Valuetainment - March 26, 2025


＂Manipulative & Full Of Lies＂ - OpenAI's Sam Altman SLAMMED By Whistleblower Suchir Balaji's Parents


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

175.07277

Word count

1,584

Sentence count

156

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk about the mysterious disappearance of AI pioneer Ilya Kogan, who was a key member of the OpenAI leadership team. His father, Dr. Sam Altman, talks about the circumstances of his disappearance and what he knows about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Are you currently in communication with Ilya?
00:00:03.000 He's not replied to my email.
00:00:05.860 We are trying to.
00:00:06.740 We would really want to get in touch with him.
00:00:09.060 Is he still with OpenAI?
00:00:10.460 No, he left.
00:00:10.900 Or he's also left?
00:00:11.560 He left.
00:00:12.020 But he doesn't want to talk to anybody?
00:00:14.460 I believe instead of blaming something,
00:00:17.060 like I would think he's busy with his own startup.
00:00:19.440 He just started SSI, his own startup.
00:00:22.160 He's probably very busy with it.
00:00:24.040 If he knows, he might be open to talk.
00:00:27.580 But one thing which I shared in Tucker's interview,
00:00:30.000 as well, December 15th or so,
00:00:32.540 when he went to an AI summit or some conference,
00:00:35.480 Ilya had security guards around him,
00:00:37.840 armed gunmen around him.
00:00:39.740 Why?
00:00:40.260 He's scared of his life.
00:00:41.580 Why is that?
00:00:44.040 Who's against him?
00:00:45.300 Who would kill him?
00:00:46.200 Why?
00:00:48.420 Well, you know, one could argue and say,
00:00:51.160 you know, in the AI space right now,
00:00:53.560 it's extremely competitive.
00:00:55.240 People are recruiting each other.
00:00:57.440 And it's like the Oklahoma land rush times 1,000.
00:01:00.640 Everybody wants to own the AI revolution that is taking place.
00:01:05.480 So, you know, and I'm sure it's not the safest situation to be,
00:01:09.360 especially when you have that kind of content and information.
00:01:11.540 So how much time did your son spend time with him,
00:01:14.540 the chief scientist?
00:01:15.200 I think it's one of his assignments,
00:01:18.880 maybe a few months, a year or so.
00:01:20.980 Suchir worked on different assignments.
00:01:23.020 First assignment was WebGPT research paper.
00:01:25.880 That might be working closely with Ilya.
00:01:29.020 And then he worked on feeding the training data.
00:01:31.920 That is the most frustrating experience for him.
00:01:35.860 And then he tuned up the ChatGPT
00:01:38.120 and made it work very efficiently and faster.
00:01:41.140 That's a significant contribution by Suchir.
00:01:44.880 Got it.
00:01:45.380 So if there's anybody that would have intel,
00:01:48.460 it would be him, Ilya.
00:01:49.860 Exactly.
00:01:50.300 He would have intel.
00:01:51.200 Everything he knows.
00:01:52.200 So he knows everything.
00:01:53.220 So he's either worried for his life,
00:01:55.800 doesn't want to get involved,
00:01:56.980 doesn't want to take attention away from his company,
00:01:58.880 and just kind of wants to be left alone.
00:02:00.740 It's one of those things.
00:02:02.420 Yeah, but Suchir knew the risk he was running into.
00:02:04.860 He writes in his journal.
00:02:06.180 I wish I could share it.
00:02:07.340 He writes in his journal that I'm a credible threat
00:02:10.220 because of New York Times.
00:02:12.140 And he writes...
00:02:12.980 About himself or about Ilya?
00:02:14.540 Yes.
00:02:14.700 Okay.
00:02:15.240 About himself.
00:02:16.120 I'm a credible threat.
00:02:17.320 Sorry, I changed the topic.
00:02:19.080 I'm a credible threat because of New York Times.
00:02:23.040 And did he write anything in his journal about Ilya?
00:02:26.480 Yes, he writes.
00:02:27.600 Is there anything you can share on what he says about Ilya?
00:02:30.120 He likes Ilya.
00:02:31.380 He's a good person.
00:02:32.000 So complimentary about Ilya.
00:02:33.420 Absolutely.
00:02:34.320 Complimenting Ilya.
00:02:35.040 In his journal that you read,
00:02:38.840 who were some of the names he was concerned about?
00:02:41.920 Where he said, I'm not sure if I...
00:02:43.340 Was there any patterns that you would say
00:02:44.720 the way he wrote it in his journal,
00:02:46.120 he doesn't trust this guy,
00:02:47.300 he doesn't trust this person?
00:02:48.560 He doesn't trust Sam Altman.
00:02:50.080 Why is that? 0.99
00:02:51.900 He is manipulative and full of lies. 0.91
00:02:55.500 For that, one of his friends was trying to convince Suchir, 0.97
00:02:58.800 look, they have to say that
00:03:00.360 because being a CEO and all the VCs are interested,
00:03:03.640 he has to blow up.
00:03:05.700 But Suchir said there's no integrity for him.
00:03:08.260 I'll give an example of that.
00:03:10.280 I think March 2024,
00:03:14.520 one of the OpenAI employees left OpenAI
00:03:17.480 and he wanted to whistleblow.
00:03:19.500 They put a condition for him that
00:03:21.340 he cannot speak negative about the company.
00:03:24.560 If he spoke, he would not get his stock options.
00:03:28.520 That guy, he refused to take...
00:03:31.120 He accepted the loss of stock options,
00:03:34.120 but he whistleblow what they did.
00:03:37.060 Then Sam Altman said,
00:03:39.360 I never knew anything about it.
00:03:40.840 I'm so sorry I'll change it,
00:03:42.240 but it has a signature in it.
00:03:43.860 How much time did they spend together,
00:03:49.000 your son and Sam Altman?
00:03:51.700 Were they interacting?
00:03:53.100 Was he hands-on?
00:03:54.540 Were they in the same room?
00:03:56.500 Was he in boardrooms?
00:03:57.780 Was he in...
00:03:58.860 He was an O-1 contributor.
00:04:01.360 He was a very significant contributor.
00:04:03.680 Even in the video of OpenAI employees,
00:04:06.240 my son comes there.
00:04:07.940 I mean, the introduction to OpenAI,
00:04:10.000 there's a video for the incoming employees.
00:04:11.980 My son is there.
00:04:12.800 So, introduction to working to OpenAI,
00:04:14.960 your son is in that video?
00:04:16.200 Yes.
00:04:16.700 Really?
00:04:17.280 They put your son in the intro of OpenAI?
00:04:19.960 Yes, he was there.
00:04:20.920 He was very shy to talk.
00:04:22.940 He didn't speak anything.
00:04:24.200 He's very shy as such.
00:04:27.860 He's there.
00:04:28.600 Very, very interesting.
00:04:29.980 Okay, so, but hour-wise,
00:04:32.000 how many hours do you think Sam Altman
00:04:34.660 and Suchir spent together?
00:04:36.760 Actual hours.
00:04:38.280 That I don't have in the journal.
00:04:40.400 Some of the employees should share.
00:04:42.380 He met once.
00:04:43.660 He met once.
00:04:44.600 But Sam Altman sent a note for us
00:04:46.640 after Suchir passed away.
00:04:48.500 He knew that Suchir made a significant contribution.
00:04:51.240 So, he sent a note to you?
00:04:52.420 Yes.
00:04:52.800 Did he call you?
00:04:53.940 He wanted to,
00:04:54.900 but we didn't want to talk to him.
00:04:56.740 So, he wanted to,
00:04:57.720 but you declined the call?
00:04:58.640 Yes.
00:04:59.140 Okay.
00:04:59.920 Respectfully.
00:05:00.320 So, he at least made the effort to reach out to you,
00:05:04.120 but you didn't?
00:05:05.260 He did not reach out to us.
00:05:06.520 We reached out HR to know about his beneficiary
00:05:09.400 and other information.
00:05:11.040 Then he said,
00:05:12.340 but they keep saying they'll support the family.
00:05:16.400 What have they done?
00:05:18.260 Now we have a request to them.
00:05:20.020 Let's keep it confidential.
00:05:21.520 We're going to go to them.
00:05:22.860 Let's see if they accommodate our request.
00:05:24.700 Is the request public or is it private?
00:05:28.520 It's private request.
00:05:29.660 It's about.
00:05:30.260 It's about your son with open.
00:05:34.200 Let's see if they support.
00:05:35.520 As such,
00:05:36.480 they got back saying that there's no open AI.
00:05:39.460 There's no email that originated from my son
00:05:41.940 about copyright.
00:05:43.440 Your son left open AI in very good terms.
00:05:46.640 He didn't do anything
00:05:47.580 until we saw in New York Times.
00:05:49.820 We didn't know about his whistleblowing activity.
00:05:52.080 That could not be true.
00:05:53.680 You know why?
00:05:55.120 Wait, wait.
00:05:56.800 So they're saying until the New York Times article,
00:06:00.140 they did not know about any of the whistleblowing activity.
00:06:03.040 They say that.
00:06:04.320 So what was their argument that they're saying?
00:06:07.740 We are looking for someone who's read his emails
00:06:10.220 or he's responded to emails.
00:06:12.880 So she knew it, right?
00:06:14.160 Why would he go to New York Times in July end itself?
00:06:18.420 There's something, right?
00:06:19.440 We need to discover.
00:06:20.380 And what we know is emails could have been deleted.
00:06:24.660 Evidences could have been wiped out.
00:06:26.960 There are a few other employees,
00:06:28.580 formal employees of open AI who have a lawsuit against them.
00:06:32.080 They say their emails were deleted.
00:06:34.160 I don't want to make any conspiracy theory,
00:06:37.140 but we would not rule out any of those.
00:06:39.420 That's exactly why we are saying
00:06:41.140 FBI should get involved and investigate.
00:06:43.460 Who should be involved?
00:06:44.520 FBI.
00:06:45.260 FBI should get involved.
00:06:46.600 Have you had any luck?
00:06:47.960 Is FBI, since the Tucker interview,
00:06:51.040 did you,
00:06:51.440 because I'm assuming when you do the Tucker interview afterwards,
00:06:53.580 that goes out there,
00:06:54.280 a lot of weird people are going to reach out to you.
00:06:55.980 Some people that are currently at open AI,
00:06:58.280 previous employees,
00:06:59.240 did anybody reach out to you after Tucker's interview?
00:07:01.720 No.
00:07:02.080 They're all scared for their life.
00:07:03.560 Are you serious?
00:07:04.060 So no one,
00:07:04.980 no one even from the agency reached out to you?
00:07:07.220 No.
00:07:08.480 So January 15th,
00:07:10.360 when was the interview done with Tucker?
00:07:12.340 Is it on January 15th?
00:07:13.860 Yes.
00:07:14.160 So that's five days before inauguration,
00:07:18.040 while the president gets in.
00:07:19.560 I know.
00:07:20.280 So both Sam Altman and Ilan
00:07:26.160 are involved with a relationship with the president.
00:07:28.700 The president has a good relationship with both of them.
00:07:30.840 Yeah.
00:07:33.220 It's a bit of a technical situation here
00:07:36.320 on who would want to really investigate
00:07:38.980 and get to the bottom of this.
00:07:40.580 But you're saying no one has yet reached out.
00:07:42.440 That's interesting.
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