OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Has Earned a Pretty Bad Reputation With the Public

When ChatGPT first debuted in 2022, it seemed to suggest that the AI future that had been promised by fiction for so long was finally here. Now, four years later, OpenAI's chatbot is facing fierce competition from other tech companies, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has come under frequent fire.

Given how bad Sam Altman's reputation seems to be, many want to know more about why he seems to be despised by so many people. Here's what we know.

There's no single reason that people seem to dislike Sam Altman, but the general explanation seems to be something along these lines: He is an embodiment of what many people don't like about AI companies in general. OpenAI started out by claiming that its goal was to develop AI technology safely, and for that reason, it claimed to be a nonprofit.

As soon as OpenAI launched a product that could generate a profit, though, it abandoned those principles entirely in favor of a chance to make money on ChatGPT. Even as AI scientists claim that the technology is dangerous and should be treated with care, Altman has pushed forward toward profit and apparently thrown caution to the wind. A recent New Yorker profile of the CEO gets at this notion, saying that even people inside the company don't trust him.

According to one board member quoted in the story, Altman has “two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”

The reporting doesn't find any "smoking gun," but suggests that Altman has sometimes relied on deception to do business.

All in all, the profile paints a picture of Altman that only supports what many had perceived about him thus far.

It certainly didn't help that, after OpenAI competitor Anthropic refused to cooperate with the Department of Defense when the department demanded that its AI be allowed to be used for surveillance of Americans, OpenAI took that contract from the department and claimed that it would institute important safeguards.

On the whole, then, Altman's posture around AI has suggested that he cares more about making sure his company comes out ahead than he does about the potential dangers associated with AI use. His public profile has become that of someone who is willing to make proclamations about lofty ideals, but whose actual actions seem to betray those ideals.

That picture might be unfair. It's certainly possible that Altman is trying his best to build an AI safely and responsibly. The reasons Altman is hated, though, seem to be pretty directly related to his actions and his apparent willingness to abandon things he claims to believe at a moment's notice. Although some people are skeptical of AI in general, there's a pocket of people who are skeptical of Altman above all.