The first clue is this: "In conversations between The Atlantic and 10 current and former employees at OpenAI..."
When you're reporting something like this, especially when using anonymous sources (not anonymous to you, but sources that have good reasons not to want their names published), you can't just trust what someone tells you - they may have their own motives for presenting things in a certain way, or they may just be straight up lying.
So... you confirm what they are saying with other sources. That's why "10 current and former employees" is mentioned explicitly in the article.
Being published in the Atlantic helps too, because that's a publication with strong editorial integrity and a great track record.
Sam Altman, the figurehead of the generative-AI revolution,
—one must understand that OpenAI is not a technology company.
EDIT: despite of the poor phrasing I agree that the article as a whole is of high qualityYet: "zealous doomers" is that how people cautious of the potential power of AI are now being labeled?
It doesn’t exist until suddenly it does. I think there are a lot of potential issues we really should be preparing for / trying to solve.
For example, what to do about unemployment. We can’t wait until massive number of people start losing their job before we start working on what to do.
I’m not for slowing down AI research but I do think we need to restrict or slow the deployment of AI if the effects on society are problematic.