity.

There are things about him that are

incredible and I'm grateful for a lot of

things he's done. There's a lot of

things about him that I think are uh

traits I don't admire. Um anyway, he

he later decided that we weren't on a

trajectory to be successful and he

didn't want to, you know, he kind of

told us we had a 0% chance of success

and he was going to go do his

competitive thing and then we did okay.

And I think he got

understandably upset like I'd feel bad

in that situation. And since then has

just sort of been trying to he had run

as a competitive kind of clone and has

been trying to sort of slow us down and

sue us and do this and that. And

that's kind of my version of it. You

have a different one.

You don't talk to him anymore?

Very little.

Um, if AI becomes

smarter, I think it already probably is

smarter than any person. And if it

becomes wiser, if we can agree that it

reaches better decisions than people,

then it by definition kind of displaces

people at the center of the world, right?

right?

I don't think it'll feel like that at

all. I think it'll feel like a, you

know, really smart computer that may

advise us and we listen to it. Sometimes

we ignore it. Sometimes it won't I don't

think it'll feel like agency. I don't

think it'll diminish our sense of

agency. Um people are already using chat

GBT in a way where many of them would

say it's much smarter than me at almost

everything. But they're still making the

decisions. They're still deciding what

to ask, what to listen to, what not. And

I think this is sort of just the shape

of technology.

Who loses their jobs because of this technology?

technology? Um,

Um,

I'll caveat this with the obvious but

important statement that no one can

predict the future. And I will

in trying to if I try to answer that

precisely, I will make a lot of I will

say like a lot of dumb things, but I'll

try to pick an area that I'm confident

about and then areas that I'm much less

confident about. Um, I'm confident that

a lot of current customer support that

happens over a phone or computer, those

people will lose their jobs and that'll

be better done by an AI. Um,

now there may be other kinds of customer

support where you really want to know

it's the right person. Uh, a job that

I'm confident will not be that impacted

is like nurses. I think people really

want the deep human connection with a

person in that time. And no matter how

good the advice of the AI is or the

robot or whatever, like you'll really

want that.

A job that I feel like way less certain

about what the future looks for looks

like for is computer programmers.

What it means to be a computer

programmer today is very different than

what it meant 2 years ago. you're able

to use these AI tools to just be hugely

more productive, but it's still a person

there and they're like able to generate

way more code, make way more money than

ever before. And it turns out that the

world wanted so much more software than

the world previously had capacity to

create that there's just incredible

demand overhang. But if we fast forward

another 5 or 10 years, what does that

look like? Is it more jobs or less? That

one I'm uncertain on. But there's going

to be massive displacement and maybe

those people will find something new and

interesting and rem you know lucrative

to do. But what how big is that

displacement do you think?

Someone told me recently that the

historical average is about 50% of jobs

significantly change. Maybe they don't

totally go away but significantly change

every 75 years on average. That's the

kind of that's the halfife of the stuff. And

And

my controversial take would be that this

is going to be like a punctuated

equilibri moment where a lot of that

will happen in a short period of time.

But if we zoom out, uh it's not going to

be dramatically different than the

historical rate. Like we'll do we'll

have a lot in this short period of time

and then it'll somehow be less total job

turnover than we think. There will still

be a job that is there. There will be

some totally new categories like my job

like you know running a tech company. It

would have been hard to think about 200

years ago. Um but there's a lot of other

jobs that are directionally similar to

jobs that did exist 200 years ago. And

there's jobs that were common 200 years

ago that now aren't. And if we again I

have no idea if this is true or not, but

I'll use the number for the sake of

argument. If we assume it's 50% turnover

every 75 years, uh then I could totally

believe a world where 75 years from now

half the people are doing something

totally new and half the people are

doing something that looks kind of like

some jobs of today.

Are you I mean last time we had an

industrial revolution there was like

revolution and world wars. Do you think

we'll see that this time?

I again no one knows for sure. I'm not

confident on this answer, but my

instinct is the world is so much richer

now than it was at the time of the

industrial revolution that we can

actually absorb more change faster than

we could before. Um there's a lot that's

not about money of job. There's meaning

there's a lot of community.

Um I think we're already unfortunately

in society in a pretty bad place there.

I'm not sure how much worse it can get.

I'm sure it can. I I I have been

pleasantly surprised on the ability of

pretty quickly adapt to big changes. uh

like COVID was an interesting example to

me of this where the world kind of

stopped all at once and the world was

like very different from one week to the

next and I and I was very worried about

how society was going to be able to

adapt to that world and it obviously

didn't go perfectly but on the whole I

was like all right this is one point in

favor of societal resilience and people

find you know new kind of ways to live

their lives very quickly I don't think

AI will be that nearly that abrupt

so what will be the downside I mean I

can see the upsides for sure you know,

efficiency, medical diagnosis seems like

it's going to be much more accurate,

fewer lawyers. Thank you very much for

that. But what will what are the

downsides that you worry about?

I I think this is just like kind of how

I'm wired. I always worry the most about

the unknown unknowns. If it if it's a if

it's a downside that we can really like

be confident about and think about, um,

you know, we talked about one earlier,

which is these models are getting very

good at bio and they could help us

design biological weapons. uh you know

engineer like another co style pandemic

I worry about that but because we worry

about it I think we and many other

people in the industry are thinking hard

about how to mitigate that the the

unknown unknowns where okay there's like

a there's a societal scale effect from a

lot of people talking the same model at

the same time this is like a silly

example but it's one that struck me

recently um LLM like ours and our

language model and others have a kind of

certain style to them you know they talk

in a certain rhythm and they have a

little bit unusual addiction and maybe

they overuse m dashes and whatever. And

I noticed recently that real people have

like picked that up and it was an

example for me of like man you have

enough people talking to the same

language model and it actually does

cause a change in societal scale behavior.

behavior. Yes.

Yes.

And you know did I think that chat GPT

was going to make people use way more m

dashes in real life? Certainly not. It's

not a big deal, but it's an example of

where there can be these unknown

unknowns of this is just like this is a

brave new world.

So, you're saying, I think correctly and

succinctly, that technology changes

human behavior, of course, and changes

our assumptions about the world and each

other and all that. And a lot of this

you can't predict. Considering that we

know that,

why shouldn't the internal moral

framework of the technology be totally transparent?

transparent?

We prefer this to that. I mean, this is

obviously a religion. I don't think

you'll agree to call it that. It's very

clearly a religion to me. That's not an attack.

attack.

I actually would love I don't take that

as an attack, but I would love to hear

what you mean by that.

Well, it's it's something that we assume

is more powerful than people.

and to which we look for guidance. I

mean you're already seeing that on

display. What's the right decision? I

asked that question of whom? My closest

friends, my wife and God. And this is a

technology that provides a more certain

answer than any person can provide. So

it's a it's a religion. And the beauty

of religions is they have a catechism

that is transparent. I know what the

religion stands for. Here's what it's

for. Here's what it's against. But in

this case, I pressed and I wasn't

attacking you sincerely. I was not

attacking you, but I was trying to get

to the heart of it. The beauty of a

religion is it admits it's a religion

and it tells you what it stands for.

The unsettling part of this technology,

not just your company, but others, is

that I don't know what it stands for,

but it does stand for something. And

unless it admits that and tells us what

it stands for, then it guides us in a

kind of stealthy way toward a conclusion

we might not even know we're reaching.

Do you see what I'm saying? So like why

not just throw it open and say chattp is

for this or you know we're for suicide

for the terminally ill but not for kids

or whatever like why not just tell us

I mean the reason we write this long

model spec and the reason we keep

expanding over time is so that you can

see here is how the here is how we

intend for the model to behave. Um what

used to happen before we had this is

people would fairly say I don't know

what the model's even trying to do and I

don't know if this is a bug or the

intended behavior. Tell me what this

long long document of, you know, tell me

how you're going to like when you're

going to say do this and when you're

going to show me this and when you're

going to say you won't do that. The

reason we try to write this all out is I

think people do need to know.

And so is there a place you can go to

find out a hard answer to what your

preferences as a company are preferences

that are being transmitted in a not

entirely straightforward way to the

globe. Like where can you find out what

the company stands for, what it prefers?

I mean our model spec is the like answer

to that. Now I think we will have to

make it increasingly more detailed over

time as people use this in different

countries. There's different laws

whatever else like it will not be a

it will not work the same way for every

user everywhere but and that do so I I

expect that document to get very long

and very complicated but that's why we

have it. Let me ask you one last

question and maybe you can allay this

fear that the power of the technology

will make it difficult impossible for

anyone to discern the difference between

reality and fantasy. This is a a famous

concern, but that that because it is so

skilled at mimicking people and their

speech and their images that it will

require some way to verify that you are

who you say you are and that will by

definition require biometrics which will

by definition eliminate privacy for

every person

in the world.

I don't think we need to or should

require biometrics to use the

technology. Um I don't like I think you

should just be able to use chat GPT from

like any computer.

Yeah. Well, I I strongly agree. But then

at a certain point when you know images

or sounds that mimic a person,

you know, it just becomes too easy to

empty your checking account with that.

So like what do you do about that?

A few thoughts there. one, I I think we

are rapidly heading to a world where

people understand that if you get a

phone call from someone that sounds like

your kid or your parent or if you see an

image that looks real, you have to

really have some way to verify that

you're not being scammed. And this is

now like this is no longer theoretical

concern. You know, you hear all these

reports at all. Yeah.

Um people are smart, societyy's

resilient. I think people are quickly

understanding that this is now a thing

that bad actors are using and

people are understanding that you got to

verify in different ways. I suspect that

in addition to things like family

members having code words they use in

crisis situations. Uh we'll see things

like when a president of a country has

to issue an urgent message, they

cryptographically sign it or otherwise

somehow guarantee its authenticity. So

you don't have like generated videos of

Trump saying, "I've just done this or

that." And people I think people are

learning quickly. Um that this is this

is a new thing that bad guys are doing

with the technology they have to contend

with. Um and I think that is most of the

solution which is people will have

people will by default not trust

convincing looking media and we will

build new mechanisms to verify

authenticity of of communication. But

those will have to be biometric.

No, not at all. I mean if if I I I I

mean like if the president of US has a I

understand that but I mean for the

average on the average day you're not

sort of waiting for the president to

announce a war you're like trying to do

e-commerce and like how could you do

well I think like with your family

you'll have a code word that you change

periodically and if you're communicating

with each other and you get a call like

you ask what the code word is but that's

very different than a biometric.

So you don't envision

I mean to board a plane commercial

flight you know biometrics are part of

the process now you don't see that as

becoming societywide mandatory very soon along

along

um I hope it I really hope it doesn't

become mandatory I think there are

versions of privacy preserving

biometrics that I like much more than

like collecting a lot of personal

digital information on one, but I don't

think they should be I don't think

biometrics should be mandatory. I don't

think you should like have to provide

biometrics to get on an airplane, for example.

example.

What about to for banking?

I don't think you should have to for banking.

banking.

I might prefer to like I might prefer

like uh you know like a fingerprint scan

to access my Bitcoin wallet than like

giving all my information to a bank. But

that should be a decision for me.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Sam.

So, it turns out that YouTube is

suppressing this show. On one level,

that's not surprising. That's what they

do. But on another level, it's shocking.

With everything that's going on in the

world right now, all the change taking

place in our economy and our politics,

with the wars we're on the cusp of

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YouTube Transcript:Sam Altman on God, Elon Musk and the Mysterious Death of His Former Employee

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Sam Altman on God, Elon Musk and the Mysterious Death of His Former Employee