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Sam Altman, OpenAI\u2019s CEO and the public face of ChatGPT, has carved out an image for himself as one of the preeminent AI whisperers of our age, whose influence supposedly extends to the White House<\/a> on the strength of his ideas alone.<\/p>\n Or at least that\u2019s the image he\u2019s managed to cultivate. A new expos\u00e9 in the New Yorker<\/a> paints a different portrait, and it\u2019s substantially more vexing. Drawing on interviews with numerous OpenAI insiders who worked with Altman, the article portrays the CEO not as a technical wiz, but as a skilled manipulator<\/a> \u2014 and one with a surprisingly shallow grasp of the AI systems his company is building.<\/p>\n According to numerous engineers interviewed for the article, Altman lacks experience in both programming and in machine learning \u2014\u00a0a shortage of expertise that becomes obvious when the CEO mixes up basic AI terms.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note that Altman dropped out<\/a> of a Stanford computer science program after two years. We\u2019re not here to shame anyone based on their education, but as the CEO of what may soon become the world\u2019s most valuable publicly-traded company<\/a>, the myth surrounding Altman matters. Cast as the chief acolyte of the \u201cgod of scale<\/a>\u201d or as a \u201cgenius of digital tech<\/a>,\u201d he enjoys a kind of cult credibility that lets him slip out of tight spots that might ensnare lesser entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n Former OpenAI researcher Carroll Wainwright, speaking to the New Yorker, put it plainly: \u201che sets up structures that, on paper, constrain him in the future. But then, when the future comes and it comes time to be constrained, he does away with whatever the structure was.\u201d<\/p>\n This knack for papering over technical shortcomings with boardroom maneuvers earned Altman a reputation as a practitioner of \u201cJedi mind tricks,\u201d one tech insider who worked with the CEO explained.<\/p>\n As one senior executive at Microsoft put it to the New Yorker: \u201cI think there\u2019s a small but real chance he\u2019s eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer.\u201d<\/p>\n