IF ANYTHING, OpenAI ought to investigate and officially react to this particular communique since this dude was communicating on their behalf. If there are supporting evidence, I would expect nothing less than a firing and an apology. The issue itself is separate from the whole thing.

I think this should be in the title of the post. 'OpenAI allegedly threatening to ruin a prominent researcher's career', or smth like that.

My best guess is that from the perspective of the OpenAI people, Buckmaster was letting his paranoia about OpenAI training tank his opportunity to receive the Clay Prize (it seems like Buckmaster and Alpoge's result isn't quite the full result required for the Clay Prize, whereas apparently OpenAI does have that full result worked out, using the same approach that Buckmaster and Alpoge had been exploring).

Whether the Codex sessions could have indeed made their way into Astra training data is something I can only speculate on though.

For context and balance, Bubeck has tweeted a curiously non-specific denial:

> A series of false and inflammatory allegations against me are currently circulating on social channels. To clarify, I came into the discussion following academic norms, and I'm disappointed that it has come to this. Anyone who knows me knows that academic standards are of the highest importance to me. Will have more to say tomorrow.

> I'm not even sure what to say to this, but I think this should be widely known if it is indeed what happened.

Call this behavior what it is, technofascism. Another comment compared it to the Godfather. To think this is the 21st century and academics are still horrible human beings.