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pl50151-4

Sorry for the delayed response - yes, I think this kind of gets at the heart of the matter. I think, though I did a pretty good job with being rational in this post, and trying to make rational, unbiased claims from/using the information that exists, I could have been a bit more refined and clear-cut.

I honestly feel a bit bad, because this is an important issue, and I hope I didn't screw things up by (unintentionally) presenting things in a irrational or biased way. I'll try to be very rational and unbiased in this comment.

I think my statement that I was "trying to figure out the truth" in an earlier comment was misguided and imprecise. You were keen to notice this. In a situation like this, there are large amounts of uncertainty, and there is currently no proof of misconduct (that I've seen.)

I think what this post does is {provide a (relatively) accurate description of the state of affairs regarding Annie's claims.} I do feel pretty good about the way in which I presented the information relevant to this matter in this post. Though I don't want to necessarily "take shots" at Elizabeth Weil, whose nymag article provided basically the only significant written third-party acknowledgment of Annie's claims, I will say that I prefer the (hopefully, more) objective, straight-from-the-source, uncertainty-acknowledging approach I've taken here.

The key thing here is that, currently, the primary information we have is:

  1. Claims that Annie has made on social media, as well as a few pictures of her from when she was sick that she took, and a few screenshots of her social media that potentially indicate, but do not provably or definitively, indicate that she experienced shadowbanning, let alone that the low engagement/shadowbanning occured because of Sam. It is important to avoid the conjunction fallacy:

    Let A = the event that Annie Altman, or (digital) media relating to her did indeed experience shadowbanning, low engagement, etc.
    Let B = the event that Sam Altman caused A to occur.

    Then
    P(A ∧ B) ≤ P(A).

    To me, it seems very hard to prove that one has been shadowbanned. To me, this would require proof of an arrangement between a "shadowbanning-requester" (e.g. Sam Altman) and the "shadowbanners" (e.g. developers or mods at Instagram, X, etc.), or direct evidence of actions taken and/or code written by mods, devs, etc. that shadowbanned Annie's content. In this matter, that has not been provided.
     
  2. A 2018 podcast episode that Annie did with Sam, Jack, and Max. Yes, while it is potentially suspicious that Sam cut Annie off around 24:50 ish, it doesn't prove anything. 
  3. A Twitter post from 2018 where Sam Altman shared a link to Annie's Youtube channel.
  4. A variety of other social media posts from Annie that, while they are not inconsistent with the story she is telling / claims she is making about Sam, do not provide proof for the claims she has made about Sam.
    1. For example, Annie seems to have posted multiple social media posts showing her in Hawai'i at the times that she claims she was. So this does corroborate the part of the larger claim-story in which Annie claims she was in Hawai'i at time X. However, these only support that individual part of her story; they provide no evidence for anything else.

So, I think the main thing that this post has going for it is that it aggregates what is out there in a relatively objective/unbiased way. That is, it aggregates (many of) the claims Annie has made, and related media that exists on the Internet. 

pl50150-1

My mistake. Fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out!

pl5015118

I think you make multiple valid points which are similar to the points I've made in my post, but I do think our stances differ in a few ways.

I think that you are certainly correct that psychosis, or a similar type of mental illness / disorder, is a plausible explanatory hypothesis for Annie making the claims that she has. 

However, though I do recognize that the simplicity of a hypothesis is a boon to its plausibility, I do not share your belief that we have been unknowingly subsumed by the "MeToo world order", which has damaged our rationalism and obstructed our ability to recognize this as being obviously the simplest hypothesis. (Though perhaps this is a overly dramatic / inaccurate representation of your assertion.)

While I do agree that this post may encapsulate behavior representative of a person suffering from psychosis, or a similar mental illness, I see the hypothesis space as primarily dual, where mental illness / misrepresentation-of-reality-type hypotheses form one primary subspace, but there exists another primary subspace wherein the behavior detailed in this post is indeed representative of a person who has gone through the things which Annie has claimed she has.

I do appreciate your inclusion of quantitative rates; I think your analysis benefits from it.

pl501510

Thanks! 

Actually, right now, I believe that, based upon the information I currently have, it is improper for me to conclude that Sam Altman abused Annie Altman, and that the proper stance is I do not know if Annie Altman's claims are correct or not; therefore, it is only rational to hold Sam Altman innocent.

However -- I'm in the process of gathering more information. Once I've conducted research to a degree I consider satisfactory, I'd be happy to hear your reasoning if, at that point, our conclusions disagree. For now, I'll suggest that you wait until I finish up my research, though feel free to ignore this suggestion if you want :) 

pl50151611

The points you make are valid. You also make a good point about the importance of additional context. 

I think I may have miscommunicated myself to some extent, based on the fact that I largely agree with your reply here.

The most clear, and most general framing of my motives is this:

  1. My overarching, most fundamental desire is for humanity to have a positive AI future.
  2. Because of this, I want to do my best to determine the validity of a claim(s) such as Annie's that asserts that the CEO of the world's (leading) artificial intelligence company / research org / lab / whatever you want to call it may actually be a person of highly questionable morals. The whole reason we got OpenAI in the first place is, apparently, because Elon freaked out when Larry Page called him a 'specist' back in 2013. (I will not bother commenting on whether or not I think this was ultimately a good thing. ) I very much want the person leading the development of and (attempts at) alignment of superintelligence to be a good person
  3. The reason I have made this post here is because of (2), not because I thought that this forum was the right place to worry about the mental health of Annie Altman. While obviously I am concerned for Annie Altman herself independent of my superintelligence / Sam Altman / OpenAI concerns, the reason why I am posting "about Annie" here on LessWrong is because of the potential ramifications of what she is saying about Sam Altman. This isn't an "Annie Altman post"; it's a "Sam Altman post" where Annie Altman is the conduit.

Hopefully this framing of mine is more reasonable. And thank you for the compliment - I am trying my best to conduct myself rationally :)

pl501550

My motivation is pure. I am trying to (rationally) figure out the truth. Though, I'd be epistemologically naive if I expected you to believe me just because I told you "I'm a good person, trust me!".

Also -- I could care less about what people opine (without backing logical/rational arguments.) I could have chosen to do a big long rant with a bunch of clickbait-y quips and half-truthisms on X to try to jack up engagement and suck ad revenue out of X like a leach, but luckily I'm not an asshole (in my humble opinion, lol), so I came here instead. (Not to imply that you said that; I just say this more in an attempt to convey my motives and character.) I came to this site in particular because:

  1. I thought its users would probably understand the significance of a claim that Sam Altman has been quietly hiding the fact that he sexually assaulted his 4-year-old sister.
  2. I thought that its users would be good at calling me out on any logical/irrational bullshit that I (unintentionally) propagated. I want to be right, not to feel right. Say what you will about LessWrong, but its users do love to be quite exacting in their arguments about whether or not they think a person is making rational arguments. Indeed, I've modified this post, and my replies, many times in response to comments I've received in a way that I think has been to the benefit of the clarity of this post and its conveyance of my position. I'm glad that my karma score has jumped all over the place as I've updated my post - it means that LessWrong users are actually thinking critically about the degree to which I am being rational. 

It seems to me, at this point, one of two things is true:

  1. Annie Altman is lying left, right,. and center, or is deluded, disconnected from reality, or just misinformed/misunderstanding things to the point that she believes she is telling the truth when she is not.
  2. She is not lying (at least, to some degree.)

Yes, I know we can wonder about base rates and what mental illness we think she may likely have or not have. And such discussions are valid. But I am more interested in (more) concrete research, at the moment, which I'm still working on.

This post is not yet done.

Btw., you don't have to agree with my (developing) interpretations here. The thing I think is most relevant about this post is the collection of information I've assembled, which has nothing to do with my interpretation of it.

pl501550

Update: While I don't consider this evidence of a widespread shadowbanning effort, some commenters on Hacker News claim that a post regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 has been being repeatedly removed. 

  1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
  2. https://twitter.com/JOSourcing/status/1710390512455401888

I have updated this post to include this information as well (c.f. item 3.a. in "What Annie has stated on her X account.")

pl501536

Good point. I don't currently know that rate, but agree that it would be helpful in analyzing this matter.

pl501553

Yes, I think you raise valid points. Given that Annie's (purported) sexual abuse occurred so long ago, I agree that it is unlikely that, at this point, direct evidence of Sam's (purported) sexual abuse of her would be able to gathered. 

Deviating a bit from your reply to the more general question of "What direct evidence could be provided (e.g. by Annie) to corroborate the claims Annie is making?" -- I do think that a potentially useful piece of evidence that could be provided to corroborate (some of) Annie's claims would be proof that:

  1. Annie's father left her money in his will.
  2. Annie did not receive this money, as specified in the will.
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