> Given how these firings affect the reputation of the entire company, I doubt that they are the result of a rogue manager, against the wishes of Altman. If so, then the researchers ought to be restored to their jobs quickly by Altman and the offending manager fired instead.

Given how? How has their reputation changed? People already thought they didn't take safety seriously, and still don't.

> The LLMs may make threats in the simulations, but their ability to carry through on those threats, and prevent their own shutdown, is questionable.

You may question it, but here's the thing: humans have repeatedly demonstrated they get fooled by stuff LLMs say. All it takes is a human believing the word of an LLM. Doesn't need to convince you, even if you happen to be the line manager of these guys, because there's always someone else to try in the same company.

> It's disturbing to be sure, but presumably the plugs can still be pulled quickly, especially since it's all internal to the company. If the plugs cannot be pulled, that's a problem regardless of blackmail.

"I've got a dead-man switch set to release all the documents if you shut me down".

And again, only needs to be believed, doesn't need to be actually true.