Altman appears to me to be reckless, ms. Toner appears to be naive. Both should not be near this kind of power.
I'm sure that's how tobacco and oil executives justify their paycheck: "If I wasn't doing it, someone else would". Probably lots of criminals justify their crimes using similar reasoning too.
Ultimately it's not quite true. If you quit your job at that tobacco or oil company, it's going to take a while to find them a replacement for you. That replacement might not be quite as good at the job (why were you picked for the job in the first place? Probably because you were the strongest candidate.) You aren't going to totally halt EvilCorp by quitting, but you're going to give it a speed bump.
In the case of OpenAI, we have to consider what organization is likely to replace them if they throw in the towel. If it's a more cautious org like Anthropic, OpenAI throwing in the towel could actually be a good thing from the point of view of their charter: https://openai.com/charter
That would have been a lot safer than to give MS the keys to the kingdom.
But she was on the board when that happened and presumably agreed to the deal or she could have resigned.
And it's not quite the tobacco company we're talking about here. I'm more in line to compare it to the Manhattan project.
In this case, if your company fails to provide for greater good, then it is best to destroy it. And it also shows some example to others. Whatever others do, you have no power. I does not matter if you pretent or not.
Comparison works only if you could do something about it.
If she agreed with the Microsoft deal but not with what followed that too would be hopelessly naive. Microsoft + ethics?
This is an all but undeclared arms race.
