Michael (2:51)

And we interview more than 100 people and we uncover Hundreds of pages of internal records. A majority of those people really did say some variation on the theme of he's a pathological liar, that actually multiple people unprompted by us use the term sociopath.

Armstrong (3:06)

Interesting. I've known a couple of people like that in my life and read about others. Well, let's go on, give us evidence, give us examples. Ronan.

Michael (3:14)

And this is everything from very minor things. We document earlier cases in his career where also there were efforts to force him out of jobs amidst allegations of dishonesty. And at one early startup, you know, he was claiming to everyone he was a champion ping pong player. And then they played ping pong in the office. And he was one of the worst players in the office. And Sam, you know, his responses on each of these are documented in the piece. I hope you look, he says on that I was probably joking.

Katie (3:40)

It's reminding me of, of a friend I had. That was 90% of the stuff that came out of his mouth was just bs. So when he would tell us his story, our friends, we would start going, yeah, that didn't happen.

Armstrong (3:56)

So screw loose a fabulous like Joe Biden or Brian Williams or somebody who had to just have a great story to tell, whether it was true or not.

Katie (4:08)

I think it's probably close to that.

Armstrong (4:11)

Yeah.

Katie (4:13)

Because, I mean, there was no like ill intent behind any of the stories. It was just like he loved to get the room going and, you know, I don't know. I don't know what that, that psychology is.

Armstrong (4:26)

Yeah. I had one guy, a friend. Yeah, a friend is accurate, I suppose. Not a close friend, but a friend who was a lot of fun, really smart, but he had like a moral screw loose and he would cheat his friends, whether in sports or business or whatever. Poker. Yeah. Really likable, but just semi sociopath, I think.

Katie (5:02)

Well, what would happen, what, what was

Armstrong (5:03)

the stable relationship, by the way, with a great woman? I think she's great. She seems great. I don't know. Anyway, I'm sorry, what'd you ask?

Katie (5:13)

Well, was there any con, like if did he ever get busted and how was the, what was the reaction if he did?

Armstrong (5:18)

Denial.

Katie (5:20)

Interesting.

Armstrong (5:21)

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, I didn't. That's not true. I mean, even as people are like, yeah, you did. We're all agreeing. No, I didn't. Yeah, no, it's weird. I've wondered about that for a long time. What's going on in somebody's brain like that. All right, moving along with the Ronan Farrow so far, not entirely convinced. Sam Altman is a pathological liar screed.

Michael (5:47)

But then it also extends to serious cases. You know, before his firing, there was a situation where he assured board members that the most controversial features of a new model had been safety tested. Turns out they hadn't. When they looked into that, there was a breach where a new untested model was leaked into India to the public. And he didn't mention that in hours of briefing with board members.

Armstrong (6:12)

Hmm. Yeah. This is a little inside baseball, but I think given AI's probable devastating effect on everything we hold dear, it's worth knowing who these superpower players are.

Katie (6:26)

Yeah.

Armstrong (6:28)

Yeah, let's go ahead and hear 34, Michael, and we'll see if we can comprehend it.

Michael (6:33)

We talk about how these concerns about honesty deepened the rift with that competitor I mentioned, Dario Amadei. There's a moment in this piece where there's been an investment from Microsoft. They're doing a big deal with Microsoft, and Sam is assuring Dario Amadei that Microsoft has not inserted any provisions that override the company's safety provisions that are in their own charter. And Sam says this provision that might threaten the safety concerns is not there. And Dario literally points to it and brings in another colleague to verify that it's there. And then Sam says, oh, well, you know, sure, but who cares?

Armstrong (7:13)

Yeah, that's. That's kind of like the guy I was talking about. No, I didn't. Oh, yeah. Well, it doesn't matter with the proof

Katie (7:21)

right in front of your face.

Armstrong (7:23)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. And then, because we couldn't squeeze this in during the show, a report. It's. It's 35 and 36, Michael. On the. Speaking of Dario Amadei and Anthropic, and we'd reported on the show that they had withdrawn their new AI system because it was too powerful and too capable of doing evil. Here's a little report on that.

Elizabeth Schultz (7:49)

Artificial intelligence experts are sounding the alarm after AI giant Anthropic revealed a new model called Mythos that it says is too powerful to release to the public. In a blog post, Anthropic saying, during our testing, we found that Mythos Preview is capable of identifying and then exploiting zero day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser.

Armstrong (8:15)

Okay, how she get hit by a car in the middle of that sentence? That was an odd edit. Yes, Katie.

Katie (8:21)

No, I'm just this. Okay. The fact that that exists and is out there. Yikes.

Armstrong (8:26)

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that. In case you lack imagination, Elizabeth Schultz of ABC Continues with what that might mean.

Elizabeth Schultz (8:36)

Experts say in the wrong hands, this technology could be used to exploit electric grids, hospitals, even military systems. Now, instead of releasing Mythos to the public, Anthropic is giving it to a handful of companies, including Amazon, Google, and Apple. They say the goal is to allow them to patch holes in their cybersecurity before they're exploited.

Armstrong (8:57)

Holy hell. Yeah, I'm reminded of, like, a car with 650 horsepower and, like, not good suspension or brakes.

Katie (9:08)

Yeah.

Armstrong (9:08)

What's the worst that could go wrong? Oh, boy, oh, boy. How would you like your innards pulled out by a robot, Michael?

Katie (9:18)

This is, this is what horror movies are made of.

Armstrong (9:22)

And given the nature of asymmetrical warfare these days, cyber attacks and, you know, China's ill intent and, and I think we've, and we've talked about this through the last several years. I think we've already seen some of these attacks. They've been dry runs or, or experiments. It will be certainly, I was going to say, during this term, term of Trump's presidency and perhaps the next four years, we'll absolutely see an aggressive shutting down of a regional power grid or a water processing system or remember there was a story not long ago about it wasn't a very big city, but it was some malevolent actor shut down their water processing. Right. It was in the northeast somewhere. And their reaction was, what the hell? Why would anybody do this to that, this town? But it was obviously just, all right, pick a town and do this. And they had their cyber goons do it as a dry run. So, yeah, that's all coming. And if. And the wonderful awful thing about these AI systems is, especially with the now you can do simple prompts and it will code for you, is that any angry dipshit on earth can have, like, computing superpowers to commit evil acts. Yeah, that's not gonna end well. I mean, I don't mean to freak people out or anything, but, man, my spider sense is tingling, as they say.

Katie (10:56)

I like your idea. I'm moving into the forest and watch the squirrels.

Armstrong (11:00)

Yeah. You know, and I have occasionally aimed good natured barbs at some of our survivalist apocalyptic people. What's the common term for that? Survivalists. Yeah, well, survivalists. Yeah. Okay. Preppers.

Katie (11:17)

Like doomsday preppers.

Armstrong (11:18)

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. I've occasionally, again, aimed a few gentle barbs in their direction. But the one flaw in my thinking. All right, I'm old enough, I got a little money saved, I'll be fine. Is that. Oh, that's right. I have, like, a little cash in a drawer. The rest of it is just ones and zeros on computer systems. Like, all of it.

Katie (11:43)

Yeah.

Armstrong (11:45)

So what do we do when the cyber shit hits the fan? This is why I bury all my money underground. I'm telling you, Michael. All of it. No, you gotta diversify. Put some in a tree. Yeah, there you go. That's a good idea. Go to a tree area. Yeah, a tree. A tree area. Excellent callback. An obscure callback for the good one, Katie. All right, that's enough of that. Well, I guess that's it.