Nathaniel Whittemore

He argues that conflict adversity has been a huge problem and admits mistakes in how he's handled things in the past.

He writes,

He also notes, I am also very aware that OpenAI is now a major platform, not a scrappy startup, and we need to operate in a more predictable way now.

It has been an extremely intense, chaotic, and high-pressure few years.

Third, he ends on what he calls some thoughts about the industry.

My personal takeaway from the last several years and take on why there has been so much Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field comes down to this.

Once you see AGI, you can't unsee it.

It has a real ring-of-power dynamic to it and makes people do crazy things.

I don't mean that AGI is the ring itself, but instead the totalizing philosophy of being the one to control AGI.

The only solution I can come up with, he continues, is to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly and for no one to have the ring.

The two obvious ways to do this are individual empowerment and making sure democratic systems stay in control.

It is important that the democratic process remains more powerful than companies.

Laws and norms are going to change, but we have to work within the democratic process, even though it will be messy and slower than we'd like.

We want to be a voice and a stakeholder, but not to have all the power.

A lot of the criticism of our industry comes from sincere concern about the incredibly high stakes of this technology.

This is quite valid and we welcome good faith criticism and debate.

I empathize with anti-technology sentiments and clearly technology isn't always good for everyone.

But overall, I believe technological progress can make the future unbelievably good for your family and mine.

While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.

Now the whole combination of all of this, the actions themselves, the arrests, the follow-up, set off an absolute firestorm of debate all over the internet, all over X and many other channels as well.