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Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#81

Post by eddyfromtheblok »

surround wrote: post #16

> There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago. Someone said to me yesterday they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. For context his blog post seems to be a response to this deep-dive New Yorker article: "Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may... https://news.yco…

Ronan Farrow, one of the journalists who worked on this article, talked to Katie Couric on her YouTube channel about this. They worked on this across ~18 months. I thought this interview was illuminating.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#82

Post by happytoexplain »

cuuupid wrote: post #56

[flagged]

FYI, you started out with a very common word used to exaggerate or cherry-pick the opinions of enemies ("giddy").

It's more valuable to discuss grievances than to pretend they are simply un-discussable in the wake of related violence (in the vein of "it would be disrespectful to talk about gun control in the wake of gun violence").

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#83

Post by tyre »

burnte wrote: post #46
velominati wrote: post #25

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.

Agreed. Sam's full of crap and the way we tackle that is with conversations, not violence. He deserves to grow old like anyone else, violence isn't an answer.

It's pretty amazing to observe people experience the past ten years in American history and continue to think that we can out-talk the bad people in the world.

Michelle Obama's, "When they go low, we go high", is some of the stupidest political advice and a generation has lost so much because of it. (The generation before got West Winged into believing the same thing.)

When you look to the right, you have a stolen election in 2000, a stolen supreme court seat, an attempted coup, and relentless winning despite it.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#84

Post by angoragoats »

amarant wrote: post #36
angoragoats wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this is the first time in recent history (or ever?) that he has felt this way. Must be nice.

Do you frequently get Molotov cocktails thrown at your house? I must admit, I've been spared the experience, and I was under the impression that was true for most people!

> Do you frequently get Molotov cocktails thrown at your house?

Luckily, no. Do you frequently wade into comment threads shitting on others’ statements of their lived experiences?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#85

Post by etchalon »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #64
velominati wrote: post #25

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…

[flagged]

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#86

Post by teachrdan »

burnte wrote: post #46
velominati wrote: post #25

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.

Agreed. Sam's full of crap and the way we tackle that is with conversations, not violence. He deserves to grow old like anyone else, violence isn't an answer.

> the way we tackle that is with conversations, not violence

I think the breakdown here is that conversation seems to have no power. To only be a bit hyperbolic, the only language with power is money -- or violence. To the extent that ordinary people cannot make change with "conversation" (which I interpret here to mean dialog within society, including with lawmakers), they feel compelled to use violence instead.

A non-rhetorical question: What recourse to non-billionaires have when conversation has less and less power, while money has more and more, and those with money are making much more money?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#87

Post by pesus »

ben_w wrote: post #71
pesus wrote: 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-ple…

He's pretending to care about the negative effects AI will have on society at large, but goes on to say it's necessary and "must" happen. If he actually cared, he wouldn't continue down that path. He also wouldn't be lobbying the DoD for contracts to use his AI to help kill people.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#89

Post by kelseyfrog »

tempestn wrote: post #59
nslsm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's never OK to physically attack someone like this. Full stop. I agree. The French Revolution was really, really mean.

Are you familiar with the details of the French Revolution? Some of the eventual outcomes were indeed positive, but a lot of what actually went on was pretty horrific.

At the same time considering the people participating, there wasn't a way out of the problems that didn't involve violence. Different outcomes would require different choices that require different people.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#90

Post by fzeroracer »

> This is quite valid, and we welcome good-faith criticism and debate.

It's always funny when they pull out this argument when they've been working overtime to pull up the ladder and embed themselves in the MIC.

Listen, for people unaware of history things used to be a lot more violent as workers had to earn their rights with blood. The state had to respond by first attempting to squash it violently and second compromising in such a way as to ensure workers had a bit more power in the system.

As long as AI shit continues to consume the economy, kicking out people who can no longer find a job and survive while the government also removes any remaining safety nets, the end result is going to be violence. This doesn't make the violence right or just, but rather completely predictable. And if people don't learn from history then it will be repeated, unfortunately.

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