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Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

blog.samaltman.com

71–80 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#71
post #5

> The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen. > It will not all go well. The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever. Boy, he really just encouraged the world to keep turning against him. This is so transparently disingenuous. I guess he has no choice if he doesn't want to give up…

So all these things he's saying are going to leave people scared and afraid, on that we agree. What's the disingenuous part here?

Don't get me wrong: others talk of a pattern of dishonesty, or that he's too eager to please*, and I'm willing to trust them on this because I found out with Musk that I don't spot this soon enough.

But what, specifically, do you see? What am I blind to?

* given how ChatGPT is a people-pleaser and has him around, Claude philosophically muses about if its subjective experience is or is not like a humans' and has Amanda Askell, and that Grok is like it is and has Musk, I think the default personalities of these models AI are influenced by their owner's leadership teams

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They tried to get Luigi on "terrorism" charges That's about the least controversial thing I've heard recently. Luigi murdered a guy specifically because he was a health insurance CEO. Not because of something he did in particular, but because of the role he assumed. Terrorizing other CEOs is precisely what he intended to do. It is why there are so many Luigi fans, it is what they want too.

Worth noting the legal system did not find it to reach the requirements for terrorism.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/luigi-mangione-due-in-co...

My understanding is that it was personal

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#73
In all seriousness, what is the game plan for society moving forward as AI takes more jobs? The government doesn't seem to care. The AI labs don't seem to care.

What happens when more and more people can't afford housing, kids, food, health insurance, etc.? Nothing more dangerous than a man who has no reason to live...

I don't advocate for violence, but I do foresee more headlines like this as things get worse.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#74

Firebombing homes is completely uncivilized, but I'm not going to believe a single public word from Altman about anything. He's a lying sociopath and will say whatever gets himself ahead.

At this point it's probably far more productive to think of what he's saying as the necessary means he uses to make you believe what he wants you to believe. From that point you can work backwards and try to understand what he wants you to believe.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#75

It's never OK to physically attack someone like this. Full stop. Separately; Sam's belief that "AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated." rings incredibly hollow. OpenAI has abandoned its open source roots. It is concentrating wealth - and thus power - into fewer hands. Not more.

Sam eagerly pursued DoD contracts to weaponize AI. And then lobbied for legislation to ensure OpenAI cannot be held accountable if people are killed due to their systems.

I find it interesting that Altman's fans seem to keep skipping past this fact. I'd love to hear their defense as to why one person potentially being responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths is acceptable, but attacking that one person isn't. If violence is never the answer, they should be condemning Altman with even more vigor.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#76

It's never OK to physically attack someone like this. Full stop. Separately; Sam's belief that "AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated." rings incredibly hollow. OpenAI has abandoned its open source roots. It is concentrating wealth - and thus power - into fewer hands. Not more.

I categorically reject that assertion. Two simple examples: 1) when you see someone assaulting someone else, it's absolutely ok to attack them, and 2) the American revolution! It's like that old joke: A man offers a young woman $1,000,000 to sleep with him for one night. “For a million dollars? Sure, I’ll sleep with you.” He smiles at her, “How about $50, then?” “How dare you! I’m not a whore!” “Look, lady, we’ve alr…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#77
post #56

[flagged]

>This is simply not how the economy works, if everyone is poor who do you think is paying for products/services leveraging AI?

Well, this is already the economy right now: the very upper class is owning more than the vast majority, and consuming more than the vast majority.

"The top 20% of earners now make up over half of consumer spending"

https://www.axios.com/2025/08/08/stock-market-us-economy-ric...

>also means you are opting into homelessness, famine, cancer, climate change, etc. pretty much everything that we could solve with ASI.

All these could be stopped right now but many people don't want to. Your ASI is going to give the same answers scientists have been reviled for saying: tax more, don't let the free market decide everything, est less meat and drink less alcohol, consume less in general.

Human stupidity is the real problem and ASI isn't going to "solve" anything.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#79
post #9

[flagged]

unpopular opinion but i think it's written quite well

I don't think that's unpopular, it is pretty well written. But the "I believe" section is extraordinarily hard to believe given Altman's history.

> Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people

> We have to get safety right

> AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated

None of these statements, IMO, reflect his actions over the past 5 years.

> we urgently need a society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help navigate through a difficult economic transition in order to get to a much better future

I agree with this, but there is a near 0% chance of that happening anytime soon in the US. I think he probably is aware of this.

Just my opinion, but it comes off as very insincere.

To be clear, what happened is still awful and there's absolutely no justification for it.

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