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Sam Altman's sister, Annie Altman, claims Sam has severely abused her
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Some comments are truncated due to high volume. (⌘F to expand all)
Does anyone know what the base rate is for estranged family members making accusations against celebrity relatives? That's a pretty important factor here e.g. it's possible that journalists at reputable outlets are willing to write misleading stories about AI safety university groups because they have true statistics that they can cite (or use clever linguistic tricks and other tools of the trade to straight-up lie about those statistics in plausibly deniable ways, which sadly also still happens even at the most reputable outlets), but can't write honest stories about accusations from estranged family members because of journalistic ethics.
Or maybe editors at news outlets and other varieties of corporate executives all have estranged family members so there's a norm against it, which sometimes holds and sometimes doesn't. All of it centers around what the base rate is, a single number, which I don't know. But it's impossible to investigate this topic in a truthseeking way and simultaneously not attempt to find the number that all the other calculations indisputably revolve around. The base rate of false rape accusations for normal people is incredibly low, likely because the victim...
2it's possible that journalists at reputable outlets are willing to write misleading stories about AI safety university groups because they have true statistics that they can cite
My guess would be that student groups accused of being "apocalyptic" are much less likely to sue you for libel than billionaires accused of child sex abuse. That seems more important than base rates.
Most journalists trying to investigate this story would attempt to interview Annie Altman. The base rate (converted to whatever heuristic the journalist used) would be influenced by whether she agreed to the interview and if she did how she came across. The reference class wouldn't just be "estranged family members making accusations against celebrity relatives".
She also makes claims that can be factually checked. When it comes to the money from her dad's there are going to be legal documents that describe what happened in that process.
3
Good point. I don't currently know that rate, but agree that it would be helpful in analyzing this matter.
Can anyone comment on the likelihood of her forgetting the abuse she experienced as a 4 year old and then remembering it at ~26 years old? Given the other circumstances this seems quite likely to be a false memory, but I am not familiar with the research on this topic.
Bessel van der Kolk claimed the following in The Body Keeps the Score:
...There have in fact been hundreds of scientific publications spanning well over a century documenting how the memory of trauma can be repressed, only to resurface years or decades later. Memory loss has been reported in people who have experienced natural disasters, accidents, war trauma, kidnapping, torture, concentration camps, and physical and sexual abuse. Total memory loss is most common in childhood sexual abuse, with incidence ranging from 19 percent to 38 percent. This issue is not particularly controversial: As early as 1980 the DSM-III recognized the existence of memory loss for traumatic events in the diagnostic criteria for dissociative amnesia: “an inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by normal forgetfulness.” Memory loss has been part of the criteria for PTSD since that diagnosis was first introduced.
One of the most interesting studies of repressed memory was conducted by Dr. Linda Meyer Williams, which began when she was a graduate student in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1970s
Remembering and imagination share the same pathways and are difficult to distinguish at the neuro circuit level. The idea of recovered memories was already discredited decades ago after the peak of the satanic ritual abuse hysteria/panic of the 80's. At its peak some parents were jailed based on testimonies of children, children that had been coerced (both deliberately and indirectly) into recanting fantastical, increasingly outlandish tales of satanic baby eating rituals. The FBI even eventually investigated and found 0 evidence, but the turning point was when some lawyers and psychiatrists started winning lawsuits against the psychologists and social workers at the center of the recovered memory movement.
Memories change every time they are rehearsed/reimagined; the magnitude of such change varies and can be significant, and the thin separation between imaginings (imagined memories, memories/stories of others, etc) and 'factual' memories doesn't really erode so much as not really exist in the first place.
Nonetheless, some people's detailed memories from childhood are probably largely accurate, but some detailed childhood memories are complete confabulations based on internalization of external evidence, and some are later confabulations based on attempts to remember or recall and extensive dwelling on the past, and some are complete fiction. No way with current tech to distinguish between, even for the rememberer.
I know someone who recovered memories of repeated abuse including from the age of four later in their teenage years. The parents could corroborate a lot of circumstances around those memories, which suggests that they're likely broadly accurate. For instance, things like "they told their mother about the abuse when they were four, and the mother remembered that this conversation happened." Or "the parents spoke to the abuser and he basically admitted it." There was also suicidal ideation at around age six (similarity to Annie's story). In addition, the person remembers things like, when playing with children's toy figures (human-like animals), they would not play with these toy figures like ordinary children and instead think about plots that involve bleeding between legs and sexual assault. (This is much more detailed than Annie’s story, but remembering panic attacks as the first memory and having them as a child at least seems like evidence that she was strongly affected by something that had happened.)
Note that the person in question recovered these memories alone years before having any therapy.
It's probably easier to remember abuse (or for this to manifest itself in child beha...
The chances she remembers it accurately? very small.
But the chances a four year old who was abused accurately remembers the abuse? also very small, because they're so young and because trauma messes with memory formation.
So barring psychosis it seems pretty likely to me that something happened, but that she isn't an accurate witness to specifics.
0
From my understanding it’s incredibly unlikely. There are roughly two possibilities.
1. This a false memory implanted by her therapist.
2. She always had the memory but only realized what it was later or only decided to act on it later.
Note often time children don’t process sexual assault as an incredibly traumatic until years later. either because a therapist brings a memory to the forefront or something happens to bring the memory to the forefront or even just learning about what sex is can cuase the memoru to be traumatic.
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The opposite is common, though. I know someone who had this happened and they remembered that sexual assault felt distinctly very bad even before knowing what sex was. (And see my other comment on resurfacing memories.)
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To share an alternate anecdote, a friend of mine was accused by a family member of abuse as a child, which turned out to be a false memory created during a severe and prolonged period of mental illness. Ten years after she apologised and says she doesn't believe it happened, he still finds it difficult to forgive her and has mental health issues caused by the stigma (not that there was any really, she made a lot of other extremely unlikely clams)
Not this this influences my position from the default stance of "dunno", but I thought I'd share for balance.
The simplest hypothesis that explains all this evidence is that Annie Altman is suffering from psychosis, and this would be obvious if we weren't all caught up in the metoo world order.
E.g. the belief that all her devices, and her wifi were hacked, and that she has been shadowbanned from all internet platforms seems like the kind of thing that someone suffering from psychosis would believe. It's not a rational belief. It's called a persecutory delusion.
The idea that her mental health problems were caused by a sexual assault early in her life is topsy turvy; actually, she's mentally ill which has caused her to have difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction and make the accusation, and irresponsible D-tier amateur journos are taking advantage of the situation.
This post is basically a perfect exemplar of how a psychotic person behaves. E.g.
Annie has moved more than 20 times in the past year.
The base rate for psychosis is about 1-3% and she's at the most common age for it too.
This 1-3% is much higher than the probability that the abuse happened, and the total internet shadowbanning happened, that multiple family members are conspiring against her, and the part where she was illeg...
3You're assuming the two alternatives are that everything she's said is true and accurate, or else nothing is. It does not require psychosis to make wrong interpretations or to have mild paranoia. It merely requires not being a dedicated rationalist, and/or having a hard life. I'm pretty sure that being abused would help cause paranoia, helping her to get some stuff wrong.
Unfortunately, it's going to be impossible to disentangle this without more specific evidence. Psychology is complicated. Both real recovered memories and fabricated memories seem to be common.
You didn't bother estimating the base rate of sexual abuse by siblings. While that's very hard to figure out, it's very likely in the same neighborhood as your 1-3% psychosis. And it's even harder to study or estimate. So this isn't going to help much in resolving the issue.
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Bayes can judge you now: your analysis is half-arsed, which is not a good look when discussing a matter as serious as this.
All you’ve done is provide one misleading statistic. The base rate of experiencing psychosis may be 1-3%, but the base rate of psychotic disorders is much lower, at 0.25% or so.
But the most important factor is one that is very hard to estimate, which is what percentage of people with psychosis manifest that psychosis as false memories of being groped by a sibling. If the psychosis had involved seeing space aliens, we would be having a different discussion.
We would then have to compare this with the rate of teenagers groping their toddler siblings. This is also very difficult. A few studies claim that somewhere around 20% of women are sexually abused as children, but I don’t have a breakdown of that by source of abuse and age, etc. Obviously the figure for our particular subset of assault cases will be significantly lower, but I don’t know by how much.
I thinks it’s highly likely that the number of women groped as a toddler by a sibling is much higher than the number of women who falsely claim to be groped as a toddler by a si...
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The wifi hacking also immediately struck me as reminiscent of paranoid psychosis. Though a significant amount of psychosis-like things are apparently downstream of childhood trauma, including sexual abuse, but I forget the numbers on this.
She could also have some real trauma. Note that it doesn't have to be the thing that is claimed. Once we are in the realm of a mentally ill person's delusions (and I have seen this up close), the sky really is the limit.
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How hard is it to hack somebody's wifi?
Also, a traumatized person attributing a seemingly hacked wifi to their serious abuser doesn't need to mean any mental illness.
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We are being Bayesian. It's a hypothesis that explains the visible evidence very well. It also has a relatively high prior probability (a few percent).
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Can you show what priors you used, how you calculated the posteriors, what numbers you got and where the input numbers came from? I highly doubt that hypothesis has a higher posterior probability.
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Assuming Sam was an abuser, what would hacking wifi signals do that the level of shadowbanning described not do? It strikes me as unlikely because it doesn't seem to have much reward in the world where Sam is the abuser.
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 obstructed our ability to recognize this as being obviously the simplest hypothesis. (Though perhaps this is a overly dramatic / inaccurate representation of your assertion.)
While I do agree that this post may encapsulate behavior representative of a person suffering from psychosis, or a similar mental illness, I see the hypothesis space as primarily dual, where mental illness / misrepresentation-of-reality-type hypotheses form one primary subspace, but there exists another primary subspace wherein the behavior detailed in this post is indeed representative of a person who has gone through the things which Annie has claimed she has.
I do appreciate your inclusion of quantitative rates; I think your analysis benefits from it.
0
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.
It's true that a hundred years ago, women making such allegations were dismissid as being psychotic. This doesn't mean that these dissmissed women were indeed psychotic and/or wrong in their allegitions. Pre-me-too perception of the world is at least not necessarily more accurate.
If anything, happening of Me-Too movement is an evidence in favor of base rates of sexual assault being highter. You can't use it existence to lower the probability estimate of this particular allegation being true, without contradicting conservation of expected evidence.
Similarly, with mental health issues. They can be downstream of sexual abuse or they can lead to falsly believing that you were abused. Priviledging one hypothesis over the other requires some kind of evidence. What are the rates of abused person developping mental health issues, similar to what can be observed of Annie Altman? What are the rates of people with similar to Annie Altman issues having delusions about sexual assault?
...The base rate for psychosis is about 1-3% and she's at the most common age for it too.
This 1-3% is much higher than the probability that the abuse happened, and the total internet shadowbanning happened, that multi
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I agree, although I'm not sure it's entirely due to the "metoo world order."
It's probably partly that, but it's also partly that it's considered impolite to point out when someone is mentally ill. In part this is because unfortunately doing so can strengthen a paranoid person's feeling of persecution.
When a friend of mine suffered a psychotic break, she had many technology related delusions, and she reached out to me for advice because I work in technology. I wasn't sure how to handle it so I consulted a professional. Under their advice, I gave her general advice on how to protect herself from breaches (strong passwords, HTTPS everywhere extension, etc.) and didn't otherwise try to disillusion her. My role as a friend was to stay her friend, not try to break her delusions. Paranoid people already have enough enemies, imaginary though they may be.
Of course, once delusions have been put into print, it's now a public forum. (One might question the ethics of publishing such an article). But politeness norms often extend into public forums.
-22
1
This hypothesis seems like it should be at or near the top of the list. It explains a lot of Sam's alleged behavior. If she's exhibiting signs of psychosis then he might be trying to get her to get care, which would explain the strings-attached access to resources. Possibly she is either altering the story or misunderstanding about her inheritance being conditional on Zoloft, it might have been an antipsychotic instead.
On the other hand, while psychosis can manifest in subtle ways, I'm skeptical that someone whose psychosis is severe enough that they'd be unable to maintain stable employment or housing would be able to host a podcast where their psychosis isn't clearly visible. (I haven't listened to it yet, but I would expect it to be obvious enough that others would have pointed it out)
A variation on this hypothesis that I find more likely is that Annie is psychologically unwell in exactly the ways she says she is, and out of some mixture of concern for her wellbeing and fear that her instability could hurt his own reputation or business interests, Sam has used some amount of coercion to get her to seek psychiatric care. She then justifiably got upset about her rich and powerful family members using their financial power to coerce her into taking drugs she knows she doesn't want to take. You don't have to be psychotic to develop some paranoia in a situation like that.
I'm confused about and skeptical of the justifiability of all the downvotes this post received.
- If the allegations are true, well, I'm not sure how important exactly it is, but it seems at least like it passes the bar of "worth knowing about" pretty easily.
- If something passes that bar pretty easily, I guess the next question is how plausible it is. If it's incredibly implausible, then downvoting seems reasonable. I only skimmed through the post and some of the comments, but it doesn't seem like the allegations are obviously implausible.
- Once something passes through filters (1) and (2), some other reasons I could think of for why it might be worth downvoting are if the post does a poor job of arguing, is very difficult to understand, or is very hostile and contentious. None of these things seem to be the case here though.
Strongly agree!
I have mixed feelings about the convincingness of the accusations. Some aspects seem quite convincing to me, others very much not.
In most contexts, I'm still going to advocate for treating Sam Altman as though it's 100% that he's innocent, because that's what I think is the right policy in light of uncorroborated accusations. However, in the context of "should I look into this more or at least keep an eye on the possibility of dark triad psychology?," I definitely think this passes the bar of "yes, this is relevant to know."
I thought it was very strange to interpret this post as "gossip," as one commenter did.
Yikes, I'm finding this quite emotionally difficult to read, and I didn't expect any of this.
Amongst many disturbing things, Annie reports:
Shadowbanning across all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub. Also had 6 months of hacking into almost all my accounts and wifi when I first started the podcast"
I don't currently see how this could work out. Shadowbanning on Twitter and Reddit and Facebook (and more) is something the mods on each of those platforms controls, I am unclear how a young Sam Altman could've accomplished this.
Hypotheses:
- Sam and his allies engaged in a systematic campaign to report a lot of her content to mods on each of these platforms and somehow knew how to specifically cause shadowbanning on all of these platforms.
- This was done when Sam was a significant figure in YC / Silicon Valley and he reached out directly to senior people in those companies to make a shadowbanning request.
- She was shadowbanned on these platforms for sex work / other unusual content and inaccurately attributes it to Sam.
- She is mistaken about what happened, or something close by happened once (e.g. he reported her to a subreddit mod who took mod action against her) and she is exaggerating this.
- The claim is fabricated for other reasons (not very in touch with reality, attention, etc).
I'd certainly be interested to know what evidence led her to believe she had been widely shadowbanned.
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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, where your posts are not shown by default and only users who've manually set showdead=true can see them, it looks like that term is being misapplied here.)
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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.
Scratching my head over whether logic/rational arguments/opining on probabilities by random internet people is the best path toward finding out what's capital-T true here. This doesn't seem to be a case where you can pull up the evidence, look at base rates, and calculate whether Annie is telling the truth or not based on probabilities.
It sounds like Annie has struggled with mental health issues from quite an early age -- as young as 5 or 6, which also manifested later as physical health issues, and what's disturbing to me is the repeated lack of support from her family members throughout.
It saddens me that she has tried to speak to her mother and brothers about what happened and has been repeatedly ignored or invalidated. And that despite her being the primary beneficiary of her father's 401K, her family chose to withhold the money she would have used to take time off work to restore her health. When she requested that Sam help promote her podcast he denied her request because it didn't make sense for his business. Sam and their mom denied her request for financial support so she wouldn't have to turn to sex work to make ends meet.
It actually sounds like her family has...
1
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 "trying to figure out the truth" in an earlier comment was misguided and imprecise. You were keen to notice this. In a situation like this, there are large amounts of uncertainty, and there is currently no proof of misconduct (that I've seen.)
I think what this post does is {provide a (relatively) accurate description of the state of affairs regarding Annie's claims.} I do feel pretty good about the way in which I presented the information relevant to this matter in this post. Though I don't want to necessarily "take shots" at Elizabeth Weil, whose nymag article provided basically the only significant written third-party acknowledgment of Annie's claims, I will say that I prefer the (hopefully, more) objective, straight-from-the-source, uncertainty-acknowledging approach I've taken here.
The key thing here is that, currently, the primary information we have is:
1. Claims that Annie has made on social media, as well as a few pictures of her from when she was sick that she took, and a few screenshots of her social media that potentially indicate, but do not provably or definitively, indicate that she experienced shadowbanning, let alone that the low engagement/shadowbanning occured because of Sam. It is important to avoid the conjunction fallacy:
Let A = the event that Annie Altman, or (digital) media relating to her did indeed experience shadowbanning, low engagement, etc.
Let B = the event that
I'm trying to square Sam Altman sexually abusing her with Sam Altman being gay. The best theory I can come up with to square them is that maybe he is bisexual and pretends to be gay to hide the sexual abuse. Alternatively maybe being sufficiently high in the disgust/taboo factor of sexual interests cancels out being gay when the context involves sexually assaulting a minor family member. I suppose the latter story would have less complexity penalty since it also explains the incest attraction and assault and not just the gynephilia.
1My understanding is that perpetrator sexuality has little to do with the gender of chosen victims in child sexual abuse. If Annie was four years old and Sam thirteen at the time, I don't think attraction to women played much of a role either way.
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Ehh, idk.
Obviously pedophiles are much more likely to sexually assault children than teliophiles are, and from what I've heard pedophiles are more likely to have no particular preference (or only weak preferences) for whether their victims are male or female. But pedophilic child molesters tend to have strong preferences for children, which is in tension with Sam Altman being attracted to adult men.
Alternatively I've heard that some teliophiles molest children out of opportunism, but that seems somewhat counterintuitive to me (in order to see children as a sexual opportunity, wouldn't they need to be attracted to them?). It's less counterintuitive if we're talking about teens (sexual attractiveness to teliophiles tends to gradually increase due to age, rather than suddenly spiking up at the age of consent), but that doesn't square with Annie being four years old. I'm pretty sure this type of child molester tends to have a correspondence between their preference for adults's sex and their preference for children's sex, but I also think their preference for children's sex is weaker than their preference for adult's sex.
These explanations are all making reference to the perpetrator's sexuality, though of course in much more complex and nuanced ways than gay/straight/bi.
[epistemic status: i know nothing]
Isn't it not so uncommon for people's sexualities to change over time? I'd think puberty especially would be a time when things would shift.
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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 sexually abusing a 4-year-old Annie Altman} is mutually exclusive with {Sam Altman coming out as gay as a teenager, and being openly gay since then.}
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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.
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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-year-old sister is a psychologically infeasible (I do acknowledge that this is not exactly the claim you are making.)
I also think that Annie may not have been fully literal in her provision of "13-year-old Sam Altman was exploring his sexuality" as the explanatory motive for him sexually assaulting her.
-3
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".
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Many gay men frequently date girls during their adolescence. A survey shows that gay male teenagers are several times more likely to conceive girls than straight male teenagers. Many male homosexuals frequently "explore" or "challenge themselves" during the early stages of sexual awakening, and then fully embrace themselves at a later stage. Annie may be a sacrificed experimental object (if the allegations are true). Some of Anne's tweets do not seem to appear in this article. I have seen Anne (Twitter) claim that her brother once touched her pussy and anus. The so-called sexual harassment (if the allegations are true) may not necessarily be driven by sexual desire. The gay boy who touched his sister's genitals may only be confirming (in reality rather than in pornographic magazines) whether he would be sexually aroused by a woman. We don't know if he had sexual contact with girls of his age during adolescence. We don't know why he chose a four year old girl (if the accusation is true), perhaps we adults cannot understand the emotional world of an adolescent.
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Does "conceive" mean "have sex with" here? Because according to what I think of as the standard definition of that word, you would be saying that gay male teenagers are more likely to produce female offspring (which sounds pretty silly). Did the survey use that word?
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House Beaver is talking about surveys which find a correlation between saying one is gay and saying one has impregnated someone/become pregnant. So like House Beaver's idea is if those who say they are gay teen boys in surveys also have a greater tendency to say they've impregnated someone, then House Beaver thinks this is probably because gay teen boys are more likely to impregnated teen girls than straight teen boys are. Whereas I'd be inclined to say it's because some teens find it funny to say they are 7 foot tall blind gang members who are addicted to heroin.
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I'm aware of phenomena like beards and repression. But these seem driven by social norms, whereas molesting your sister seems counteracted by social norms.
Out of the two possibilities of "the survey is wrong" and "gay male teenagers are several times more likely to conceive girls than straight male teenagers", which do you honestly think is more likely?
Also a practical question about how to interpret this is how reliable flashbacks that occur many years later the event without memory of the event in the time inbetween are. My guess would be that the answer is "we don't really know".
Like as far as I understand, dissociation is A Thing, but the people who talk about it still don't have a solid understanding of how it can or cannot work, and are often mistaken about the science of it and of trauma? (In particular overestimating the validity of some of the science.)
And conversely, some recovered memories are fake, but the people who talk about this tend to deny the possibility of dissociation and don't really have any scalable way of determining the validity or invalidity of such memories, so they just round it off to always being fake without having solid support for that?
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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 reported seem plausible.
As I mentioned, the intent of this post is to promote discussion about the claims that Annie has made, and to spread awareness of the fact that Sam has not yet responded to Annie's (very serious claims.) This post does not claim that Annie's claims are provably or indisputably valid. In fact, I think the opposite is true: her claims are not yet corroborated by direct evidence, and they certainly are disputable. I currently hold Sam Altman to be innocent, until proven guilty.
In spite of this, I still thought that this post was worth making, as a means of bringing attention to Annie's claims, which I think have a nonzero probability of being true in whole or in part.
4
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.)
5
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.
3
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.
0
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.
Just coming to this now, after Altman's firing (which seems unrelated?)
At age 5, she began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word."
To me, this adds a lot of validity to the whole story and I haven't seen these points made:
-
Becoming suicidal at such an early age isn't normal, and very likely has a strong environmental cause (like being abused, or losing a loved one)
-
The bathing to relieve anxiety is typical sexual trauma behavior (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577979/)
Of course, we don't know for sure that she told the truth that this started at that age, but we can definitely not dismiss it.
On the recovered memories: I listen to a lot of podcasts where people talk about their own trauma and healing (with respected therapists). It's very common in those that people start realizing in adulthood that something was wrong in their childhood, and increasingly figure out why they've always felt so 'off'.
On the shadowbanning & hacking: This part feels more tenuous to me, especially the shadowbanning. But I don't think this disqualifies the rest of the story. She's had a really hard life and surely would have trust issues, and her brother is a powerful man.
Quick mod note: Some new users have showed up commenting on this post. I've been erring on the side of approving them even when they wouldn't meet our usual quality guidelines because this seems like a topic where silencing information could be worse than usual.
3
Neither Sam nor Annie count as "the outgroup". I'm sure some LWers disagree with Sam about how to manage the development of AGI, but if Sam visited LW I expect it would be a respectful two-way discussion, not a flame war like you'd expect with an "outgroup". (caveat: I don't know how attitudes about Sam will change as a result of the recent drama at OpenAI.)
-31
When it comes to remembering a childhood event that supposedly happened in 1998 in 2020, even if a process produced the memory that doesn't mean that it really happened. There are plenty of cases of "Satanistic ritual abuse" where there are memories but where we generally think those memories are not matching to real events.
Annie wanted to talk on air about the psychological phenomenon of projection: what we put on other people. The brothers steered the conversation into the idea of feedback — specifically, how to give feedback at work. After she posted the show online, Annie hoped her siblings, particularly Sam, would share it. He’d contributed to their brothers’ careers. Jack’s company, Lattice, had been through YC. “I was like, ‘You could just tweet the link. That would help. You don’t want to share your sister’s podcast that you came on?’” He did not. “Jack and Sam said it didn’t align with their businesses.”" I find this account to be plausible, yet do not think it entirely dispels the objection.
The fact that Sam and the other brothers showed up for the podcast suggests that they wanted to support her at that moment in time.
It seems that something happened that mad...
If hypothetically we knew that the allegations were true, what actions would make sense for the AI Safety community to take? And how helpful would they be in reducing the chance of existential risks?
I'd like to add some nuance to the "innocent until proven guilty" assumption in the concluding remarks.
Standard of evidence is a major question in legal matters and heavily context-dependent. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a popular understanding of the standard for criminal guilt and it makes sense for that to be "beyond a reasonable doubt" because the question at hand is whether a state founded on principles of liberty should take away the freedom of one of its citizens. Other legal disputes, such as in civil liability, have different stan...
Out of curiosity, is the motivation of this post to try to collate/figure out the truth/rationality of what actually happened? Or rather just a convenient place that is less susceptible to (alleged) censorship compared to other sites?
5
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 imply that you said that; I just say this more in an attempt to convey my motives and character.) I came to this site in particular because:
1. I thought its users would probably understand the significance of a claim that Sam Altman has been quietly hiding the fact that he sexually assaulted his 4-year-old sister.
2. I thought that its users would be good at calling me out on any logical/irrational bullshit that I (unintentionally) propagated. I want to be right, not to feel right. Say what you will about LessWrong, but its users do love to be quite exacting in their arguments about whether or not they think a person is making rational arguments. Indeed, I've modified this post, and my replies, many times in response to comments I've received in a way that I think has been to the benefit of the clarity of this post and its conveyance of my position. I'm glad that my karma score has jumped all over the place as I've updated my post - it means that LessWrong users are actually thinking critically about the degree to which I am being rational.
It seems to me, at this point, one of two things is true:
1. Annie Altman is lying left, right,. and center, or is deluded, disconnected from reality, or just misinformed/misunderstanding things to the point that she believes she is telling the truth when she is not.
2. She is not lying (at least, to some degree.)
Yes, I know we can wonder about base rates and what ment
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].
- ^
In particular, children who commit sexual assault are often playing out their past abuse by adults. I believe this is less true the older the child is, and can't immediately find numbers for 13 year olds.
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:
- My overarching, most fundamental desire is for humanity to have a positive AI future.
- 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 org / lab / whatever you want to call it may actually be a person of highly questionable morals. The whole reason we got OpenAI in the first place is, apparently, because Elon freaked out when Larry Page called him a 'specist' back in 2013. (I will not bother commenting on whether or not I think this was ultimately a good thing. ) I very much want the person leading the development of and (attempts at) alignment of superintelligence to be a good person.
- The reason I have made this post here is because of (2), not because I thought that this forum was the right place to worry about the mental health of Annie Altman. While obvio
0
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?
One benefit of boosting the visibility of accusations like this is that it makes it easier for others to come forward as well, should there be a pattern with other abuse victims. Or even just other people possibly having had highly concerning experiences of a non-sexual but still interpersonally exploitative nature.
If this doesn't happen, it's probabilistic evidence against the worst tail scenarios of character traits, which would be helpful if we could significantly discount that.
It's frustrating that we may never know, but one way to think about this is "we'd at least want to find out the truth in the worlds where it's easy to find out."
-7
I've been thinking about these allegations often in the context of Altman's firing circus a few months ago. I've known multiple people who suffered early childhood abuse/sexual trauma - and even dated one for a few tumultuous years a decade ago. I had a perfectly normal, happy childhood myself, and eventually came to learn that this disconnect between who they were most times vs times of high-stress was tremendously unintuitive (and initially intriguing) for me. It also seemed to facilitate an certain meticulousness in duplicity/compartmentalization of pre...
One fact you're missing in your otherwise rather thorough collection of internet expression by Annie Altman:
You state several times that Sam Altman offered to by Annie Altman a house. However, she wrote in her Medium article that it was clear she would have no direct ownership of that house. In other words, Sam was buying a house for himself, and letting his sister live in it, on the condition of her silence and complicity:
"We spoke on the phone three times, and through these conversations I began to suspect the offer was another attempt at control. It see...
"I would like to note that this is my first post on LessWrong." I find this troubling given the nature of this post. It would have been better if this post was made by someone with a long history of posting to LessWrong, or someone writing under a real name that could be traced to a real identity. As someone very concerned with AI existential risk, I greatly worry that the movement might be discredited. I am not accusing the author of this post of engaging in improper actions.
8
3
2
1I 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:
- Regarding the fact that this is my first LessWrong post -- I acknowledge that this is unfortunate considering the gravity of the issue which this post addresses.
- Regarding my anonymity -- I purposefully chose to make this post anonymously. This post discusses a very, very serious topic - the fact that Sam Altman's sister, Annie Altman, is claiming that he has severely (e.g. sexually) abused her. If Annie's claims turn out to be (provably) true, this would likely warrant an immediate dismissal of Sam Altman from his current position position as CEO of OpenAI, as well as from a variety of other impactful positions he currently holds. Given the gravity of this post and its potential ramifications, I chose
1. There isn't a shred of evidence for her accusations.
2. He was just 13 years old (undeveloped PFC).
Saying "Annie has not yet provided what I would consider direct / indisputable proof that her claims are true" is a gross understatement. Not only isn't there "direct / indisputable proof", there isn't a shred of evidence to support her accusation, and in fact there are aspects of the claim that seem rather dubious (such SA getting her shadowbanned "across all platforms except onlyfans and pornhub", which aside from being difficult to pull off, seems incons...
9
What direct evidence can someone provide to prove that they were abused as a child? (Note that most 4-year-olds know nothing about sex or sexual abuse, leave alone how to respond to it; nor would they be able to record it.)
In Annie's case there's a good amount of circumstantial evidence, e.g. suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression at a very young age, which are PTSD symptoms typical for victims of childhood sexual abuse. Beyond this, I can't imagine what other evidence she could possibly provide, even if it happened 100%.
My son was abused by a preschool teacher when he was 3 (not sexually, but verbally and physically). Once he told us that the teacher hit him and described how. We called his classmate's parents, and his classmate described what happened in the exact same way; then he shut his ears (as if trying to block the memory of my son crying) and said that he's afraid to talk about it. Both kids were terrified of going back to school, and my son had major PTSD and anxerty for over a year. We immediately reported abuse to all levels of the school administration, the county school licensing board, and the police. The teacher denied it and the school didn't have cameras. The final conclusion of the process was that "there's no evidence", which to the school was as good as "it didn't happen". The teacher continues to teach there to this day. 2 years later our son still remembers that teacher as being generally awful, but he seems to have suppressed the memory of this specific incident, because it was too painful.
If it's impossible to prove child abuse even when two parents (who know it happened, are supportive and know what they're doing) start the process immediately and go through all available channels, what chance does a 4-year-old have whose caregivers are either unaware or not supportive? What chance does a person have if they remember or realize what had happened after 20 years?
If you personally were abused as a child, how would you prove it?
Si
0
My mistake. Fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out!
3 factors I haven't seen highlighted:
1) While the base rate for sexual abuse, by a sibling, of a toddler is already extremely low (sexual abuse of children is somewhat rare. 'Abuse of toddlers' and 'abuse by siblings' are both much rarer subsets), the claim that both of her brothers were abusing a sibling toddler makes it drastically rarer. Even for identical twins, more mundane sexual preferences such as homosexuality only have ~33% correlation. Both her brothers having the outrageously rare sexual proclivity to abuse a toddler sister is close to astronom...
3
Annie didn't say specifically that Jack sexually abused her, though; her language indicated some unspecified lesser abuse that may or may not have been sexual.
Shadow banning of people in sex work is quite common. Doesn't necessarily mean it's targeted against her. If she put up any sexually explicit content of any kind or mentions "sex work" on platforms like Instagram, it results pretty quickly in her posts no longer showing up on a general feed, and her being only searchable when her name is explicitly written by a direct connection/follower.
"Shadow banning" is a common thing on the internet that people in the sex industry have complained about for years as an unfair form of censorship:
https://www.modalitygrou...
While Annie didn't reply to the "confirm/deny" tweet, she did quote-tweet it―twice:
Wow, thank you. This feels like a study guide version of a big chunk of my therapy discussions. Yes can confirm accuracy. Need some time to process, and then can specify details of what happened with both my Dad and Grandma’s will and trust
Thank you more than words for your time and attention researching. All accurate in the current form, except there was no lawyer connected to the “I’ll give you rent and physical therapy money if you go back on Zoloft”
It's hard to know if any of the information is true, but starting with the lowest hanging fruit:
Why insist she needs to be on Zoloft to receive the money from her father's will?
It does seem like a type of economic abuse not give her financial stability or insist on certain terms for it.
Sexually abused or not, she is not well if she has to do survival sex work. Why not provide her with modest financial stability with no strings attached, it can't be worse than the situation she is in now.
It's hard to see where Sam Altman is coming from on this when he helpe...
However, Annie has not yet provided what I would consider direct / indisputable proof that her claims are true. Thus, rationally, I must consider Sam Altman innocent.
This is an interesting view on rationality that I hadn't considered
I know this post will seem very insensitive, so I understand if it gets downvoted (though I would also say that's the very reason sympathy-exploitation tactics work), but I would like to posit a 3rd fork to the "How to Interpret This" section: That Annie suffers from a combination of narcissistic personality disorder and false memory creation in service of the envy that disorder spawns. If someone attempted to fabricate a story that was both maximally sympathy-inducing and reputation-threatening for the target, I don't think you could do much better than t...
4
Are a person's mental disorders (especially ones that started in early childhood) the person's own fault, or are they possibly a consequence of trauma or abuse? If you abuse someone as a child, they are very likely to develop some mental disorders (the greater the abuse, the more severe and long-lasting they're likely to be). Is it then fair to say, "This person's claims of abuse have no merit, just look at their mental disorders" (as in, a "crazy person's" claims should not be believed)?
When I saw the topic, my first thought is that the epistemics of discussions of this sort (he said - she said stories about sins and perceptions) are inherently bad and cause more harm to those who engage with them than good. But the post isn't terrible quality.
Nonetheless, I am pre-committing to downvoting any future post about the personal relationships of famous people, which I take to be the category of thing, I am objecting to.
8
I stand by this comment.
What could cause me to change my mind? Here are my cruxes.
If character assessment posts about particular people can be shown to cause a useful actions or ways of thinking for readers more often than they distract readers by unverifiable gossip.
If character assessment posts about particular people is used as a case study for reasoning about particular people to teach a broader lesson.
If character assessment posts about particular people allows community members to protect themselves from a real danger.
However, my beliefs are that these types of posts are juicy gossip that fuel idle speculation and status hierarchy games and serve no purpose except to make those who engage with content worse people who think more simplistically about human behavior and motivation. Even though this particular post is done fairly well for what it is, I think it is "bad form" and, perhaps, on the wrong site.
5
It makes me happy to see such a cruxy comment like this. Thanks.
The cruxes seem reasonable. However, I feel like it's appropriate to upvote/downvote based on how confident you are on your position for each of them. Like, if it's really clear that a particular post will have the consequence of pushing people really far towards distracting gossip and away from useful actions, then downvote. If the opposite, maybe upvote. If it's unclear, probably do nothing.
Because this post is about the person who might be the most powerful person in the domain of AI, and thus is perhaps the most important person in the entire world, or even perhaps throughout history, I think it's actually a decently important topic. Because of magnitude, not probability. Like, even if there is a low probability that we figure out the truth, and of P(useful action | figure out truth), the magnitude of the positive impact could very well be large, and so it seems to me like a topic that is plausibly worth exploring. Enough that I upvoted it.
I think I personally have a tendency to see people like Sam Altman and Elon Musk and get caught up in thinking they're so awesome, and then am a victim of the halo effect. I find concrete examples of "wait, they frequently do things that aren't very awesome" helpful. I suspect the same is true for many others.
1
It makes things more difficult, but by wielding Bayescraft appropriately, discussion and updating can certainly still occur.
I think that is usually true. However, it is still true that some people should be having the conversation. I like what Raemon proposed about some sort of "jury duty".
This is my first post in Less Wrong — I discovered rationalism very recently (like, during Less Online recent) and am still learning the LW vocab/exploring concepts etc so please bear with me!
In fact, my comment is more of a question: I'd like to contribute a viewpoint coming from personal anecdote rather than factual evidence. Most of the discourse I'm reading is references to studies or statistical analysis. There are some impersonal anecdotes, eg people bringing up neighbours and friends-of-friends, so it does look like there's some leeway.
H...
The LessWrong Review runs every year to select the posts that have most stood the test of time. This post is not yet eligible for review, but will be at the end of 2024. The top fifty or so posts are featured prominently on the site throughout the year.
Hopefully, the review is better than karma at judging enduring value. If we have accurate prediction markets on the review results, maybe we can have better incentives on LessWrong today. Will this post make the top fifty?
My default is that people shouldn't be judged by random strangers on the internet over the claims of other random strangers on the internet. As random strangers to Sam, we should not want to be in judgment of him over the claims of some other random stranger. This isn't good or normal or healthy.
Moreover, it is unlikely that we will devote the required amount of time & effort to really know what we're talking about, which we should if we're going to attack him or signal boost attacks. And if we are going to devote the great amount of time necessary, co...
Updates as of November 2024: I've added in a substantial amount of new information that Annie and other sources have provided since the day that I originally made this post (October 7, 2023.) I added some in-text citations so it's easier to see how I've constructed the Timeline below. I also changed my Twitter username for reasons I provided here. If you want to see what this post looked like before I made these updates, it's available here on the Internet Archive.
Content warning: Sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, suicidal ideation, severe mental illnesses/trauma, graphic (sexual) language.
This post aims to aggregate a collection of statements made by Annie Altman, the (lesser-known) younger sister of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
In these statements, Annie asserts that she has suffered various severe forms of abuse from Sam Altman throughout her life, including being sexually abused by him as a child. She also states that she has experienced abuse from her other brother Jack Altman, though to a lesser extent.
Annie has stated that the forms of abuse she's endured include sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, technological (shadowbanning, hacking), pharmacological (forced Zoloft), and psychological abuse.
I do not attempt to speak for Annie; rather, my goal is to provide an objective and unbiased aggregation of this situation, and the claims Annie has made.
I have made this post because I think that it may be important to be aware of the existence of the claims that Annie has made about Sam, given his strong influence over the development and alignment of increasingly powerful AI models. I have also made this post because I think that Annie's claims are not covered well elsewhere - at least, at the time of this post's writing.
Disclaimer: I have tried my best to assemble all relevant information I could find related to this (extremely serious) topic, but this is likely not a complete collection of information regarding the Sam Altman's alleged abuse of Annie Altman.
An outline of this post
Note: I am awe that this post is rather long. However, most of the content is summarized in the Timeline section (~20 minute read.)
The Timeline section gives my attempt at a timeline detailing Annie's claims in chronological order. It provides a summary of most the information in the post. After the Timeline section, I then provide other sources & references, and excerpts from them, which I used to create the Timeline.
Here is an outline o the post:
Timeline
Note
This post provides my understanding of Annie's claims, and the situation. It's definitely possible that I've (unintentionally) gotten things wrong, misinterpreted things, or been biased in how I've covered this situation, despite my best efforts not to be.
Unlike other journalists & reporters who've covered Annie's allegations, I've never personally met or interviewed Sam, Annie, or any of their family in-person. Everything in this post is just information that I found on the Internet.
I've used citations & links heavily throughout the post, in an attempt to make it clear how I've come to my current understanding. By all means, go look at the source material and references yourself, and form your own understanding.
In an attempt to make this post clearer and easier to read, I've used "collapsible" sections, like this one.
You can click on the little ▶ triangle icon at the top-left of each collapsible section to un-collapse it, and reveal its hidden content. You can then click the ▼ icon again to re-collapse the section, and hide its content.
Note: there is still important information in many of the "dropdown" parts. A few of them are empty, and a few contain less-important information, but most actually do have additional information that you should read.
In other words -- don't misread this as "the information in the dropdown sections is redundant/irrelevant."
You should still read the information in all of the dropdown sections.
I've also added some in-text citations.
I've purposefully aired on the side of potentially adding a bit "too much" detail in this timeline, as I'd rather do that than accidentally leave out information in a way that makes it hard to understand other events in the timeline.
There are various events in the timeline that, when you first read them, may seem "unnecessary" or "not relevant." But, generally, I include things in the timeline for a reason. Often, in this timeline, earlier events sort of "set up" events that follow years later. You often need to understand various events that occur earlier on in the timeline before you can understand various events that come later.
Throughout this post, I've bolded various segments that I feel are particularly important or relevant.
Timeline
April 22, 1985: Sam Altman is born, to parents Connie Gibstine (mother) and Jerry Altman (father.)
1987: Max Altman is born.
1989: Jack Altman is born.
1994: Annie Altman is born.
Connie Altman (front left), Jerry Altman (front middle), Annie Altman (front right.)
Source: https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787162346047304103
Jack Altman, Jerry Altman, (I'm not sure who the elderly woman is), Annie Altman, Sam Altman, Connie Gibstine (Sam and Annie's mother), Max Altman
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-sister-brothers-husband-parents
Sam Altman, Annie Altman, Jack Altman, Max Altman
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-sister-brothers-husband-parents
Image source: https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1727224272522023287
Image source: https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1727224272522023287
Beginning when Annie is a baby [AA24n] -- i.e. beginning somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997 -- Annie repeatedly experiences various forms of abuse from her biological siblings. That is, from her 3 brothers: Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman. It seems that most of the abuse that Annie has experienced from her 3 brothers has come from Sam.
Somewhere between ~1994 and ~1997, (Annie's brothers, I presume?) play "dwarf tossing" with Annie when she is a baby [AA24n]. Annie's grandmother witnesses this, and condemns it. [AA24n]
~1996: Sam and Jack's grandmother gets each of them some stock in a company related to something they like. Sam is given stock in Apple, given his interest in computers. Jack is given stock in Applebee's, given that he was, as he puts it, "heavier as a child, as {Sam} like{s} to point out" [YC16a].
Connie Altman (front left), Jerry Altman (front middle), Annie Altman (front right.)
Source: https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787162346047304103
Jack was a "very tired kid."
~August 1997: Sam, age 12, begins his time at the John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri, staring 7'th grade.
In ~1998 or 1999, when Annie Altman is 4 years old and Sam Altman is 13 years old, Sam sexually abuses Annie [AA23a, AA--f] -- repeated molestation [AA23w] and touching her in private areas. [AA23x]
~1998-1999: Annie's 4-year-old mind represses her memories of these abuses [AA18b, AA23k, EW23a].
For the next ~20 years (~1998-2018) Annie's mind continues to repress her full memories of being abused. However, throughout those 20 years, Annie does recall bits and pieces of her memories of being sexually abused. These partial-memories confuse and disturb Annie, and she doesn't fully understand them when they recur to her. Crucially, Annie also doesn't remember that it was Sam who sexually abused her.
Also, over the next 20 years (~1998-2018), Annie experiences a variety of mental health issues, eating disorders, and other disturbing experiences (e.g. projectile vomiting during consensual sex), all caused by the abuse she experienced at a young age.
However, beginning in 2018, a sort of "perfect storm" of events unfold that cause Annie to gradually start recalling her full memories of being abused. This gradual process of Annie recalling her full memories of abuse occurs from ~2018-2021. I'll detail these events later on in this timeline.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: when I first learned of Annie's story, I was confused by, and didn't fully understand, some of her symptoms. I've since learned more about common symptoms in people who experienced sexual abuse as a child.
Annie displays many of these symptoms, including:
- panic attacks beginning at a young age
- waking up in the middle of the night needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety
- suicidal ideation beginning at age 5-6
- "rationalizing away" and/or not understanding partial flashbacks (to the sexual abuse she experienced) that occurred earlier in her life
- PTSD
- developing eating disorders and body image problems from a young age
- developing many mental illnesses (including suicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, OCD, and more) from a young age
- (initial) repression of the (full) memories of the abuse (as an automatic trauma response in the brain)
- many more symptoms
Some sources that helped me understand:
• Child Sexual Abuse -- US Department of Veterans Affairs
• The Body Keeps the Score -- by Bessel Van Der Kolk
• My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse -- Tim Ferriss
• What to Do if You Have PTSD From Being Molested as a Child -- sexualabuselawfirm.com
From saprea.org, (Saprea seems to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that "exists to liberate individuals and society from child sexual abuse and its lasting impacts":
• The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: How Does Trauma Affect the Brain and Body? -- saprea.org
• Common Symptoms {in people who experienced sexual abuse as a child}: Flashbacks
• Common Symptoms: Difficult Relationship with Body
• Common Symptoms: Panic Attacks
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown section for more details.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At age 5 (~1999), Annie tells her mother, Connie Altman, that she wants to end her own life and that she was "touched by older siblings", and Connie "decided to instead protect her sons and demand to receive therapy and chores only from her female child." [AA24f]. In particular, (it seems) Connie tells Annie to keep the sexual assault a secret [AA23m].
"At age 5 {~1999}, {Annie} began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take a bath to calm her anxiety. By 6 {~2000}, she thought about suicide, though she didn’t know the word" [EW23a].
~2001 (Annie: age ~7): Annie begins to criticize her appearance. She continues to do so for the next 18 years.
~2001: At age 16, Sam comes out to his parents as gay. [TF16a]
Throughout her childhood (and the rest of her life), Annie does not have a complete memory of the sexual abuse she experienced in her early childhood.
However, she experiences a variety of mental and physical symptoms common among those who have experienced sexual abuse in early childhood.
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown for details.)
From ~August 2006 to June 2012, Annie attends grades 7-12 at the John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri (the same school that Sam attended [AA23m].)
In 2005, Sam begins working on his startup, "Loopt" (formerly named "Radiate"). During his sophomore year at Standford (also in 2005), Sam meets Paul Graham. Paul Graham is quite impressed by Sam, and Loopt is accepted into Y Combinator's first cohort.
Graham spoke highly of Sam:
-- October 2006: "Sam Altman, the co-founder of Loopt, had just finished his sophomore year when we funded them, and Loopt is probably the most promising of all the startups we've funded so far. But Sam Altman is a very unusual guy. Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking "Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.""
-- August 2008: "When we predict good outcomes for startups, the qualities that come up in the supporting arguments are toughness, adaptability, determination. Which means to the extent we're correct, those are the qualities you need to win. Investors know this, at least unconsciously. The reason they like it when you don't need them is not simply that they like what they can't have, but because that quality is what makes founders succeed. Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you."
-- April 2009: "I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want."
During Sam's time at Loopt, a group of senior Loopt employees "twice urged board members to fire him as CEO over what they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior...Senior executives {at Loopt} approached the board with concerns that Altman at times failed to tell the truth—sometimes about matters so insignificant one person described them as paper cuts. At one point, they threatened to leave the company if he wasn’t removed as CEO." [WSJ23a]
Sam also helps orchestrate an elaborate, multi-year plan to seize control of Reddit, by slowly diluting the ownership Condé Naste (who'd acquired it) until Reddit was effectively owned, once again, by its original founders, who'd also been part of Y Combinator's first cohort. (The plan succeeded.)
~2007: At age 13, Annie starts using Zoloft to help with symptoms of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), anxiety, and depression. [AA19b].
~2009: At age 15, Annie starts using birth control pills. [AA19b].
In ~September 2012, Annie begins college at Tufts University, intending to complete a pre-medical track. [AA15a]
Years, later, Annie wrote the following about her time in college (i.e. ~2012-2016):
On 10-15-2023, Annie wrote: "I had only fuzzy memories of sexual abuse until I went no contact {with Sam and her other relatives}, because of the emotional and financial and other abuses. I was unpacking my own sexual health, both by myself and in therapy, since 2012. Attempting to understand experiences like mid-sex projectile vomiting." [AA23u]
On 3-27-2024, Annie wrote: "I had flashbacks of the sexual and physical abuses my whole life, though it wasn’t until the silence of no contact that I had the space to connect the dots. In college and after, I had projectile vomited multiple times during sex with men I loved and trusted. I remember talking about this and related things with therapists, unable to wrap my mind around how violently my body had responded." [AA24b]
2012: Sam sells Loopt to Green Dot $43.4 million, coming away with $5 million himself. Sam uses that $5 million, along with money provided by Peter Thiel, to launch his own venture fund, Hydrazine Capital, with his brother Jack Altman. [EW23a]
"{Sam} also took a year off, read a stack of books, traveled, played video games, and, “like a total tech-bro meme,” he said, “was like, I’m gonna go to an ashram for a while, and it changed my life. I’m sure I’m still anxious and stressed in a lot of ways, but my perception of it is that I feel very relaxed and happy and calm."" [EW23a]
From a recent (September 24, 2024) podcast he did, it seems that Sam did a "weekend-long retreat in Mexico" where he did psychedelics, and that this retreat & the psychedelics he took significantly changed his inner state, helping him become more calm (he was more anxious before).
On March 30, 2015, Annie submits an appeal letter [AA15a] to a Dean at Tufts University asking if Tufts will allow her to graduate early at the end of the semester {which would have been May 17, 2015} since, by that time, Annie would have completed all of her graduation requirements, except for Tufts University's "residency requirement."
Annie's request to graduate early (in 6 semesters) is denied.
Annie still ends up finishing college early - just in 7 semesters [EW23a], rather than 6. She graduates with a degree in Biopsychology (in ~2016).
Upon graduating, Annie is extremely depressed [EW23a], and she does not pursue medical school [AA19b] as she'd initially intended to [AA15a].
In Annie's own words: "I majored in Biopsychology in college, with a minor in dance, and took all the prerequisite courses for medical school. Then I noped out of the pre-med route to focus on movement, writing, comedy, music, and food. I got certified as a yoga teacher, worked for an online CSA (community-supported agriculture) company, began writing more frequently, started slowly going to open mic nights and putting videos on YouTube, and began a podcast and this blog {i.e. her blog on Medium.}" [AA19b].
From [EW23a]: "{Annie} left college early...She had completed all of her Tufts credits, and she was severely depressed. She wanted to live in a place that felt better to her. She wanted to make art. She felt her survival depended on it. She graduated after seven semesters."
From [BB24d]: "Annie, on the other hand, was not part of the Altman family brand. With each new step in her life, she seemed to veer farther away from the path she felt was expected of her. She completed pre med requirements, but decided not to pursue that further. She did improv classes, stand up comedy, yoga, teacher training. She said her dad was supportive of this turn away from a more traditional path. Her mom, who was a physician, was less excited."
Annie Altman: "My siblings and mother were very judgmental about the shift and also very "This is just a phase." I was an am at total daddy's girl. With my mother, there was closeness only when I was doing what she wanted me to do, which is a story {that} sadly, I feel like a lot of people can relate to.""
At some point before October 3, 2016 [TF16a] - Jerry and Connie get a martial separation [AA23r, EW23a] -- not a divorce, just a separation [AA23r].
Thus, legally, they remain married, even though they are separated [AA23r.]
(As with other events in this timeline, there's a reason I'm including this. Later on, this enables Connie to block Annie from receiving the funds her deceased father left to her.)
October 3, 2016: "Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" [TF16a] is published in the New Yorker. The author, Tad Friend, includes anecdotes from his time spent observing Sam's day-to-day activities, as well as quotes from Sam, his brothers, and their mother (Connie.)
Jack eyed a board game called Samurai on the bookshelf and said, “Sam won every single game of Samurai when we were kids because he always declared himself the Samurai leader: ‘I have to win, and I’m in charge of everything.’ ”
Altman shot back, “You want to play speed chess right now?,” and Jack laughed."
~2017: At age 22, just before her 23rd birthday, Annie stops taking birth control pills. Around this same time, she also finishes tapering off of Zoloft. She also drastically alters her diet. [AA19b]
As a result, Annie loses her period for a year. [AA19b]
November 29, 2017: Sam returns to John Burroughs School, where he speaks to students about "development of startups and AI...and our collective responsibility to make sure they benefit everyone." [JBS17a]
January 2018: Jerry sends Annie a text, part of which reads, "And just for clarification, I don’t just support your lifestyle now or your physical and emotional endeavors now; I support your life. I will always support your life. These are aspects of your life, so I support those too. And there is not a “now”, as Yoda might say. There is only life, for as long as that may be." [AA18a]
February 1, 2018: Annie posts "My journey from beige foods" on Youtube.
Here is an article that details and explains the preference for "beige foods" in picky eaters (especially as children): "Why Picky Eaters Are Fixated on White and Beige Foods Only!" by Alisha Grogan (MOT, OTR/L) on yourkidstable.com
At one point in human history, children needed to have certain defensive mechanisms to survive in the wild. They needed to avoid eating anything poisonous. Green foods in particular are a signal in their child brain that the food might not be safe. Since white food is void of all color, it naturally looks very safe to them. All this decision making about food color happens on a sub-conscious level for most children.
In today’s culture, A LOT of processed foods that picky eaters love happen to be white or beige. Maybe that’s not totally on purpose. These are some common white and beige foods that picky eaters tend to accept:
When a child is struggling with picky eating, it’s for a reason. Eating may be difficult because of different textures of food, it could make their tummy hurt, or be too hard to chew. Kids usually don’t verbalize these difficulties, but with extreme picky eating, they almost certainly exist. Once your child is eating a few white, beige, or even yellow foods, they deem the food safe. Safe that the food won’t feel weird or hurt. Again, probably subconsciously, they identify the color as safe and will be most likely to eat other foods that are the same color, while refusing foods that are a different color."
February 2, 2018: Sam tweets, "Check out my sister on youtube!" [SA18a]
At some point in 2018, Annie visits Sam in San Francisco, while Sam has some friends over. One of Sam's friends asks Annie to play a song she'd written. Annie begins to play the song on her ukulele. While she is playing the song, Sam abruptly, wordlessly gets up and walks upstairs to his room [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "The next day, she {Annie} told him {Sam} she was upset and asked him why he left. “And he was kind of like, ‘My stomach hurt,’ or ‘I was too drunk,’ or ‘too stoned, I needed to take a moment.’ And I was like, ‘Really? That moment? You couldn’t wait another 90 seconds?’”"
On May 25, 2018, Annie's Dad, Jerry Altman, has a heart attack while rowing on Creve Coeur Lake outside St. Louis, and dies at the hospital soon after, at age 67 [EW23a].
From [EW23a]: "That same year, Jerry Altman died. He’d had his heart issues, along with a lot of stress, partly, Annie told me, from driving to Kansas City to nurse along his real-estate business. The Altmans’ parents had separated. Jerry kept working because he needed the money."
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Note: In my opinion, Annie and Sam tell stories about their dad's death that, to me, seem rather different and hard to reconcile --
Annie says:
Surely retiring the father you claimed closeness with was more valuable than a watch????????
If our Dad had his needs taken care of, I would have supported multiple fancy watches" [AA24m]
Sam's wristwatches:
Sam can be seen wearing {what seems likely to be} his Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 in "WIRED25: Sebastian Thrun & Sam Altman Talk Flying Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence", published 10/16/2018:
You can make out the distinctive "moonphase window" [SW22a] (annotated in green, where I've traced segments along the boundary of the moonphase window itself in red), calendar info with the day and month (annotated in orange), the pure 18k yellow gold [SW22a] crown (annotated in blue), along with three of the watch's golden numerals: 12 (at the top of the dial just above the calendar info, annotated in grey), 2 (annotated in light/aqua blue), and 4 (annotated in pink).
Sam says:
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Charles Johnson claims -- here, at around ~6:30 and ~13:18 -- that, after Jerry's death, Sam Altman "started doing a lot more drugs."
I am aware that Charles Johnson is not always a reliable source of information. But it seems that Charles Johnson had ties with Peter Thiel around that time (2018), so I think Johnson's claims that he repeatedly interacted with Sam in person and at his house are plausible.
I repeatedly asked (here, here, here, here, here, and here) Charles Johnson on Twitter to comment/elaborate on the claims that he made, but he didn't. (Some of my replies were getting marked as "spam" or "offensive" (which confused me, as I don't think they were "spam" or "offensive"), so that probably didn't help.)
After Jerry's death, Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie see Jerry's Will. They purposefully withhold it from Annie for a year. Annie only finds out about this a year later (in 2019) [AA24b].
On May 28, 2018, Annie gives a speech at her Dad's funeral (which she publishes online a year later [AA18a].)
The week Jerry dies {in May 2018}, Annie has one of the worst panic attacks of her life: "The most recent panic attack, and perhaps darkest one I’ve experienced, happened the week he died." [AA18b].
June 12, 2018: The first docket entry in the legal case relating to Jerry's death, Will, and Testament (my wording here may not be the most accurate, as I'm not an expert in probate court terminology).
Connie Francis Gibstine (Jerry's wife, and mother to Annie, Jack, Max, and Sam) is the independent personal representative. Annie Altman, Sam Altman, Jack Altman, and Max Altman are heirs.
Peter Palumbo is Connie's attorney. Remember his name -- he shows up later (in an email from Sam to Annie in 2019 -- I'll cover this later in this timeline.)
See the images below.
Image source: https://www.courts.mo.gov/cnet/cases/newHeader.do?inputVO.caseNumber=18SL-PR01960&inputVO.courtId=CT21#docket
July 9, 2018 -- the legal case regarding Jerry's estate and Will shows a "Proof of Mailing."
From section 473.033. Notice of letters — duty of clerk — publication — form. of Chapter 473 Probate Code -- Administration of Decedents' Estates of the Revised Statues of Missouri (bolding is my own):
"The clerk, as soon as letters testamentary or of administration are issued, shall case to be published in some newspaper a notice of the appointment of the personal representative, in which shall be included a notice to creditors of the decedent to file their claims in the court or be forever barred. The notice shall be published once a week for four consecutive weeks. The clerk shall send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail to each heir and devisee whose name and address are shown on the application for letters or other records of the court, but any heir or devisee may waive notice to such person by filing a waiver in writing. The personal representative may, but is not required to, send a copy of the notice by ordinary mail or personal service to any creditor of the decedent whose claim has not been paid, allowed or disallowed as provided in section 473.403. Proof of publication of notice under this section and proof of mailing of notice shall be filed not later than ten days after completion of the publication."
In my (amateur) understanding, this means that Annie, being one of Jerry's heirs, should have received a notice, by mail, of the appointment of the personal representative (her mother Connie Gibstine) in July 2018?
But it seems to me that Annie didn't learn of her father's will until late 2019?
~August 2018: Connie kicks Annie off of her health insurance [AA24h].
On August 14, 2018, Annie starts a podcast, the All Humans Are Human podcast.
Annie experiences "6 months of hacking into all her accounts" [AA23d] after starting her podcast.
"" [RE23a]
On 12-19-2019, Annie wrote: "In this calendar year I...had almost all of my personal accounts have attempted or successful logins, had people logging on my wifi and other wifi issues (4 new modems, had excessive cell phone service issues, the pity-party list continues. I'm beyond my capacity of what I can handle alone." [AA--g]
Annie also had "a third or more" [RE23a] of her podcast ratings get deleted within a "few months" [RE23a] of starting her podcast. "When I started the podcast, before I did sex work or any other things that increased shadowbanning, I had shadowbanning immediately, and I had podcast ratings get deleted when it {the podcast} was called 'True Shit' right when I started it." [RE23a]
At some point (before Annie begins sex work): Annie experiences shadowbanning on her social media accounts.
From [AA--h]:
"Almost all of my social media accounts have been/are shadowbanned...OpenAI would be tagged here also if they had a account.
{This shadowbanning} It started for me before any swork {sex work} started. I don't mean that this account would be at 100K or some set number. I do mean it makes no sense to be unable to pass 1K, with over 100 podcasts and other creations, and consistent posting.
Old videos...get reduced to something like 2 views on @instagram and @youtube , podcast rating get frequently deleted on @apple @applepodcasts , people will get automatically unfollowed, posts will be restricted in who sees them, and more."
In ~September 2018, Annie meets with a yoga teacher named Joe [AA18b] to record a podcast episode.
Joe asks Annie, "what is your earliest memory?". Annie immediately responds, "'probably a panic attack'" [AA18b].
Then, as Annie writes, "Laying in bed later that night, Joe’s question popped back into my consciousness with a kind “please make your way into child’s pose.” I realized I had deceived myself (classic humaning) with my response to his question, “what is your earliest memory?”" [AA18b]
In ~October 2018, Annie attends a sound bath at a yoga studio: "I went to a sound bath at the yoga studio about a month ago, the second sound bath I’ve ever attended. (I cried at both and if you know me you know that I am happy about things that help me cry.) Sound baths are a guided meditation where you lay in corpse pose and receive sounds of specific frequencies, allowing vibrations to “wash” over and through you. Some shit is bound to surface in the tides." [AA18b]
On November 8, 2018, Annie publishes "Reclaiming my memories" [AA18b] on her blog (see dropdown):
On December 7, 2018, Annie records and publishes an episode of her podcast featuring Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman, titled 21. Podcastukkah #5: Feedback is feedback with Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman. [AA18c].
The show begins with Annie providing an introduction to the her podcast and some thoughts about honesty and truth, and then thaking her brothers for coming on her podcast. Her brothers call her "Cannie." ("Cannie", short for "Trash Can" [AA24o], is their nickname for her.)
Annie: "Hello. My name is Annie Altman, and I've spent my life on a quest for true shit. Welcome to Episode 5 of Podcastukkah. So far, I've learned that 'the truth hurts' is some true shit, and there is no ultimate true shit, because my truth is different from someone else's truth, and my truth now is different from my truth a year ago. Some true shit that has held up over time: one, be honest, the truth will come out eventually, and lying only complicates things. Two, the truth is simple, and lies are complicated. Three, be kind, and treat people how you want to be treated. If you are uninterested in someone else imposing their true shit on to you, do your best to be mindful about imposing your true shit onto others. This show is basically an opportunity for me to shoot the shit about things I want to shoot the shit about with people I want to shoot the shit with. Thanks for listening to me practice "human"-ing. In this episode, I'll be discussing projection with all three of my older brothers. Sam, Max, and Jack Altman, I'm very grateful and privileged that you were all willing to take some time during this Thanksgiving holiday to circle around a microphone and record some thoughts on projection. Thank you all for coming."
Sam: "Thanks for having us on, Cannie."
Jack: "Thrilled to be here, Cannie."
...
Note: in my opinion, there's sort of a pattern throughout the episode: Annie brings up something she wants to talk about, often related to projection, feelings, or working through challenging emotions; her brothers cut her off or subtly alter the topic of conversation away from what Annie originally brought up, instead discusing topics that are...less sensitive, basically. It's sort of hard to describe. I'd recommend listening to the episode yourself - I think you'll sort of see what I'm talking about. (This is just my interpretaiton, of course, You may disagree, and that's understandable.)
During the episode, Annie starts to talk about projection (in psychology), as well as how people are "wired to remember painful experiences." Sam interjects and cuts her off, moving the topic of conversation away from "remembering painful experiences" to "hypocrisy", and then detours the topic of conversation even further away from projection & memory to "giving feedback {at work}." Mutliple times, Annie starts to return to the topic of projection; each time, the Altman brothers interject and start talking about "feedback", specifically in work-related contexts. (Note: perhaps this interpretation of mine is biased. This was the impression I got after listening to the podcast, specifically from 24:30 -- 39:05 (the end of the podcast.) As always, I've linked the source material, and you can go listen yourself and see what you think.)
Annie (24:30): "...in some ways, we're wired to remember painful experiences so that we do learn from them...to remember negativity, and remember those things --"
Sam (interjecting) (24:55): " -- more than that, I think one thing we're particularly wired for, I don't know why, is to not like hypocrisy. That's like a very deep thing..."
In [EW23a], Elizabeth Weil writes, "Among her various art projects, Annie makes a podcast called All Humans Are Human. The first Thanksgiving after their father’s death, all the brothers agreed to record an episode with her. Annie wanted to talk on air about the psychological phenomenon of projection: what we put on other people. The brothers steered the conversation into the idea of feedback — specifically, how to give feedback at work.
After she posted the show online, Annie hoped her siblings, particularly Sam, would share it. He’d contributed to their brothers’ careers. Jack’s company, Lattice, had been through YC. “I was like, ‘You could just tweet the link. That would help. You don’t want to share your sister’s podcast that you came on?’” He did not. “Jack and Sam said it didn’t align with their businesses.”" [EW23a]
I also think it's worth noting that, at this point in time (December 7, 2018), Sam, Jack, and Max (and Connie) have seen Jerry's Will, and are aware that it stipulates an inheritance for Annie, but are purposefully withholding this information from Annie [AA24b].
February 21, 2019: Annie publishes [AA19b] "Period lost, period found" on her blog.
~March 2019: Sam Altman -- at the time, president of Y Combinator -- is asked to resign by the firm's leaders, as well as by Paul Graham and (especially) his wife Jessica Livingston. [WSJ23a] Sam leaves Y Combinator in March 2019. See [WSJ23a] for details.
March 6, 2019: Annie publishes "18 reasons I spent 18 years criticizing my appearance" [AA19c] on her blog.
By ~May 2019 [EW23a], Annie has become sick with a combination of illnesses that make it hard for her to work [AA24b, AA23k, AA--f, AA--g, AA23m, EW23a, AA23r, AA24b].
(As with the rest of this post -- see the dropdown for details.)
In ~summer 2019, about a year after the death of her Dad (Jerry), Annie is notified about being the primary beneficiary of her Dad's 401K. [AA23m, AA24a, AA24b]
In light of these situational factors, Annie makes a plan to quit her job for 6 months [AA--c] to focus on her health, expecting that she'd receive money that Jerry had left for her, which would cover her financial needs during that time. She notifies her relatives of this plan, [AA24b, AA23k, AA23m, AA24a]. She notifies her relatives that she is sick. [AA18b]
In the summer of 2019, Annie carries out her plan as intended, and quits her job at a dispensary [AA24b]. Annie quits her job while in the middle of a process of completing paperwork that she had to complete to receive the money. That is, she hadn't yet received the 401K money when she quit her job, but was expecting to receive it soon {once the paperwork was completed.} [AA23r]
However, after quitting her job, while in process of completing the rest of the necessary paperwork to receive the money that Jerry left to her in his 401K, Annie discovers, to her surprise, that the money Jerry left for her in his 401K is going to be withheld until Annie {currently ~25} is in her 60's [AA23m].
It turns out that her mother Connie used, as Annie describes it, a "legal loophole" [AA23k] of sorts to override Jerry's wishes and block Annie from receiving the 401K funds Jerry had left to her. [AA24b, AA23k, AA23m, AA23r]
Thus, Annie ends up with a set of serious health issues that make it hard for her to stand and hard to work, and also unemployed and low on money.
Finding herself in an increasingly-desperate financial situation, Annie starts selling some of her possessions (furniture [BB24d] and clothes [AA24b]) for money. Eventually, for the first time in her life, Annie asks her mother Connie for financial help. Connie refuses to provide help [BB24d]. Annie then asks Sam for financial help; he was "told to say no because of her {Connie} wanting him to say no." [BB24d] See also: [AA23k, EW23a]
Sunday, September 22, 2019, 1:55PM: For the first time, Sam provides Annie with access to Jerry's will, which had been withheld from Annie for over a year following Jerry's death {on May 25, 2018} by Sam, Connie, Jack, and Max.
See the image below:
In December 2019, while living in LA, Annie, running low on money, goes on the SeekingArrangements.com website -- a website for sugar dating and escorting -- for the first time. [AA24b]
[AA24b] (~January 2020, I think), Annie does two in-person sessions with a family therapist with Sam and Connie. The therapist is made aware of Annie's situation -- i.e. that Annie is sick with multiple illnesses that make it hard for her to work, low on money, and is still grieving the death of her father (Jerry.)
Connie, however, tells the family therapist that she thinks it would be "best for Annie's mental health" if Annie fully financially supports herself. Sam agrees.
The family therapist is shocked, considering Sam's extreme wealth.
The therapist convinces Sam and Connie to agree to provide Annie with 6 months of financial support for Annie's basic needs (i.e. rent, food, medical bills) [AA24b].
Sam and Connie end up not honoring their agreement. They send money late, or send less money than was originally agreed, or force Annie to "grovel" [AA24b] for the money.
(At this point in time, Sam's net worth is likely in the 10's of millions of dollars.)
Perhaps with her {the therapist} highlighting that I never asked them {Sam, Connie} for financial help until very ill, and it still being so early in grieving our Dad {Jerry}, and with her {the therapist} highlighting their enormous wealth, the therapist somehow persuaded them to give short-term help for my basic needs...
My mom {Connie} and my brother {Sam} didn’t honor the therapist’s plan for six months of financial support, and my rent money was late or less-than-agreed or had-to-be-groveled-for." [AA24b].
Somewhere around this time (I think?), Sam tells Annie he wants her to start taking Zoloft again [EW23a], which she had stopped taking at age 22 (i.e. in 2016) [AA19b] because she "hated how it made her feel" [EW23a]. Sam later tells Annie that she will only receive money {from him} if she goes back on Zoloft [AA23c].
"At one point, Sam wanted her {Annie} to get back on Zoloft, an antidepressant, which she had started as a teen but had stopped later on. She {Annie} forwarded me {Ellen Huet, reporting for Bloomberg - see [BB24d]} an email from Sam where he asked her to share her bank statements and to allow him and his mom to sit in on some of her therapy sessions in exchange for her rent and medical expenses being covered. She felt like it was his way of exerting leverage or power over her." [BB24d]
In May 2020, Annie moves back to the Big Island of Hawai’i, where she'd lived before living in LA. Annie writes, "This was my plan Y — find a low-labor work trade. I found a farm with a potential for a work trade, and despite being only a couple months out of the walking boot felt it was overall more healing than staying in a studio apartment I may or may not have enough rent money for, across from a park that was taped off due to Covid restrictions. When I notified one of my siblings of finding a farm work trade, he notified the rest of the relatives who group messaged me they would not be providing any of the final month of support agreed on with the therapist. I had planned to use the rent money for food." [AA24b]
While Annie is work-trading on the rural farm (~June 2020), Sam messages Annie and asks her where he can send a diamond made from her Dad's ashes, even though
1) Annie is low on cash, and could use cash much more than an expensive Dad-ashes-diamond, and
2) Annie recalls that her Dad wanted just cremation, and never indicated that he wanted to be turned into a diamond.
Annie finds this to be a very odd/insensitive gesture. [AA24b, EW23a]
At this point, Annie decides to go "full no contact" with her relatives (Sam, Jack, Max, Connie), following the recommendation of the family therapist she'd done sessions with a few months earlier with Sam and Connie. [AA24b]
"My Father never asked to become a diamond. I never sent my sibling the farm address. The mailbox was open, in a cluster of mailboxes in the middle of nowhere on the island. Plus, the most financially reasonable thing for me to have done with a diamond at that point was to pawn it for food money — and my sibling {Sam} was aware.
I decided to go full no contact with my relatives. The family therapist we spoke with recommended I consider this more seriously, after telling me she could not professionally recommend doing more group sessions. She was not the first therapist to tell me to go no contact. Withholding the final month of a six month plan for basic life support, while I was very sick, while withholding money left to me from my Dad, while offering a diamond Dad didn’t ask to become to be sent to a rural mailbox, was my final straw to begin grieving all three of my siblings and my mother. A completely different and similar grieving process as grieving my Dad.
The distinctions between “family” and “relatives” became more clear everyday."
~August-September 2020: A few months after going full no contact with her relatives (Sam, Jack, Max, Connie) Annie begins having health issues with her ankle again, which make it hard for her to stand/walk, forcing Annie to stop work-trading on the farm. An owner of the farm gives Annie some computer work, that she can do while seated, for him.
Annie also applies for EBT food stamps and Medicaid.
September 2020: Annie starts having PTSD flashbacks (to being sexually abused by Sam when she was 4.) [AA24b] These flashbacks continue for 18 months (i.e. from ~September 2020 to February 2022). [AA--f]
(From [AA24p], it seems that Annie still has PTSD as of August 9, 2024.)
Annie writes: "I had considered and attempted various mindless computer jobs, and found myself completely incapable. After going no contact because of financial and emotional abuse, I was flooded with memories of sexual abuse I had repressed...I had flashbacks of the sexual and physical abuses my whole life, though it wasn’t until the silence of no contact that I had the space to connect the dots...My days were hazes of PTSD flashbacks with whatever grounding exercises I could do, whatever floor yoga and stretching I could do, and physical therapy. I had to budget basic things like grocery trips based on how much I could walk or carry...I was constantly stressing about my health and money, and feeling hopeless and powerless." [AA24b]
As a "plan Z last resort" [AA24b], Annie starts posting content on OnlyFans.
(As with the rest of this post -- read the dropdown section.)
After going no contact because of financial and emotional abuse, I was flooded with memories of sexual abuse I had repressed. I had flashbacks of the sexual and physical abuses my whole life, though it wasn’t until the silence of no contact that I had the space to connect the dots. In college and after, I had projectile vomited multiple times during sex with men I loved and trusted. I remember talking about this and related things with therapists, unable to wrap my mind around how violently my body had responded. *
Now, literally on my ass from tendon and nerve and hormonal and digestive and ovarian cyst pain, I had a lot of time to remember the flashbacks’ details." [AA24b]
September 22, 2020: Annie publishes "An open letter to relatives" [AA20a] on her blog.
Annie experiences two sexual assaults. These sexual assaults intensify Annie's PTSD flashbacks to the sexual abuse she experienced from Sam when she was 4 years old.
Annie gets on the SeekingArrangements.com website again. She starts escorting and in-person sex work, as a sort of last-resort means of obtaining the money she needs to survive. A particular experience with an in-person sex work client of hers causes Annie to have more PTSD flashbacks. (See: "How I Started Escorting" on Annie's blog.)
(As with the rest of this post -- read the dropdown section.)
Annie, unable to afford a stable place to live, experiences a long period of housing insecurity, at times living with strangers from the internet, sleeping on the floor, and living in numerous places with no running water or electricity.
Ellen Huet {see [BB24d]}: "{Annie} also did in-person sex work for two years. She says she didn't want to, but it was the work that she was able to fit into her unpredictable schedule of dealing with her health issues. Her lack of stable income, led to a long period of housing insecurity. At times, she lived with sex work clients, or even with strangers from the internet. Her sex work contributed to her precarious housing. She didn't have pay stubs or regular income, which limited the kind of leases she could get. It felt like this interconnected web, exactly the kind of vicious cycle that something like universal basic income tries to break." [BB24d]
Annie Altman: "If I had a security deposit in my bank account - {I} never would have lived with this man, not, not even a little bit of a chance, would I have lived with this man. There's some unhealthy sex work experiences, and I've also had very traumatizing experiences from in-person work that would not have happened if I had secure housing. I'm still in and, have been so long in, survival mode that it really shifts everything. It really shifts everything. Times when it's been really like...places...like staying just for a week and a half {somewhere} and then the floor for a week, and then someone's place for a night, and then a floor for a week - in those places of really moving that much in a short period of time, there's no - I had no energy for anything else. Really feeling a sense of helplessness and powerlessness that I have never experienced, ever." [BB24d]
More from [BB24c]:
Ellen Huet: "I'm driving through the lush green forests of Maui. Annie Altman, Sam Altman's little sister is sitting in the passenger seat. You heard from her briefly in the first episode."
...
Ellen Huet: "We're taking a tour of the different places Annie has moved around in the last couple of years, driving down dirt roads to look at cabins and houses hidden behind enormous tropical plants."
Ellen Huet: "For much of the past two years, Annie hasn't been able to afford a stable place to live."
Annie Altman: "The place you just passed is one of the places I stayed at longer-term in all of the houselessness...{I spent} two months on a newly-built, {with} no running water or no electricity, house, at the far end, back, of the property."
Ellen Huet: "And I think she's an important part of Sam's story."
Annie Altman: "And at the time I had nowhere to stay and no rent money, certainly no deposit money, and barely enough room, barely enough money for rent."
Ellen Huet: "Recently, over the course of just a year, she moved twenty two times, and that's on average about twice a month. Sometimes she has stayed places for a week at a time, or even just a night or two. Some of them have been illegal rentals without running water. She says she's slept on floors and friends' houses. She stayed with strangers when she didn't have another option."
...
Annie Altman: "The man who lived in the front house messaged me on Instagram, and I stayed in his kids' room the week that they weren't there, and then slept on the floor in the common room the week that the kids were there.
Annie Altman: "I was houseless. I didn't have somewhere to go."
Annie Altman: "I stayed in this cabin with the slanty roof right there for three months."
{A podcast host}: "How many different places have you lived in that didn't have running water?"
Annie: "Maybe five-ish? Five or six? I don't know."
Ellen Huet: "Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in San Francisco, her brother Sam was having a spectacular year in 2023. The success of ChatGPT had launched OpenAI into the stratosphere. Sam was named CEO of the Year by Time magazine. He spent months flying around the globe talking to world leaders about AI."
Ellen Huet: "It sounds wonderful, almost utopian. But Sam was saying on stage that everyone should have enough money, enough food, everyone should have a place to live, while his own sister was struggling with homelessness. I want to believe Sam's promises about abundance, but Annie's story complicates a lot of the things Sam has projected about the future."
Early 2020 -- mid-2021: Sam is in the middle of an $85 million "real-estate shopping spree" [BI23a], that took place between early 2020 and mid-2021 [BI23a].
June 7, 2021: Annie publishes "An Open Letter To The EMDR Trauma Therapist Who Fired Me For Doing Sex Work" on her blog. [AA21c]
In late 2021, Sam reaches out to Annie with "seemingly kind words" [AA23m] 1 year after full contact (or, equivalently, 1.5 years after the two family therapy sessions) [AA24k]. Annie writes, "We spoke on the phone three times, and through these conversations I began to suspect the offer was another attempt at control. It seemed I would never have direct ownership of the house. Also, given the nature of my PTSD flashbacks, the house felt like an unsafe place to actually heal my mind and body." [AA23m] Thus, Annie refuses Sam's offer.
Also (as it seems to me), during these phone calls, Annie tells Sam that she is doing sex work, even though she doesn't want to (i.e. she is doing so out of desperation, to survive, while burdened with various illnesses that prevent her from doing a normal job.) Sam responds: "Good." [BB24d]. (Though "A person close to Sam says that Sam remembers the conversation differently." [BB24d].)
On November 13, 2021, Annie makes some posts (Tweets) to X (Twitter) -- [AA21a] and [AA21b] -- where she publicly states that she "experienced sexual, physical, emotional, verbal, financial, and technological abuse from my biological siblings, mostly Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman", among other things --
One month later {~December 2021}, Annie's "long term home was broken into" [AA24e], and her "two most valuable items were left untouched." [AA24l]:
2023: Annie seems to think that Sam was hoping that Annie would die or commit suicide before she could do too much damage to Sam' s reputation, carrying her knowledge to the grave. [AA23b, AA23e].
2023-present: Annie continues to speak out against Sam on social media, including through various posts on Twitter/X (c.f. the References, and key excerpts from them section of this post.)
~September 2023 (before September 25, 2023): Elizabeth Weil interviews & does fact-checking with both Sam Altman and Annie Altman, in person, prior to publishing Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age.
Sam does not talk about Annie with Elizabeth Weil.
September 24, 2023: After speaking in-person with Elizabeth Weil, the day before Weil's article is published, Sam reaches out to Annie via email, apologizing to Annie and asking for forgiveness about not sending money to Annie in the years prior, when Annie was in a desperate financial situation.
September 25, 2023: Elizabeth Weil publishes Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age.
October 4, 2023: some of Annie's X (Twitter) posts receive newfound attention / rediscovery on X (Twitter). One of the people who sees them first the first time is me.
October 5, 2023: Multiple people attempt to edit the Sam Altman Wikipedia page and add details about Annie's allegations that Sam sexually abused her into the Personal Life section of the Sam Altman Wikipedia page -- only for those edits to removed just minutes later.
Over the course of the following months, on the Talk page the Sam Altman article on Wikipedia, Wikipedia editors get into extensive, heated discussions about whether or not to include Annie's claims on Sam's Wikipedia page. (Ultimately, after much discussion, they finally do include Annie's claims on Sam's Wikipedia page.)
No details about Annie's allegations are present.
Details about Annie's allegations have been added.
The details about Annie's allegations have been removed.
this) applied to them, and you can't click on them, and there's a note that says, "edit summary removed" next to all of them:October 5, 2023 -- October, 6, 2023: Some posts on Hacker News regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 are repeatedly flagged and/or removed (according to some comments on Hacker News).
October 7, 2023: I post the original version of this post.
I create an account, "@prometheus5015" on X (Twitter), and make some posts on X indicating that I made this Lesswrong post and that I'd be interested in hearing more from Annie and Sam about these claims.
I also reply to a Tweet of Annie's, explaining that I made this post on LessWrong, and asking Annie if she'd be willing to "confirm/deny the accuracy of my post".
October 8, 2023: Annie Reposts my reply, confirming that the post is (generally) accurate, but noting that she needs some time to process.
October 15, 2023: Annie makes another Repost of my reply, stating that my post is accurate while also providing a few corrections and some additional information (which I appreciate, and have since included in this LessWrong post.)
https://archive.is/p5A3E
https://archive.is/Y6Szf
https://archive.is/f6bOH
https://archive.is/56MzK
https://archive.is/qd4Rh
https://archive.is/HXj24
https://archive.is/YWDiw
https://archive.is/QiB8C
https://archive.is/TqBaH
https://archive.is/VvVb5
https://archive.is/XBfdt
https://archive.is/1LTgf
https://archive.is/ccvnb
https://archive.is/2vPcA
https://archive.is/G28P0
https://archive.is/bTMiP
https://archive.is/Qq5Wf
https://archive.is/qkrDX
https://archive.is/JSoNJ
https://archive.is/opIq9
https://archive.is/rxHte
https://archive.is/HulHZ
https://archive.is/0yYYP
https://archive.is/4JC1B
https://archive.is/U2WQ0
https://archive.is/mLBhK
https://archive.is/BFAvO
https://archive.is/gcT9e
https://archive.is/UKdME
https://archive.is/xcdoG
https://archive.is/yeSpn
https://archive.is/AkcqL
https://archive.is/eRv4b
https://archive.is/i196X
https://archive.is/PcqbJ
https://archive.is/C7GVo
https://archive.is/Kqj0f
https://archive.is/ioWu9
https://archive.is/SsS1r
https://archive.is/CdvIk
https://archive.is/kVtow
https://archive.is/emMf0
https://archive.is/yt4xx
https://archive.is/Erjxl
https://archive.is/Hzizq
https://archive.is/wPXn8
https://archive.is/dsA2W
https://archive.is/4OzS2
https://archive.is/kLd7N
https://archive.is/nTc9S
https://archive.is/sNM8Z
https://archive.is/uS7an
https://archive.is/j9LY5
https://archive.is/5GZC0
https://archive.is/mGiSs
https://archive.is/0aXvb
https://archive.is/HQgaG
https://archive.is/w6UZo
https://archive.is/w6UZo
https://archive.is/1Xysd
https://archive.is/45xui
https://archive.is/9gbw4
https://archive.is/4bmhe
https://archive.is/AOAG5
https://archive.is/viyzg
https://archive.is/hgY5a
https://archive.is/lrC7W
October 14, 2023: Sam Altman visits John Burroughs School (JBS) in St. Louis, Missouri.
November 17, 2023: OpenAI's board of directors fire Sam Altman.
November 22, 2023: Sam Altman is reinstated as CEO of OpenAI.
November 22, 2023: Annie writes, "At one point recently a high school faculty member, from our same school {John Burroughs School}, spoke with me and attempted to convince me to break no contact." [AA23m]
December 24, 2023: Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends [WSJ23a], by Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal, is published.
June 6, 2024: OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive [BB24a] is released. It's the first in a 5-part "OpenAI" series on Bloomberg's The Foundering podcast.
The 5 episodes ("OpenAI Part 1" through "OpenAI Part 5") provide a history of Sam and his rise in the tech world. Also, episodes 3 and 4 feature interviews with Annie. It seems, from the 3rd episode, that the podcast hosts actually went to Hawaii and spent time with Annie in person, and she showed them some of the (many) places she'd lived during her years of housing instability on Hawaii. (c.f. OpenAI Part 3 later on in this Timeline.)
June 13, 2024: OpenAI Part 3: Heaven and Hell, Part 1 [BB24c] is released.
In this episode, it seems the podcasts hosts went to Hawaii and spent time in-person with Annie. As I mentioned above, Annie showed them the (cheap/non-ideal) places she lived during her years of housing instability and financial insecurity in Hawaii.
I've included relevant excerpts from the episode transcript in the dropdown section here.
See the dropdown for details.
June 13, 2024: OpenAI Part 4: Heaven and Hell, Part 2 [BB24d] is released.
I've included relevant excerpts from the episode transcript in the dropdown section here.
See the dropdown for details.
September 13, 2024: Sam returns to St. Louis. He re-visits John Burroughs School (& talks to students about AI, o1, etc.), and is interviewed on the St. Louis on the Air podcast (also available here on YouTube.)
Have Sam or his other family members responded to these claims?
Sam himself has not directly responded, as far as I know.
However, I did see the following responses from his family. These are the only instances of Annie's family members responding to Annie's claims that I currently know of:
From Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age by Elizabeth Weil (published September 25, 2023) --
"The Altman family would like the world to know: “We love Annie and will continue our best efforts to support and protect her, as any family would.""
From OpenAI Part 4: Heaven and Hell, Part 2 from Bloomberg's the Foundering podcast (published June 20, 2024):
Ellen Huet (host of the podcast): "We reached out to Sam his siblings, and his mom for comment in this episode. His mom, Connie Gibstine, responded with this statement:"
Connie Gibstine: "We love Annie and are very concerned about her well being. Over the years, we have offered her financial support and help and continued to offer it today. Navigating the balance between providing support without enabling self destructive behavior for a family member with mental health struggles is extraordinarily difficult. We only want the best for Annie and hope everyone will treat her with compassion."
My Perspective
Opening Comments
How to interpret these claims?
Things I find Questionable/Unexplained
Annie claims her grandmother saw {Annie's brothers?} playing "dwarf tossing" with Annie's baby body, and condemned it. Did Annie's grandmother ever tell Jerry about this? Did Jerry or Connie ever witness this behavior? If so, how did they respond to it?
At what age did Sam develop vocal fry? Was the onset gradual, or sudden? Was it precipitated by a traumatic event that Sam experienced?
(Vocal fry can develop as a result of trauma. See: Vocal Fry: Defining a Common Language Register -- verywellhealth.com.)
If Sam molested Annie, what caused this highly abnormal behavior? Was it genetic factors, e.g. those encoding psychopathy, anti-social disorder, or related traits? Or might it have been learned behavior? Or was it perhaps downstream of a traumatic experience that Sam himself went through?
If Connie did indeed tell Annie to keep quiet about the sexual abuse she experienced from Sam -- why? Such a response is not normal. Why exactly did Connie not want Annie to speak about this? What motives did she have for having Annie not tell other people about getting molested by Sam?
Annie claims that, around ~2016-2018, before he died, Jerry was working overtime, commuting between St. Louis and Kansas city, with a heart condition, because he needed the money. But I am a bit confused -- Jerry was a lawyer, and Connie was a dermatologist. Both of those professions pay relatively well. Both Jack and Annie attended John Burroughs School, a private school (for grades 7-12) that currently charges students a staggering $36,300 per year in tuition. Though I can imagine ways in which it could be possible, I still wonder why exactly Jerry didn't have enough money to retire, and why Jerry needed to work overtime for money all the way up until he died at age 67.
Jerry sent Annie a text message in January 2018, part of which read "I don't just support your lifestyle now or your physical and emotional endeavors now; I support your life. I will always support your life. These are aspects of your life, so I support those too." What was the other part of this text message? What prompted Jerry to say this to Annie?
Annie has noted that Connie and her brothers were not as supportive of her career transition (away from a pre-med track and into yoga and more creative & artistic pursuits) after she graduated college, though Jerry was supportive. Is this related?
Jerry had a known heart condition. Why was he rowing on Creve Coeur Lake just before he died at age 67? Wouldn't he have known that this would have put him at risk for heart-related problems, e.g. a heart attack?
Did Jerry intentionally attempt to give himself a heart attack? Would Jerry have had any motives for killing himself?
How much did Jerry Altman know? Did he know anything?
Jerry was in the same household with Sam, Jack, Max, and Connie for many years. I think it's unlikely that he would have been completely ignorant of, at minimum, the various mental health issues that Annie experienced beginning in early childhood.
Some specific examples:
- Annie told Elizabeth Weil that she was thinking of suicide by age 5, and getting up in the middle of the night needing to take baths to calm her anxiety. Was 5-year-old Annie able to fill up the bath & take a bath unassisted? Or was there a family member who would help her? If so -- who was that family member? Did Jerry ever see this happen?
- On May 28, 2018 (3 years before Annie publicly acused Sam of molesting her), Annie wrote that her and Jerry were "always very close, talking about all the feels, all the music, and all the athletic activities." This seems especially notable to me. In light of this, I think it's extremely likely that Jerry was well-aware of Annie's various mental health problems. Additionally -- note that Annie said that her and Jerry were "always" very close. Hmm. It seems Annie told Elizabeth Weil that, at age 5, she began waking up in the middle of the night, needing to take baths to calm her anxiety [EW23a], and then by age 6, she was thinking about suicide, even though she didn't know the word. From [AA19c], it seems that Annie was about 7 when she began to criticize her appearance. If Jerry and Annie were "always" close, then it seems pretty likely to me that Jerry would have known about some of this. Additionally, Jerry likely witnessed his son Jack being a "tired" kid, falling asleep face-first in his mac-and-cheese at dinner. So, more questions: was Jerry, a lawyer, ever suspicious of the abnormal behavior he observed in two of his children (Jack, Annie)? Did he ever suspect that something was awry? Did he ever suspect anything of his oldest child, Sam? Did he ever witness abusive behavior from Sam?
As I stated earlier in the timeline -- I find it hard to reconcile the different stories Annie and Sam tell about their Dad's death? I'll copy-paste what I wrote above in the timeline here, regarding my confusion:
Note: In my opinion, Annie and Sam tell stories about their dad's death that, to me, seem rather different and hard to reconcile --
Annie says:
Surely retiring the father you claimed closeness with was more valuable than a watch????????
If our Dad had his needs taken care of, I would have supported multiple fancy watches" [AA24m]
Sam's wristwatches:
Sam can be seen wearing {what seems likely to be} his Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1 in "WIRED25: Sebastian Thrun & Sam Altman Talk Flying Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence", published 10/16/2018:
You can make out the distinctive "moonphase window" [SW22a] (annotated in green, where I've traced segments along the boundary of the moonphase window itself in red), calendar info with the day and month (annotated in orange), the pure 18k yellow gold [SW22a] crown (annotated in blue), along with three of the watch's golden numerals: 12 (at the top of the dial just above the calendar info, annotated in grey), 2 (annotated in light/aqua blue), and 4 (annotated in pink).
Sam says:
If was Sam Altman was completely fine with posting a link to Annie's Youtube channel on Twitter on Feb 2, 2018, why did he (and Jack Altman) refuse to post a link to the podcast episode he filmed with Annie on Dec 7, 2018 on the basis that it "didn't align with {his} businesses", as Annie claimed to Elizabeth Weil?
In the legal (probate) case (case number: 18SL-PR01960) relating to Jerry's Will and Estate had (opened 06/12/2018), a "Proof of Mailing" was submitted on 07/09/2018.
In my (amateur) understanding, this means that Annie should have received a notice in the mail from the court clerk notifying her that her mother (Connie) had been appointed as the legal representative for the legal (probate) case regarding Jerry's will and estate.
In light of this, I'm surprised that Annie, one of her father Jerry's legal heirs, only met Pete for the first time around 09/22/2019 (see the email that Sam Altman sent to Pete Palumbo and Annie Altman the Timeline above), so long after her father's death. Why was it that Sam both knew Pete before Annie did? Furthermore, Pete was working attorney for as Connie (the personal representative) as of 06/12/2018. Thus, at minimum, Connie knew Pete for over 1 year and 3 months before Sam sent the email instructing Pete to "meet" Annie on 09/22/2019. Why did Connie know Pete for so long, but (as it seems to me) never introduce Annie to him/tell Annie about him? Annie was an heir of Jerry's just like Sam was. Why was Sam in contact with Pete before Annie was? Why was Sam the one making the introduction? Shouldn't Pete have reached out to Annie himself, given that she was one of Jerry's legal heirs?
Annie notes that a passport was stolen from her mail around the time she started her podcast. The first episode of Annie's podcast came out on 08/14/2018. Hmm. Was Annie's passport the only thing stolen from Annie's mail around that time, or were other items stolen as well? Was the legally-required information regarding the legal (probate) case relating to Jerry's death/Will/Estate indeed mailed to Annie as legally required, only for it to be stolen out of Annie's mail? Who might have had a motive to steal such a thing from Annie's mail?
Why was the judge for the legal (probate) case regarding Jerry's Will and Estate reassigned twice (for a total of three different judges), within the span of 18 days?
Annie references a variety of things in [AA24a] Email about my Dad’s Trust (which is addressed to Annie's "mother's laywer" [AA24a], which I think is Pete Palumbo), including things that her short-term lawyer mentioned, that I don't fully understand:
-- something related to Hydrazine?
-- something related to "a fund of my siblings', and one of my Dad's buildings with my-Dad's-old-boss" [AA24a]?
-- divisions of {Jerry's Trust, which was established per his Will}?
-- delayment of the funding of Jerry's Trust?
-- Jerry's Trust now being funded, even though Pete Palumbo previously said it couldn't be funded?
-- why did Annie only learn that she could "make an as of the Trust with a monthly budget" [AA24a] after Annie's short-term lawyer talked to Pete Palumbo?
-- why was Anie not contacted about "the potential to request a non-prejudicial lump sum in accordance with my wishes" [AA24a]?
-- Annie writes, "The Trust makes it clear that my Dad's wish was for me to have been supported in tese six years since his death. In the absence of the support intended for me in my Dad’s Trust, I’ve experienced two and a half years of houseless and homelessness and daily PTSD flashbacks, and I’ve had to resort to survival sex work to support myself financially while still navigating physical illnesses." [AA24a]. Why was the fufillment of Jerry's wishes collectively blocked by Sam Altman, Connie Gibstine, and Pete Palumbo?
Why has it taken over 6 years for Jerry's estate to be administered? Why has Pete Palumbo repeatedly filed for extensions?
I thought that Jerry was working overtime up until his death until he died. But his personal property was valued at $727,107.49 less than 5 months after his death (and is now valued at over 1 million dollars.) This should have been enough money for Jerry to retire on. So why was Jerry still working?
Also -- what is this "personal property" of Jerry's? Where did it come from?
Annie has been speaking out about Sam for roughly 3 years now. In 2021, she made her claims quite clear on her X account. I am confused as to why there has been basically 0 coverage of her claims in the media? In general, why is Annie so absent in anything related to Sam Altman on the Internet, especially considering the nature of her relationship with Sam?
Why, as some commenters on Hacker News claim, has a post regarding Annie's claims that Sam sexually assaulted her at age 4 been repeatedly removed?
Sam returned to his high school, John Burroughs School (JBS), on October 14, 2023. On November 22, 2023, Annie wrote "At one point recently a high school faculty member, from our same school {John Burroughs School}, spoke with me and attempted to convince me to break no contact." Did Sam return to JBS on October 14, 2023 so he could speak with a faculty member who knew both him and Annie and convince them to reach out to Annie to try to get him to break no contact?
Some Twitter post's of Annie's were rediscovered around October 4, 2023. I published (the first version of) this post on October 7, 2023. Did these factors motivate Sam's return to JBS, and his attempts to get Anine to break no contact using a JBS faculty member as a middleman?
If Sam did use a JBS faculty member as a middleman to try to get Annie to start talking to him again, who was that faculty member? Was there a reason in particular that Sam chose that faculty member? What does that faculty member know about Sam? What does that faculty member know about Annie?
What exactly is the nature of Sam's relationship to JBS, and specific members of its faculty? Why exactly has Sam returned to JBS numerous times? Is there a member of the JBS faculty who knows something important about Sam and/or Annie?
Anticipating and Responding to Potential Objections
I initially hesitated to make this post, because I was initially skeptical of Annie's claims. However, I changed my mind -- I think there is a nonzero probability that Annie is telling the truth, in whole or in part, and thus believe her claims ought to receive greater attention and further investigation.
Assuming that my personal understanding of Annie's story, as presented above, is correct, Annie's behavior potentially makes sense.
So -- assuming my understanding is correct, I provide the following responses to (potential) objections regarding (the validity of) Annie's claims:
Responding to Objections/Comments I've Seen From Others
It's been some time since I originally made my post, and I've seen a lot of comments, objections, and feedback from others. I"ll try to respond to some here.
Kat Woods: "She only started accusing Sam after she wanted money and didn’t get it. She disputed the inheritance from a trust fund she felt she was owed after her father died. She blamed her family and started publicly attacking them, including Sam."
Kat Woods: "- The accusation is based on “repressed memories” from when she was 4 that she “didn’t remember until she was 26” - right after she wanted her inheritance and was told she’d get it in monthly installments instead of a lump sum. She refused the conditions then went around saying she’d been denied her inheritance."
Concluding Remarks
To be clear, in this post, I am not definitively stating that I believe Annie's claims. Annie, to the best of my knowledge, has not provided direct proof - the sort that would be usable in court - of the claims she's made of Sam Altman.
I currently hold that I do not know if Annie's claims are true or not, though I will note that her online activity have been self-consistent over a long period of time, and seems to match up with activity from Sam in a few places (e.g. in the podcast episode she recorded with him.) I currently cannot disprove Sam Altman's innocence, as I do not think I can say that he has been proven guilty.
Rather, as previously stated, I am hoping to draw attention to a body of information that I think warrants further investigation, as I think that there is a nonzero probability that Annie is telling the truth, in whole or in part, and that this must be taken extremely seriously in light of the gravity of the claims she is making and the position of the person about whom she is making them.
The information provided above makes me think it is likely that Sam Altman is aware of the claims that Annie Altman has made about him. To my knowledge, he has not directly, publicly responded to any of her claims.
Given the gravity of Sam Altman's position at the helm of the company leading the development of an artificial superintelligence which it does not yet know how to align -- to imbue with morality and ethics -- I feel Annie's claims warrant a far greater level of investigation than they've received thus far.
I made an account on X (Twitter) (to reach out to Annie & Sam)
I made an X account (formerly "@prometheus5105", now "@pythagoras5015" -- I changed it for the reasons I provided here) where I responded to a recent post of Annie's (on X) asking her to confirm/deny the accuracy of my post.![]()
Unfortunately, within minutes of creating my account, I received the following message:
So, for now, my account is going to look suspicious, following only 1 account. Sorry.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer: I would like to note that this is my first post on LessWrong. I have tried my best to meet the writing standards of this website, and to incorporate the advice given in the New User Guide. I apologize in advance for any shortcomings in my writing, and am very much open to feedback and commentary.
List of Annie's various online accounts:
References, and key excerpts from them
Note: throughout the excerpts, I'll bold sections I feel are particularly important or relevant.
[AA15a] My Denied Appeal Letter For Early College Graduation - originally written
3-30-2015 (according to Annie). Posted on Annie's Medium page on 3-21-2019
[YC16a] "Sam Altman: How to Build the Future" -- published September 27, 2016
[TF16a] Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny" -- published October 3, 2016 in the New Yorker by Tad Friend
Jack eyed a board game called Samurai on the bookshelf and said, “Sam won every single game of Samurai when we were kids because he always declared himself the Samurai leader: ‘I have to win, and I’m in charge of everything.’ ”
Altman shot back, “You want to play speed chess right now?,” and Jack laughed."
[JBS17a] https://x.com/JBSchool/status/935883960017674240 - November 29, 2017
[SA18a] https://x.com/sama/status/959528971913146368 - posted 2-2-2018
[AA18a] The Speech I Gave At My Dad’s Funeral - originally read aloud at Jerry's funeral service on 5-28-2018 (according to Annie); posted on Annie's Medium page on 3-28-2019
[AA18b] Reclaiming my memories - posted on 11-8-2018
[AA18c] 21. Podcastukkah #5: Feedback is feedback with Sam Altman, Max Altman, and Jack Altman - All Humans Are Human | Podcast on Spotify. - published 12-7-2018
[AA19b] Period lost, period found - posted on 2-21-2019
[AA19c] 18 reasons I spent 18 years criticizing my appearance - published 3-6-2019
[AA20a] An open letter to relatives - published 9-22-2020
[AA21c] An Open Letter To The EMDR Trauma Therapist Who Fired Me For Doing Sex Work - published 6-7-2021
[AA21a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1459696444802142213 -- posted on
11-13-2021
[AA21b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1459696500540248068 -- posted on 11-13-2021
[AA22a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1568689744951005185 -- posted on
9-10-2022
[AA23a] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1635704398939832321 - posted on
3-14-2023
[AA23x] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1661087295657869312 - posted on 3-23-2023
[AA23f] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1640418558927863808 -- posted on
3-27-2023
[AA23l] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1697712455013847372 -- posted on
4-21-2023
[AA23k] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1649586084928704512 -- posted on
4-21-2023
[AA23j] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1655474350777311233 -- posted on
5-8-2023
[EW23a] Sam Altman is the Oppenheimer of Our Age, by Elizabeth Weil. Published 9-25-2023.
[AA23c] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1708193951319306299 -- posted on
9-30-2023
[AA23b] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709629089366348100 - posted on
10-4-2023
[AA23e] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709629659242242058 -- posted on
10-4-2023
[EW23b] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709975840598130982 -- posted
10-5-2023
[EW23c] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709977506533806527 -- posted 10-5-2023
[EW23d] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709978166771781730
[EW23e] https://x.com/lizweil/status/1709979130635424203
[AA23d] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709978285424378027 -- posted on
10-5-2023
[HN23a] https://web.archive.org/web/20231202200938/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
[PO23] A reply to Annie's post: https://x.com/percyo_/status/1709962822854336667 -- posted on 10-5-2023
[AA23g] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709978018364723500 -- posted on
10-5-2023
[AA23h] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1709977862252658703 -- posted on
10-5-2023
[AA23i] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1710039207878734139 -- posted on
10-5-2023
[AA23n] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1710039374224933175 -- posted on
10-5-2023
[NM23] https://x.com/JOSourcing/status/1710390512455401888 -- posted on
10-6-2023
[AA23w] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1711139134138663101 -- posted on 10-8-2023
[AA23o] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713642615105798460 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[AA23p] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713643755910148238 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[AA23q] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713644026120053244 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[AA23r] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713644849436807597 -- posted on 10-15-2023
[AA23u] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713647632554553444 -- posted on 10-15-2023
[AA23v] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713648185099571687 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[AA23s] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713646231816392961 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[AA23t] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1713646586230980717 -- posted on
10-15-2023
[RE23a] 144. All Creation of Safety with Remmelt Ellen -- All Humans Are Human {podcast} -- published 11-21-2023
[AA23m] “How We Do Anything Is How We Do Everything” - published
11-22-2023
[BI23a] OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on an 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree — including a previously unknown Hawaii estate - Business Insider, published 11-30-2023
[SA22a] https://x.com/sama/status/1512111914939154434 -- posted on April 7, 2022
She had been unaware that her oldest brother owned property in Hawaii until BI asked her about it, she said."
[SA23a] Sam Altman Speaks Out About What Happened at OpenAI - on What Now? with Trevor Noah - December 2023
[WSJ23a] Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends -- by Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal -- published 12-24-2023
[AA24a] Email about my Dad’s Trust - published 3-12-2024
[AA24b] How I Started Escorting - published 3-27-2024
[AA24m] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1777757262737703369 - posted on
4-9-2024
[AA24c] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787162346047304103 -- posted on
5-5-2024
[AA24d]![]()
https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1787163136900075886 -- posted on
5-5-2024
[AA24k] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1792624658841501977 -- posted on
5-20-2024
[BB24a] OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-6-2024
[BB24b] OpenAI Part 2: Ilya Dreams of AGI -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-6-2024
[BB24c] OpenAI Part 3: Heaven and Hell, Part 1 -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-13-2024
[BB24d] OpenAI Part 4: Heaven and Hell, Part 2 -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-20-2024
[BB24e] OpenAI Part 5: Beware the Ides of November -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-27-2024
[AA24i] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1804249479945818324 -- posted on
6-21-2024
[BB24e] OpenAI Part 5: Beware the Ides of November -- The Foundering Podcast -- Bloomberg -- published 6-27-2024
[AA24o] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1808260107861741905 -- posted on 7-2-2024
Cannie
The Can
Miss Can
Bad Baby Trash Can
[AA24e] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822099256154689807 -- posted on
8-9-2024
[AA24l] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822099397561450665 -- posted on
8-9-2024
[AA24g] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822028939432448092 -- posted on
8-9-2024
[AA24h] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822029242584199315 -- posted on
8-9-2024
[AA24p] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1822042911648968746 -- posted on 8-9-2024
[AA24j] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1824297776810954923 - posted on
8-15-2024
[AA24f] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1826101121334784426 -- posted on
8-20-2024
[AA24q] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1829678329802473781 -- posted on 8-31-2024
[AA24r] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1830773664784228502 -- posted on 9-2-2024
[AA24n] https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1836302674024894927 - posted on
9-18-2024
[AA--a] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtetAsfpmhb/
[AA--b] https://www.instagram.com/p/CuXd3H0u0e3/
[AA--c] https://www.instagram.com/p/CtIzt-uudhr/
[AA--d] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpx3evHv1F0/
I’m just at the light at the end of tunnel of four years of being sick and broke and shadowbanned. I’d do it again to go no contact and feel physically and emotionally safe for the first time in my life.
Yes business life and personal life and different, and also “how you do anything is how you do everything.” Please vote with your dollars, your attention, and your truth.
#truthcomesouteventually #trueshit #allhumansarehuman"
[AA--e] https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17865620213032124/
[AA--f] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxliM2oyXBY/
I survived Achilles and posterior tibial tendinopathy. I survived posterior tibial nerve pain that radiated to my ankle, knee, and pelvis. I survived PCOS and those particular ovarian cysts that got intense enough to warrant scans. I survived IBS and every single disordered eating game.
I survived listening to my body fall apart as it told me the stories I had not yet been ready to hear the full depths of. I survived 18 months of nearly all-day PTSD flashbacks of childhood assaults.
I survived my Dad’s will being withheld for over a year, and money he left me being withheld by millionaires relatives. I survived the grief of my decision to go no-contact with said relatives.
I survived being shadowbanned across multiple accounts, while attempting to make a livable income online. I survived an in-person profession that was a plan Z last resort, and learned and was therapized by it.
I survived every form of ab*sive behavior. I survived relatives telling and showing me I was “crazy” for pointing out said ab*se.
I survived grieving my Dad and somehow got even closer with him, and yes forever grieving.
I survived myself.
#everyoneisgoingthroughsomething #allhumansarehuman #thehumannie #trueshit #truthcomesouteventually"
[AA--g] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxgtpcwvP4w/
Hello Internet. I've gotten myself into a very difficult position, as I've been unable to work as much as I've needed due to my mental health and physical health. I put myself in a financially risky position to pursue my one woman show and podcast, and then had unexpected costs with health and technical difficulties. I'm dealing with the consequences of my own decisions and I need help. My Venmo is @Annie-Altman if you're able.
In this calendar year I observed the one year anniversary of my dad's death, discussed another mental health label to add to my collection, got diagnosed with PCOS (scans to rule out adrenal tumors, pelvic ultrasounds, blood tests), had IBS flare up again, had a long-term achilles injury flare up the longest I've experienced it, had almost all of my personal accounts have attempted or successful logins, had people logging on my wifi and other wifi issues (4 new modems, had excessive cell phone service issues, the pity-party list continues. I'm beyond my capacity of what I can handle alone. I -"
I’ve since learned part of personal accountability can be noticing my own savior complex, and allowing someone else to experience the consequences of their decisions.
Third sentence there ought to have read 'My millionaire relatives are refusing to give me help, and are withholding money from my dead Dad that I quit a job because of, while sick and in paperwork process to receive what he left in my name.'"
[AA--h] https://www.instagram.com/p/CxOgnm4yWHY/
It started for me before any swork {sex work} started. I don't mean that this account would be at 100K or some set number. I do mean it makes no sense to be unable to pass 1K, with over 100 podcasts and other creations, and consistent posting.
Old videos wil {sic} get reduced to something like 2 views on @instagram and @youtube , podcast rating get frequently deleted on @apple @applepodcasts , people will get automatically unfollowed, posts will be restricted in who sees them, and more.
It's been really demoralizing on a lot of levels, which is part of the purpose of shadowbanning. The other purpose of shadowbanning is direct repression of ways I can support myself with my art, like my @etsy and @patreon , or podcast ads for @anchor.fm ."
Wristwatch-Related References
[SW22a] Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar reference 1526 in yellow gold, Superwatchman.com, published May 9, 2022
[KTT23a] Watch Identifier: Sam Altman’s Greubel Forsey Watch - KeepTheTime.com, published December 1, 2023, last modified August 28, 2024
[BI23b] Sam Altman's $480,000 watch, the Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 1, is so rare only 33 were ever made (also on the Internet Archive) -- published Dec 23, 2023