Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#131

Post by joecool1029 »

zb3 wrote: post #19

So there's one photo. Of one family. Now what about millions of photos of all the other families possibly affected by him? That doesn't have power? It's like "hey you can say mean things about me but don't attack my family while I attack yours". Not that this is directed at him personally, but it's just this mindset of wealthy people..

> Now what about millions of photos of all the other families possibly affected by him?

His name allegedly isn't even clear on his own! Ongoing lawsuit brought by his sister. (Amended as recently as a week ago and discussed in a flagged submission here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47640048 ).

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#132

Post by HeavyStorm »

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.

Like this, for sure not. And Sam has not, even with that article, done anything to warrant violence.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#134

Post by joshcsimmons »

This is both horrible and not at all surprising.

Every quarter there are more layoffs and we're told how AI will replace us and that we can do nothing to stop it. We cannot afford the simple things our parents were able to and are supposed to be grateful that we are living in a time with such "amazing" technological progress.

Sam is one of the most media-visible people that represents AI replacement of average people's livelihood (not agreeing with this stance but yes, outside of the Hacker News SF-tech matcha latte bubble, this is a commonly held thought) which makes this unsurprising.

Still horrible and not right.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#135

Post by lores »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #130
lores wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The idea that firing you or stealing your wages is the worst a CEO can do to you is itself a product of the taboo against physical violence. There are a number of famous incidents from the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the taboo was weaker, of CEOs sending private armies to shoot inconvenient labor movements. It's not an equilibrium you should defect from lightly.

A CEO can choose physical, mental, legal or financial violence against the common man. The common man only has the choice of physical violence. Without it he is impotent.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#136

Post by imiric »

zinodaur wrote: post #65
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.

Is it okay to profit off of a machine that kills innocent people? Would it be immoral to attack the builder of that machine, if it stopped the operation of the machine?

I'm on the skeptic side of "AI" and find this entire industry obnoxious, but your argument doesn't hold any water.

Technology that can be used to kill innocent people is all around us. Would it be moral to attack knife manufacturers? Attacking one won't make the technology disappear. It has been invented, so we have to live with it.

Also, it's a stretch to say that "AI" "kills innocent people". In the hands of malicious people it can certainly do harm, but even in extreme cases, "AI" can currently only be used very indirectly to actually kill someone.

Technology itself is inert. What humans do with technology should be regulated.

IMO the fabricated concern around this tech is just part of the hype cycle. There's nothing inherently dangerous about a probabilistic pattern generator. We haven't actually invented artificial intelligence, despite of how it's marketed. What we do need to focus on is educating people to better understand this tech and use it safely, on restricting access to it so that we can mitigate abuse and avoid flooding our communication channels with garbage, and on better detection and mitigation technology to flag and filter it when it is abused. Everything else is marketing hype and isn't worth paying attention to.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#137

Post by AlexCoventry »

> The only solution I can come up with is to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly, and for no one to have the ring. The two obvious ways to do this are individual empowerment and *making sure democratic system stays in control.*

OK! So he's going to renege on the contract he's signed with Hegseth, which effectively commits OpenAI to serving as the IT Department for Trump's secret service?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#138

Post by quantified »

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.

If Sam disperses his power, we can believe him. So long as he's just concentrating wealth and power, he's just another tech bro.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#139

Post by AlexCoventry »

pesus wrote: post #75
tailscaler2026 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, it's kind of terrifying, how this incident seems to have faded from people's memories.
Post reply on HN