This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the
current talk page.
Content was returned to article by an editor, per edit history comment. Thank you for reference, as I used it for my re-write.--
FeralOink (
talk)
22:44, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Birthday / Altman Technologies
First: Various sources claim that he was born on April 22, 1985 (including some Wikipedia pages of other languages); however none of them are reliable. Can we add it?
Second: Some sources claim that he is the owner and president of Altman Technologies Incorporated. The same question goes here.
Ramanujaner (
talk)
13:24, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
No, those sources aren't correct. this Sam Altman is not the same person who is the
owner and president of Altman Technologies in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. The other Sam Altman founded this five-person industrial surfacing, wiring, and mechanical supply company in 1998, when the BLP's Sam Altman was 13 years old. Also,
Crunchbase, which is fairly reliable, correctly links
its entry for Altman Technologies to the other Sam Altman. So, wrong age and wrong location. Thank you for noticing and asking,
Ramanujaner, as BLP Sam Altman does own a lot of different companies!--
FeralOink (
talk)
23:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Quote
I added this quote into personal life section, and was reverted twice: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to." what's your problem with short quote in text? Paraphrased, it would be "He owns guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and land in Big Sur." How is it better than a quote?
Artem.G (
talk)
17:49, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
how would you call a person who said about himself I prep for survival? That's from the same source. And it's not undue, he appears everyday in newspieces talking about AI safety, AGI and stuff, and the fact that he himself is preparing to survival adds a lot to the picture.
Artem.G (
talk)
07:18, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Drawing from a lengthy article where the authors choose to use Altman's own words to briefly bring it up, rather than attempt to describe it, I'd leave it out completely.
Thanks for the potential refs. I'm assuming those are the best available, and they're poor at best in light of the very high standards required by BLP. Tread carefully, maybe with the NYTimes. --
Hipal (
talk)
16:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
How are these refs "poor"? NYTimes, Business Insider, and Times of Israel call him prepper based on his own words, and he never denied it. A person saying he preps for surviving is a prepper, if it quacks like a prepper and talks like a prepper.
And about "high standards of BLP" - I totally get it, we need reliable sources for biographies, but how is this was deemed reliable and not undue? Recode reported that Altman might run for Governor of California in the 2018 election, which he did not enter. Doesn't sound more reliable for me, and is undue as it never really happened.
Artem.G (
talk)
17:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
The best references are those that go into depth and provide comparisons and context. I'd say the New Yorker is the best of them, and it uses a quote rather than goes into any depth or context on this matter. Please just be careful. As for your govenor example:
WP:OSE. --
Hipal (
talk)
17:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
I know the policy, and I'm not trying to edit war, I'm just saying that a lot of other statements in the article are referenced by the sources that don't provide any depth. (Like He received his first computer at the age of eight. - there is no discussion in sources, and it based entirely on Altman's own words, same as our subject.) And that's why I wanted to add a quote, so there would be no misleading statements, just his own words about an important aspect that is highlighted in several sources.
Artem.G (
talk)
20:21, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Lack of content on OpenAI and artificial intelligence
Hi, in my opinion, this article has very little content on some of the topics that make Sam Altman so well-known : his role in OpenAI, and the debate around the capabilities, risks, opportunities and policy of artificial intelligence. This represents a significant part of his media coverage, with plenty of reliable sources. Of course if you do it you should be very careful to give a fair, balanced, interesting and well-sourced overview. Here was my attempt to cover the topic of Altman's views on artificial intelligence (
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Sam_Altman&oldid=1167754292#Opinions_on_artificial_intelligence), if you deem that there is something to retrieve.
Alenoach (
talk)
05:43, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
I think this sentence is controversial and not so directly related to Sam Altman :
"In April 2022, a report from MIT Technology Review highlighted Worldcoin's controversial practices in low-income countries, citing that Worldcoin takes advantage of impoverished people to grow its network."
One reason is that it seems like the article is attributing the direct responsibility of the misconducts of some third-party contractors to Worldcoin. Another issue is that it suggests that Worldcoin's choice of starting with low-income countries is cynical and unethical, which is unclear given that the additional income from Worldcoin would benefit poor people most.
The paragraph on the May 2023 hack is better and more factual. Its relevance here may still be debated depending on how much we want to enter this kind of details on Sam Altman's article. Or perhaps we want to have some coverage of the less anecdotal skepticism around Worldcoin.
The article DID read like an ad! That was appropriate tagging. I rewrote the article (restructured, added sources, updated content, removed quasi-fan cruft verbiage). The tone is more encyclopedia-like but I am uncertain if it is ready for the ad tag to be removed. If anyone especially
Hipal who tagged it initially, has any thoughts on this, please let's talk about it. Due to OpenAI, Altman's BLP is getting A LOT of views lately.--
FeralOink (
talk)
22:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree. I also think some of the wording needs to be made less like a press release in a few places, but didn't have further time to work on it.--
FeralOink (
talk)
23:57, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I fully agree. Unfortunately, attempts to restore
WP:NPOV keep getting reverted by people, often people who refuse to even take part in talk. --
Rei (
talk)
10:30, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Fully protected edit request on 20 November 2023
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
An earlier edit (
Special:Diff/1186003145) added "K" as a middle initial of
Satya Nadella which seems utterly unsourced and does not exist outside of Wikipedia (and was on nl Wiki
[1] which I've removed
[2] since it seemed like a direct translation of en's text) Wikipedia seems to be the only place with that now.
I am not a good enough Wikipedian to know off the cuff whether
thesetweets are noteworthy or sufficiently reliable in her voice for inclusion, but my longstanding impression is a lot of Silicon Valley goes to
Kara Swisher when they want to leak, and her leak reporting is nearly flawless, unlike her op/eds. So I offer these excerpts for consideration by the more steeped in such questions: "it was a 'misalignment' of the profit versus nonprofit adherents at the company. The developer day was an issue.... Sources tell me that the profit direction of the company under Altman and the speed of development, which could be seen as too risky, and the nonprofit side dedicated to more safety and caution were at odds. One person on the Sam side called it a “coup,” while another said it was the the right move."
Sandizer (
talk)
03:11, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Wait until it is reported by reliable sources. We are not in any hurry to report what might be speculation. — Martin (
MSGJ ·
talk)
20:13, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Technically, the post says that they are still figuring out the details, which means that we might still need to wait a while for this edit.
Pksois23 (
talk)
12:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
User:Hipal, why did you revert my edit? It doesn't fall under
WP:SOAP. Mentioning Altman's membership and thricefold attendance of the
Bilderberg Group conference is:
1) Not advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment: the information is presented neutrally
2) Not opinionated: factual and sourced
3) Not scandalous: factual and sourced
4) Not self-promotion: I have no connection to the subject of the article
5) Not advertising, marketing or public relations: the information is presented neutrally
Bilderberg Group membership is important and relevant information that's mentioned in the Recognition section on other pages of tech figures such as
Jeff Bezos and
Peter Thiel. I have reverted your reversion.
Palm Puree (
talk)
02:19, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
We disagree. It's most definitely self-promotion by Bilderberg Group, and not supported by an independent reference as required by #5. Please don't revert further until there is clear consensus to do so per
WP:BLP. --
Hipal (
talk)
18:11, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
You realise that the definition of self-promotion requires me to be affiliated with the group, yes? Are you seriously accusing me of "most definite" affiliation with the Bilberberg Group? If it needs to be said I'm obviously not, if I was I think I'd have better things to do with my time. Are the edits that mention the group on
Jeff Bezos and
Peter Thiel, not to mention
List of Bilderberg participants self-promotion too?
Other articles don't require it, but here are some independent references:
You also have been repeatedly reverting fixes to an incorrect claim ("OpenAI was founded as a capped-profit company"), citing "no references" even though the claim left in the article was directly contradicted by the reference. I fixed this too, by adding a new reference, and you just deleted the whole section even though the article is bare enough as is and the information seems contextually relevant. You didn't delete the section before while it was incorrect and you were reverting any fixes to it, and now that it's corrected, you delete it? This feels really spiteful, man.
It's bizarre to see this from a user with so many edits, I will escalate this since I think you're engaging in bad faith.
Palm Puree (
talk)
22:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
self-promotion requires me to be affiliated No. As I wrote, It's most definitely self-promotion by Bilderberg Group. If you were affiliated with them, then you'd be editing against a
conflict of interest.
@
Hipal: The
definition of self-promotion we use here does indeed require that the editor be, or be affiliated in some way with, the subject of the article or the content being added. That affiliation is certainly one form of
COI, but accusing the editor of self-promotion when they have clearly denied any affiliation is probably unwarranted. General IzationTalk 00:02, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
@
Hipal: Clearly the other editor involved believes that you are accusing them of self-promotion, that is, promoting themselves or someone or something with which they are affiliated. If that is not what you are doing, then please clarify. General IzationTalk 01:25, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Already did. Please read what I wrote. Note that I never referred to SELFPROMOTE, but I did refer to #5, NOTPROMO. --
Hipal (
talk)
01:34, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
You said "self-promotion by Bilderberg Group" and I'm not sure how that can be interpreted as anything other than #4, but regardless I still don't see how it falls under #5 NOTPROMO. The sentence is not written in an unobjective way. The section it's in is called "Recognition" so it's unavoidably going to paint the subject in a slightly positive light (and the other parts of this section do too), but it definitely doesn't meet the standard demanded by NOTPROMO. I added 2 third-party sources (dailymail is not allowed apparently) so is that sufficient to satisfy you? No reason to argue if so.
Palm Puree (
talk)
07:25, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the independent refs. Could you format them and include the full citation information? --
Hipal (
talk)
16:41, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
@
Hipal: In re: WP:CON: The sources provided by the editor for Altman's participation in three Bilderberg Group conferences are the list of participants in those conferences. We require that sources be independent of the subject; Bilderberg Group is clearly the authoritative source for this information and is independent of Altman. The editor has also supplied a citation of a CNBC article which discusses his association with BG and the conferences, and listed some more above. I support the inclusion of this content. If you have some cogent reason to reject it, please provide that reasoning here, but "self-promotion" won't cut it. General IzationTalk 01:36, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, but the Bilderberg Group refs don't belong for the reasons given. We don't need to review BLP, do we? --
Hipal (
talk)
01:41, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Lists of participants are no more promotional than graduation announcements or lists of alumni (regularly accepted as sources for academic credentials in BLPs) represent promotion of the colleges or universities that publish them. The pages contain no promotional copy; just lists of names, which support the claim that Altman participated in the conferences. General IzationTalk 02:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
You're comparing participating in a conference with achieving a degree? Got any references that suggests such importance? BLP strictly places the burden of inclusion on those who seek to add the information. --
Hipal (
talk)
16:45, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
BLPSELFPUB (read it) would apply if we were talking about information that Altman had published about himself. That is not what we are discussing. Even if it was, all of the criteria for inclusion at that link are met.
And yes, the references already provided make abundantly clear why the BG conferences are important, why Altman's participation in the conferences is significant and relevant to the subject of the article, and how his contributions were not trivial. Perhaps you should read them. General IzationTalk 18:14, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
BLPSELFPUB says, Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and social network posts—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. --
Hipal (
talk)
19:11, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
WP:SELFPUB says, Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. --
Hipal (
talk)
19:15, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't think you're hearing me. The sources we are talking about are not "self-published". If you're confused about what that term means, please open a discussion at
WP:BLP or another noticeboard; explaining it to you is beyond the scope of this Talk page. In the meantime, I think we should move on to add the content. General IzationTalk 21:46, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
We disagree on basic policy (NOT, BLP, V; likely POV as well), and the burden is on those seeking inclusion.
Please
WP:FOC, and per NOT:Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other Wikipedians.
Meanwhile, I've been cleaning up the content. The remaining self-published ref should be replaced or removed. --
Hipal (
talk)
22:31, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
(And what is it you think I'm demanding of you? I am focused on you only because you are currently the only editor involved in this discussion who is obstructing the inclusion of this content.) General IzationTalk 23:23, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Altman's sexuality is irrelevant in the course of this article, I would like to remove on the basis that Bill Gates wiki, for example does not make reference to his sexuality directly.
"It is quite common to include it" is not a good enough reason, it is not encyclopedic in the context of the article about him. His focus is AI.
Altman neither is a campaigner for LGBT - I agree in that article he acknowledges how the internet helped him in his journey but that seems at best spurious or at worst prurient. A review of his blog finds no references to gay, lgbt, or homosexual.
Just so you know, your argument also falls short. Why would Bill Gates' article reference his sexuality? Being straight is the "default". The focus of Bill Gates was Microsoft - does that mean that the article should omit his past marriage? No. Same thing.
I'll restore the content. Please don't remove it again as it has been in the article for a long time without dipute. Keep it to talk. —Panamitsu(talk)07:07, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
I disagree. Please state your reason/s why his sexuality should be included, and they encyclopedic reasons to support them.
These are three reasons why it is irrelevant for this wiki.
Firstly, heterosexuality is not a "default", it is a minority. It is irrelevant to his bio, esp. when a little extra reading shows his sexuality clearly, if anyone be interested. From a Wiki perspective this should be the norm not that it's pointed out simply because he is a member of a minority. This is discrimination in reverse, and is fundamentally not encyclopedic. It is verging on the prurient and has no place here.
Secondly, just because something has been around for a long time is not a good enough reason. So was slavery, and so was having 10 children in the hope that 3 might make it to the age of 7 so they could start to work, as child labour was also traditional. The appeal to tradition is not a sensible argument for anything and again, not encyclopedic.
Thirdly, he is not an activist for LGBT rights. As I said, the referenced YouTube does talk about how the internet helped him come out, but that has nothing to do with his work in AI.
Juddlackland (
talk)
09:26, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
I'll respond to each of your points in order.
1. Heterosexuality is not a minority. It is a majority. Read
demographics of sexual orientation which says 93% of men and 87% of women identify as completely heterosexual. The mention of a past relationship does not show his sexuality clearly because he could be bisexual. I do agree that often LGBT stuff can weirdly prurient, but not in this case. This a biography, it serves to teach us about Altman.
2. I do not understand what you're trying to say here. Slavery and saying "Altman is gay" are not even remotely on the same level.
Could you please spell out for me why you consider reference to Altman's sexuality to be of encyclopedic value, when he is neither an activist for LGBT rights or issues, or defined in his work and personal life to the extent that it would be?
1.
1. That was (obviously) a typo, my apologies. But what does it matter what his sexuality was in the past?
2. You said "it's been there for a long time". That is irrelevant. I hadn't read it and I don't think it should stand. You are appealing to tradition, and I formed some concrete examples as to why appealing to tradition is not ever sensible, because things change, and life changes, so simply saying that it should stay because it has been there for a long time simply does not make sense.
3. To return to the example of Bill Gates. Altman's sexuality is of exactly the same importance, as Bill Gates', I used him as an example because he is also successful technologist. So by your reasoning Bill Gates' Wiki should start with "He is heterosexual". That does not, for exactly the same reason that Altman's should not, because it is simply not that important
Once more, if Altman were an activist for LGBT rights, I would agree this is relevant but it really not here.
Using Bill Gates as an example is completely irrelevant here as he is heterosexual. Find other gay businessmen as an example instead. Maybe
Peter Thiel or
Tim Cook?
With my limited time I focus on matters that are of interest to me. I agree that I see even less value in Altman's vegetarianism, or his prepping activities for that matter.
Juddlackland (
talk)
06:47, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Tim Cook's is a great example. It does not start with "Tim Cook is gay". It talks about his attendance of Pride, with Apple and goes onto refer to his choices and how he wanted to be public about his sexuality.
It is my desire that Altman's wiki follow the same guideline - not to stick a huge "Altman is gay" at the outset. His sexuality is a part of who he is, not all of what he is. We understand that later, if we are interested.
Juddlackland (
talk)
06:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Bill Gates's biography does discuss his sexuality:
Gates married
Melinda French on the Hawaiian Island of
Lanai on January 1, 1994. They met in 1987 after Melinda began working at Microsoft. At the time of their marriage, Gates was given permission by Melinda to spend limited time with his ex-girlfriend, businesswoman
Ann Winblad. Bill and Melinda have three children: Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe.
This, the 3rd paragraph of the section
Personal life, 1st of the section
Marriage and divorce, tells us he is likely to be heterosexual but certainly that he has had romantic relationships with more than one member of the opposite sex and that he has fathered 3 children. It may not use the word "heterosexual", but it's a stretch to pretend that his sexuality is not being described here.
Given that he has publicly discussed his sexuality, why would we not mention that Sam Altman is gay? The sentence about his sexuality has 3 references, one of which is a video from a
LexisNexis series highlighting outstanding LGBTQ tech innovators, the other two being Business Insider and The New Yorker, all of which are good-quality
reliable sources. We routinely discuss the sexuality and family life of biographical subjects — straight subjects and LGBTQ+ subjects alike — as does any biography.
I used Gates as an example on purpose. What I see as I unencyclopedic is the need to explicitly spell out "Altman is gay". That is inferred in the Gates article and I suggest it has exactly the same weight here. Why single out this label? To me this is prurient, not encyclopedic.
"It may not use the word "heterosexual""
Exactly. We learn quite enough about Altman to understand his sexuality, as we do with Gates, no more, no less, there is no need to stick a label on it because it serves no purpose.
Juddlackland (
talk)
06:43, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for this detailed response. These are more compelling reasons than "it's been there for ages".
I feel this is undue prominence, given this is far from the most important aspect of him, that is what makes me think this verging towards the prurient. I have no objection to mention of sex or sexuality in general it appears to be for purpose of sensationalising it. This is what I feel is happening here.
If you want help, make it easy for others. Somehow indicate what you're talking about. I see mention of a YouTube ref and
[4]. That's all there is?
I've removed it based upon that single, poor reference, per
WP:BLP. I'd assume that there's some general consensus on providing such information, especially in a BLP. Has anyone looked?
WP:BLPCAT has some general guidance for the corresponding category.
I've restored the text — it's not a "single, poor reference" just because it's on YouTube; it's a series by
Lexus published by
Queerty (not
LexisNexis as I mistakenly attributed it to earlier). His sexuality is also discussed in the refs in that paragraph, including in the New Yorker piece. It is trivially easy to find further references; I'm adding more to the article now. It would be much more useful for you to have looked for those rather than removing the text. — OwenBlacker (he/him;
Talk)18:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
For future reference, the discussion here wasn't about referencing and referencing was a red-herring. It would be useful in future to read and parse the discussion to better understand the nature of disagreement before sidetracking it on an unrelated topic. One individual, a relatively new editor, describing the mention of a BLP subject's sexuality as "sensational" does not represent a lack of consensus to include that detail. — OwenBlacker (he/him;
Talk)18:27, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
We disagree about the quality of that YouTube ref.
I've just added those references because you seem to be under the impression that Altman's sexuality was unclear and poorly referenced.
Queerty and
Lexus are both perfectly reputable organisations and the quality of Queerty as a source is not considered of concern. That it happens to be a video hosted on a third-party doesn't mean that it magically becomes unreliable.
The only reference that is used just once is the Lexus feature published by Queerty. Feel free to combine the references if you can match them up better. — OwenBlacker (he/him;
Talk)18:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks @
Hipal for your input. I agree the article is stronger, but also still argue that the "Altman is gay" reference is totally unnecessary. This is all I wanted when I edited it out. I see no need for it, and to be accused of vandalism for it completely overboard.
To go back to my original example, we don't need a to have "Gates is heterosexual" on his page before talking about Melinda Gates, why should it be here?