OpenAI's announcement of Sam's termination stated that the board had "concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." It's unclear whether the board is claiming that Sam merely failed to inform them of important information, or whether (more seriously) he knowingly lied to the board.
This market resolves YES if by end of March 2024, either 1) conclusive proof comes out that Sam lied to the board, or 2) a current member of the OpenAI board or OpenAI itself claims that Sam lied in this way, and Sam does not publicly refute the claim within 3 days (i.e. Sam either claims that he didn't tell the lie or claims to have instead made a different statement that doesn't qualify as a lie).
A qualifying lie is a statement which
Sam knew to be false at the time he said it
Was made to least one member of the OpenAI board
Contributed to the board's decision to fire Sam
States an objective claim, rather than an opinion, subjective impression, or mental state
The board conclusively knew to be false at the time they fired Sam
Statements which could qualify as lies:
"GPT-5 hasn't been able to hack out of its virtual machine in evals."
"We spent $20 million on marketing this quarter" (when it was objectively over $30 million)
Sam signed, approved, or promised to uphold an agreement which he then willingly broke, e.g. he used compute reserved for the Superalignment team.
Statements which would not qualify as lies:
"GPT-5 is already better than humans at creative writing." (The definition of "better" is unclear)
"I believe we have the capacity to accommodate all new ChatGPT Plus signups post-DevDay." (About Sam's beliefs/mental state)
"I care about AI safety as much as anyone here." (Mental state again)
Sam tells the board what he'll be presenting at DevDay, but conspicuously fails to mention some parts. (Lies by omission don't count)
A description of the lie along with a source must be posted in the comments by market close. If there is no qualifying lie by then, the market resolves NO.
🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
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| 1 | Ṁ94 | |
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| 3 | Ṁ20 | |
| 4 | Ṁ6 | |
| 5 | Ṁ3 |
From the New Yorker: https://archive.is/gAkKC
"Altman began approaching other board members, individually, about replacing [Helen Toner]. When these members compared notes about the conversations, some felt that Altman had misrepresented them as supporting Toner’s removal. “He’d play them off against each other by lying about what other people thought,” the person familiar with the board’s discussions told me. “Things like that had been happening for years.” (A person familiar with Altman’s perspective said that he acknowledges having been “ham-fisted in the way he tried to get a board member removed,” but that he hadn’t attempted to manipulate the board.)"
It's been >3 days since this article, and Sam hasn't denied that he lied about what he had heard from other board members. It's also been separately covered in the WSJ, so it seems credible enough to me. Resolving YES.