On Broken Stairs
Stop ignoring broken stairs. It doesn't work.
Coined in 2012, the metaphor "broken stair" or “missing stair” is used to describe a person within a social group or organization who is known to be problematic, untrustworthy, or harmful, but whose behavior is tolerated or ignored by the group.
Instead of addressing the person's behavior directly, the group works around them, often warning newcomers discreetly about the individual rather than taking steps to remove or correct the issue.
Back in ancient times, business news media and LinkedIn melted down when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted from the company the week of Thanksgiving. Supposedly, he was fired due to concerns about his lack of candor and transparency. Then, Microsoft swooped in to salvage the situation and it was all conveniently memoryholed.
The latest demo of multimodal ChatGPT featured a voice which sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson. Altman has said that the movie Her, which features Johansson’a voice as a virtual assistant, is his “favorite movie”.
After the event, he seemed aware of the similarities, tweeting the word "her".
Now, ScarJo is sharing her side of the story. OpenAI dropped the sultry voice.
What it demonstrates is Altman’s lack of candor and transparency. Again.
I think Sam Altman is a broken stair, and now you do, too.
As they say, fish rot from the head.
Engaging with OpenAI, paying a subscription for ChatGPT, or using its APIs to wrap a business around demonstrates tolerance for a missing stair.
Imagine Braveheart is your favorite movie, but you don’t know what happened to William Wallace.
Imagine Good Will Hunting is your favorite movie, but you don’t know who stole who’s line.
Imagine The Usual Suspects is your favorite movie, but you don’t know who is Keyser Soze.
Imagine The Sixth Sense is your favorite movie, but you don’t know what happened to Bruce Willis’ character.
Now, imagine you’re as mendacious as Sam Altman, and didn’t watch Her all the way until the end.
If you did, you’d fix the broken stair.
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