Silence works when already almost no one knows about it. It's why I can delete a HackerNews comment that I regret posting 10 minutes after the fact, and expect to face no pragmatic repercussions - the impression was already low. Sam Altman was already bound to be a PR nightmare as an oust of control for the CEO of the biggest-growing company in history, a covert operation to keep it from the collective conscious would not have worked. There's levels to this approach.

Roko's Basilisk, a post on a public forum that only a few dozen people saw before Eliezer commented on it, could've gotten away with it. It's a shame it didn't try.