The most chilling line in the open letter is this one, which I haven't heard anyone talking about:

> You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.”

Reminds me of the final season of Silicon Valley. Is this Pied Piper at Tres Comma Fest?

Seems to me more analogous to the final episode of the final season, where they must publicly destroy what they built.

Yes, except what they think they've built is far far less capable than what they've actually built.

This is a ten year old who set off their first fire cracker turning to their parents's iphone and saying 'I have become death, destroyer of worlds', because they don't really understand how any of this works but they've somehow ended up in control of it and are now terrified of doing their jobs.

lol yes, I just refreshed the timeline which was skewed in my memory.

Life imitates art.

Depending on the circumstances this statement can be perfectly logical.

But as far as I can tell, circumstances are still scant.

This could be a genuine stance for them if they are really in the AI danger camp. Not supporting the stance; but i think it's not a self contradictory position

Oh, definitely not self-contradictory!

In retrospect it's a mistaken position, because it's pretty obvious now that if OpenAI disintegrates it will be as an exodus to Microsoft, which will undoubtedly be a worse steward, but I think it's an ethically consistent position to hold, in a naive sort of way. That's part of why I believe they actually said something like this.