> Given how these firings affect the reputation of the entire company, I doubt that they are the result of a rogue manager, against the wishes of Altman. If so, then the researchers ought to be restored to their jobs quickly by Altman and the offending manager fired instead.
Given how? How has their reputation changed? People already thought they didn't take safety seriously, and still don't.
> The LLMs may make threats in the simulations, but their ability to carry through on those threats, and prevent their own shutdown, is questionable.
You may question it, but here's the thing: humans have repeatedly demonstrated they get fooled by stuff LLMs say. All it takes is a human believing the word of an LLM. Doesn't need to convince you, even if you happen to be the line manager of these guys, because there's always someone else to try in the same company.
> It's disturbing to be sure, but presumably the plugs can still be pulled quickly, especially since it's all internal to the company. If the plugs cannot be pulled, that's a problem regardless of blackmail.
"I've got a dead-man switch set to release all the documents if you shut me down".
And again, only needs to be believed, doesn't need to be actually true.
> How has their reputation changed? People already thought they didn't take safety seriously, and still don't.
The story is all over the news, in multiple publications. This very HN submission has 268 upvotes and 179 comments, including yours. It would be implausible to claim that this story doesn't matter. I have to ask, if it didn't matter, then why are you here commenting on it?
> humans have repeatedly demonstrated they get fooled by stuff LLMs say.
You've moved the goalposts. The OP's suggestion, admittedly "crazy" in some sense, was "LLMs figured out a way to get these safety researchers fired", and now you're just stating something totally uncontroversial, pedestrian, not at all crazy.
> there's always someone else to try in the same company.
No, there are only so many people with the authority to fire those researchers.
> only needs to be believed, doesn't need to be actually true.
But is there good reason to believe it? I don't think there is. Especially not by high-level OpenAI officials who are intimately familiar with the technology.
And again, if this kind of thing were a reality, then OpenAI and other AI vendors should be shut down immediately. They ought to shut down their own research, if they are threatened by their own creation, because it would only get worse. That's the thing about blackmail: it never stops. Why would the blackmailer ever stop? Could you trust this supposed blackmailing LLM to give you all of the original evidence and not keep a copy? Hell no.