In these early days of a smear campaign (even an unintentional one that's just about chasing clicks), the game is mostly about plausibly deniable innuendo.
The headline is a great start. Contradictions are bad. Altman has contradictions. Therefore Altman is bad. They don't say it, but they also know they don't need to. They lead the audience to water and trust that enough of them will drink.
The closing paragraph is another great example. It intentionally leaves the reader hanging on the question "so why did Altman do AI if there are moral downsides," without resolving the question by giving Altman's context when he said it.
Trust me or don't, but what you see here is just the beginning. In 6 month's time Altman will be (in the public's eye) evil incarnate.
They discussed the why earlier in the article, specifically a fear of AI being primarily developed in private labs outside of public view -- the partners feeling they could help bring an alternative approach.
I feel they left it on that point not as part of some grand conspiracy theory, but because the potential for this to be good or bad is a question taking place around the world right now.
Overall this piece feels positive towards Sam, despite what you feel is a negatively loaded headline. He's walking a delicate balance between profit and nonprofit, between something that could be harmful or helpful to society -- these things are in contradiction and he's making those choices deliberately. This is an interesting subject for an article.
I find it deeply unlikely he will be viewed like Musk in 6 months. Musk is a fairly special case as he's unhinged and unstable more than evil. If someone wanted to paint Sam with an evil stick, Zuckerberg would be a more apt comparison -- playing with something dangerous that affects all of us.
I genuinely hope that you're right and I'm totally wrong, but my experience watching the media landscape says otherwise. It would seem I have less faith in our journalistic institutions than you.
The media operates on a "nearest cliché" algorithm, and the Mad/Evil Genius cliché is so emotionally appealing here that they'll find it irresistible. Even if it's not true, they'll make it true.
