To me, the biggest thing here is that pg seems to be vouching for Sam, so this seems like an important rebuttal to Toner's attacks against Sam's character.
1. There was reporting and online discussion that sama was fired from YC. pg didn't believe this framing was correct and sent out his tweet to correct the record.
2. Toner made some very specific allegations about instances where sama was not truthful to the OpenAI board, especially with respect to instances of self-dealing.
If #1 is true (and I see no reason to believe it's not), that in no way implies #2 is false.
If Toner has been telling the truth about all of the myriad things that she claims happened, where was she when she was responsible for oversight during recent years? Toner comes across as unprofessional and reckless in how she handled all of this, whether her claims are true or not.
That said, you may have missed it but Toner alleged some very specific instances of lying and withholding information from the board: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582. That's very different from "vague and non-specific character attacks".
And, importantly, 4 total board members agreed that was the right action to take.
1. Toner says some specific things.
2. Toner presents them alongside insinuations and plenty of vague and nonspecific things.
Apparently (1) wasn’t sufficient to justify her actions, so she’s had to resort to (2).
As for four board members, that’s a description of what the board did, not what Sam did. The board’s actions do not justify the board’s actions, however much Toner might wish that were the case. Just another insinuation in place of a reason.
My guess (having seen other examples of this) is the board depended too much on the legal advice they got. That is, I'm sure their lawyers recommended giving as few details as possible, because every detail you give is a potential opening for a lawsuit. This is generally standard legal advice when firing someone. The problem with that advice is that while it may make sense from a purely legal perspective, it is absolutely horrible practical advice when it comes to communicating their rationale for a decision of this magnitude.
If Toner’s approach has merely been to stay pragmatic about avoiding legal risks, then it’s difficult to say what prompted her recent podcast, which she had no legal duty to produce.
For what it’s worth, smearing her professional colleague with the stereotype of a sneaky, untrustworthy gay man really shouldn’t have any place in Toner’s repertoire. Gay men can of course be sneaky and untrustworthy, but if Toner really feels the need to explain her behavior to the public, then Toner could potentially improve her credibility by trying her hardest to give a very clear and detailed picture of what happened and to stop employing vague and non-specific devices, so that the public can consider her claims with lucidity rather than through a fog of insinuation.
Obviously the Board has access to legal advice (and probably would risk trouble if they ignored it since they have additional fiduciary duties as Board members), but Toner probably doesn't retain a lawyer for this kind of stuff and when one doesn't have an official position they generally have fewer legal liabilities to worry about.
LLMs are stochastic parrots. What you’re experiencing when you see its output is essentially pareidolia but with language and not faces.