Sam Altman and the AI Ponzi Scheme

Dr. Jim: Maybe there's a reason why this guy is getting shot at. Maybe there's a reason why people are trying to set his house on fire.

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[00:00:14] why would you trust him when he starts talking about the future of humanity? Why are we letting a man with this record narrate the future of ai? Why is this guy at the microphone when technology touches war, surveillance work, and the basic structure of public life?

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[00:00:48] What it lays out is that this guy. Shifts, anything and everything about him, depending on who he's talking to, what the moment requires and how much money's involved. So if you look [00:01:00] at that as a pattern of behavior, it's not just a personality issue, it's an issue of public danger. And it's especially an issue of public danger considering the product that he's pushing forward.

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[00:01:31] We're talking about a massive credibility issue with this guy. And when we think about credibility, that's a central problem that's addressed in this article. And it's not even subtle, it's not hidden between the lines. It's right there for everybody to see.

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[00:02:09] And this matters for a reason that's beyond anything related to office politics. This matters because OpenAI was sold to the public as a company that understood that this technology could be dangerous. They told the world that this was a civilization altering technology, and they told the world that the stakes were so high that unusual governance was required, that safety had to come before profit. That integrity at the top was non-negotiable.

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[00:03:14] This is just another instance of another tech bro doing tech bro things. It's the same dude, different hoodie. We've seen it before. We've seen the Zuckerbergs, the Bezos, the Sam Bankman Frees, the Elizabeth Holmes. All of these people that have made careers and millions and millions of dollars, and some of 'em have thankfully ended up in jail, but not before. They've built customers and investors, and everyday people out of millions of dollars.

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[00:04:01] In fact, the list of mediocre white billionaires who have pitched a product that's closer to vaporware than an actual product and ended up in jail is pretty long. The people that I just mentioned were just a few, and there should be a much longer list if there was any sort of real justice in society. But that's not the world that we work in today.

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[00:04:42] And what I'm describing is what makes the New Yorker piece so damning. It doesn't hinge on a cartoonishly evil moment. This isn't the guy in the back room twirling his mustache. What makes this damning is that all of the things that the article articulates about [00:05:00] Altman is death by 10,000 paper cuts. This is a guy who's been constantly doing this. It's a pattern. Repeated contradictions, repeated manipulation, repeated situations where the truth. Is used as a prop rather than actual principle. That's how these people work. That's how this entire billionaire class and millionaire class works.

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[00:05:45] And when you dig into that entire article, it's a laundry list of things that this guy has. Fudged, and that's to put it lightly. He's misrepresented facts to executives and board members. He's deceived people about the internal [00:06:00] safety protocols.

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[00:06:29] What we're talking about here is what's being called life changing technology that's embedded in every major application that we can think of, and we're talking about an application of a technology that we don't fully understand. And the person pushing forward anyways is a known liar that got removed by his board.

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[00:06:54] The implications of this technology is going to reshape labor [00:07:00] markets, weapon systems, policing, surveillance, public knowledge, and democracy itself, and the person pushing it forward lies like a politician.

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[00:07:23] This should have been something that ended his career. But what happened, just like every other mediocre white guy, he can fail over and over again and fail upwards and accumulate more power. So what happened when the board booted him?

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[00:08:05] And what that meant was that every rank and file employee who was there from day one. Stood to lose a fortune if the deal didn't go through. That's how the billionaire class works. They protect their own and they hold every rank and file person hostage in order to do it. And what that reveals is a truth about this country.

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[00:08:47] And it would be one thing if this article was talking about all of this coming from one person, but there's a laundry list of people around Altman. Who are coming to the same conclusion that this is a guy who is incapable of [00:09:00] telling the truth. He tells people what they want to hear, and this pattern doesn't belong anywhere in an ecosystem that's responsible for building safe ai. That's the whole story,

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[00:09:42] Now. It would be one thing if all of this was happening in the context of some small startup, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a company that is. An offshoot of one of the largest tech companies in the world. And on top of that, this [00:10:00] company has government contracts all over the place. And those government contracts help shape how AI is gonna be used. And it's being used for immigration enforcement, domestic surveillance, autonomous weaponry, and war zones.

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[00:10:55] So you have a liar in charge who can't be trusted when it [00:11:00] comes to what the technology can and can't do. Handing over something that's untested and volatile and unreliable to a drunk idiot in the Department of Defense who wants to. Push a button and kill people, or not even push a button. He wants the machine to be able to decide who gets killed. That should terrify everybody, and yet here we are walking around as if everything's normal and there's nothing to see here.

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[00:12:05] I'm not joking around when I say that. Sam Altman is no different than Sam Bankman free, Trevor Milton, Billy McFarland, and any number of other mediocre white snake oil salesmen that got rich by selling you a story and then robbing you blind in the process. He's cut from the same cloth and they're about to go IPO.

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[00:12:54] how much of it is real? And how much of it is likely to run off the rails and end up killing a [00:13:00] bunch of people. And if you have to struggle to answer that question, that tells you that there is a problem. So here's why it matters, and here's why you should care because this is gonna impact every average citizen that is living in this country. Because anybody who's not a billionaire, anybody who's not a millionaire is gonna feel the impact of it either directly or indirectly.

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[00:13:35] And what this means for everybody. Is that each of us is gonna be paying through the nose to fund somebody else's pipe dream. This technology is not proven, it's not reliable, and it costs a huge amount of resources. And the only people that it benefits is the billionaire and millionaire class. And I guess you can deal with that if you're dealing with an honest player in the game. But we're clearly not dealing with somebody who's honest when we're [00:14:00] talking about Sam Altman.

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[00:14:18] But every one of these tech billionaires that's pushing AI is a giant fricking crook, and there's a reason why they're all sitting at the table with the orange moron and forking over millions and millions of dollars. Because that's protection money so that they can actually go and do what they want and steal everything that isn't nailed down.

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[00:14:54] So what should happen next? Well, the most reasonable thing, the most moderate [00:15:00] thing is that everything should be stopped. If I had my way, all of these billionaire tech bros would be hauled off onto Capitol Hill and be forced to testify under oath. Be stripped of every single dime that they have. And depending on how egregious their crimes are, they should be on the business end of a firing squad.

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[00:15:45] but obviously there are people who see it differently. There are people who see that the more drastic actions need to be taken when it comes to dealing with these out of touch billionaires, especially when it comes to talking about ai. You know, something about [00:16:00] these warehouse fires and the malt off cocktails and drive-by shootings happening at these billionaire CEOs, residences and properties that they own might be related to the fact that there are a lot more people that are waking up to the reality.

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[00:16:28] So when we look at all of this, this isn't a discussion about whether Sam Altman is a genius. This isn't a question or discussion about whether he's a massive innovator. This is a question about whether he can be trusted and based on what's said in the New Yorker, it's clear the guy lies like a rug to the point where he should probably be running for office.

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[00:17:16] The simple answer, there's no freaking way that it's worth it, and Sam Altman and all of his other billionaire buddies need to step up to the counter and pay up because the check is due, and we're tired of being taken advantage of and being lied to.

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