All of pythagoras5015's Comments + Replies

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 "... (read more)

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 obs... (read more)

2Roko
Why not? A priori when a person makes a bunch of unlikely accusations in public, it would have been reasonable to first consider this as evidence of them not being truthful and sane. Since people are often not sane and/or liars, this is an important epistemic subroutine to have otherwise you are vulnerable to manipulation. I don't really want to make this into a huge battle; you almost certainly don't have anything to change my mind (because I'm right) and I almost certainly won't change your mind (because your position is good for signaling/popular). I've mostly given up on these kind of battles because the supply of mindkilled virtue signaling is essentially limitless - but if you are going to disagree and take the epistemic high ground on LW I think you should have to justify yourself or retract the point.

Yo - sorry, I meant to keep this in my drafts. I was in the process of making a bunch of edits to my original post, and used this as a sort of "snapshot in time" of a certain segment of my original post to help clear out the the LW editor for my original post while I was modifying it. 

Sorry your comment got wasted here.

I'll be replying to your comment on my main post shortly (which I think is pretty rational, though I do think you may be extrapolating a bit on the MeToo-type influence.)

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 :) 

3Viliam
So, is there any progress on this topic?

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 o
... (read more)

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 imp... (read more)

2Viliam
I am curious how specifically you intend to figure out the truth of "something happened in private when I was 4 years old" claim. What kind of research could bring more light to this topic?

I have been pleasantly surprised by the job you've done with this post, but I really don't like your frame here.

We can debate whether Sam Altman's alleged offenses are relevant to this forum, but I don't think there's any case to be made that his sister's mental health or honesty is relevant to anyone here. In which case the question isn't "is Annie lying?", it's "what did Sam Altman do? is it a pattern" and perhaps "is there any additional context we should know?"[1]

 

 

  1. ^

    In particular, children who commit sexual assault are often playing ou

... (read more)
-5unparadoxed

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.")

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.

It's possible that Sam or HN/YC have been abusing their mod powers, but this is also consistent with manual flagging by legitimate users. There's an active contingent of HN users who think this kind of post is a "gossipy distraction", and so it's very common for posts like this to be hidden via flagging even when they're not about someone involved with HN/YC.

(While HN does have a shadowbanning system, wher... (read more)

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

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.
5Viliam
I suspect that only the people involved will ever know the truth about the sexual abuse accusation. The claim about money, although in my opinion less serious, seems much easier to investigate. (And then, we can make a probabilistic update about the other claim.) Other accusations in the article, such as Sam not willing to link a podcast, don't seem important to me.
2tailcalled
Those claims would be nice to know the answer to, though I don't know that proving those claims would prove the sexual abuse allegations, nor that disproving those claims would disprove the sexual abuse allegations. Obviously one could argue that these claims are evidence about the relative trustworthiness of Annie vs Sam, but I am not sure trustworthiness across different claims is sufficiently well-correlated in these sorts of situations that it's a valid inference to make.

I understand your concerns, and appreciate your note that you are not accusing me of engaging in improper actions.

Your points are valid. I do acknowledge that the circumstances under which I am making this post, as well as my various departures from objective writing -- that is, the instances in this post in which I depart from {solely providing information detailing what Annie has claimed -- naturally raise concerns about the motives driving my creation of this post.

I will say:

  1. Regarding the fact that this is my first LessWrong post -- I acknowledge that t
... (read more)

I share your concern, not only about the reliability of Annie's flashbacks, but also about the validity of the claims she's made as a whole. As I note in my response to "Objection 4", Annie has provided no direct evidence to corroborate her claims, to the best of my knowledge. 

I also acknowledge that the links I provided (e.g. from saprea.org) do not meet rigorous standards that would enable me to label them as "scientific" or "empiric" evidence to corroborate Annie's account. I provide them merely as a way of noting that the symptoms that Annie's rep... (read more)

6tailcalled
This seems like a thing that, even if true, would not lead to any direct evidence? Like presumably the only evidence of the sexual abuse that persists this long is gonna be her memories, Sam Altman's memories, and maybe other family members memories. (Or I suppose maybe they could run a PPG test on Sam Altman to better measure his sexuality? But AFAIK such tests are somewhat noisy and basically never performed.)

I think the points you make are somewhat valid. I don't entirely agree with the reasoning from which they originate. 

While I agree that:

-- Yes, it is not necessary for a person exploring their sexuality to do so by sexually assaulting a younger family member

-- Yes, providing "13-year-old Sam Altman was exploring his sexuality" as the explanatory motive of 13-year-old Sam's sexual assault of 4-year-old Annie is not entirely satisfactory}, 

I do not agree that:

-- 13-year-old Sam Altman choosing to explore his sexuality by sexuality assaulting his 4-... (read more)

-1tailcalled
Maybe it would be more appropriate for me to say "less psychologically realistic than all the other alternatives that are on the table so far".

Annie gives her opinion here: Annie Altman on X: "I’m not four years old with a 13 year old “brother” climbing into my bed non-consensually anymore. (You’re welcome for helping you figure out your sexuality.) I’ve finally accepted that you’ve always been and always will be more scared of me than I’ve been of you." / X (twitter.com)

I do acknowledge that this may not provide an entirely satisfactory explanation of why a 13-year-old Sam (purportedly) chose to sexually abuse a 4-year-old Annie Altman. Nevertheless, I do not think that {a 13-year-old Sam Altman... (read more)

1tailcalled
I saw this interpretation but it seems psychologically unrealistic to me. Why would a person who is questioning their sexuality would sexually assault a minor family member? People generally aren't attracted to their family members or to children, so it wouldn't be very diagnostic, and it is a strong norm violation that seems unnecessary for exploring one's sexuality.

I also find Annie's claims emotionally difficult to read. Annie's claims are very serious. Though, as I have acknowledged, their validity has yet to be convincingly established. 

I also would be interested to know what evidence led her to believe she had been widely shadowbanned. In general, I would be interested to hear more from Annie, Sam, or those close to this.