1. Some party, for some reason, wants to slow down AI development. There are many people motivated to do this. Assume one of them had means and opportunity.
2. The board members wake up to a malicious message ordering them to do ${something} "or ${secret} will be revealed!" (this ${something} could have been many things, so long as it happened to be compatible with firing Altman).
3. The board fires Altman.
4. The board cannot reveal the true reason why they fired Altman, because that would reveal the thing(s) they're being blackmailed over, so they have to make up a different excuse to give to the CEOs they've named as a replacement. As this is done in a hurry under high stress, the story the board arrives at is fundamentally not very good.
5. The replacement CEO does not buy the story given by the board because it's not very well thought-out, and sides with Altman. This repeats a few times.
6. When it becomes clear the board is not capable of winning this battle, because none of the CEOs they hire will carry out their orders, the blackmailer becomes convinced there's no point even trying to hold the board to this threat (there doesn't need to be communication between the board and the blackmailer for this to work, but it's not ruled out either).
While it does seem to fit the observables, I do want to again emphasise that I don't put high probability on this scenario — it's just marginally less improbable than the other ones I've heard, which is a really low bar because none made sense.
I think we're on the same page. More from the board members specifically is most likely to falsify my hypothesis, as they would be unlikely to speak at all if this is correct; more from the interim CEOs may falsify or be compatible with my hypothesis.
1. Some party, for some reason, wants to slow down AI development. There are many people motivated to do this. Assume one of them had means and opportunity.
2. The board members wake up to a malicious message ordering them to do ${something} "or ${secret} will be revealed!" (this ${something} could have been many things, so long as it happened to be compatible with firing Altman).
3. The board fires Altman.
4. The board cannot reveal the true reason why they fired Altman, because that would reveal the thing(s) they're being blackmailed over, so they have to make up a different excuse to give to the CEOs they've named as a replacement. As this is done in a hurry under high stress, the story the board arrives at is fundamentally not very good.
5. The replacement CEO does not buy the story given by the board because it's not very well thought-out, and sides with Altman. This repeats a few times.
6. When it becomes clear the board is not capable of winning this battle, because none of the CEOs they hire will carry out their orders, the blackmailer becomes convinced there's no point even trying to hold the board to this threat (there doesn't need to be communication between the board and the blackmailer for this to work, but it's not ruled out either).
While it does seem to fit the observables, I do want to again emphasise that I don't put high probability on this scenario — it's just marginally less improbable than the other ones I've heard, which is a really low bar because none made sense.