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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

#361

Post by shooly »

richardlblair wrote: post #321
shooly wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So I suppose we should burn the house down with a child inside. Your response is a cop out and you should be disappointed in yourself. Further, people do not often agree another human should be murdered. No matter how you phrase it.

> Further, people do not often agree another human should be murdered

Have you ever heard of the French revolution, the World Wars, collapse of the Soviet Union, or maybe more recently - the Ukraine war?

People are more than happy to see someone who brings suffering to others dead.

Of course, I'm sure lots of people would also want to see people responsible for those events be locked away in a prison cell for the rest of their lives, and for their freedom and privacy to be taken away - do you perhaps want to guess why people would prefer that over instantly killing them?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#363

Post by daseiner1 »

mixtureoftakes wrote: post #21
LunaSea wrote: post #9

[flagged]

unpopular opinion but i think it's written quite well

it's "written well" but not at all a smart piece of writing. leading with a photo of a cute baby before engaging in an extended defense of one's own integrity is so obvious as to be insulting

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#364

Post by snoman »

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.

That sentiment always comes from people who are better at fighting with communication.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#366

Post by tzk718 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #345
IAmGraydon wrote: post #307

[flagged]

[flagged]

There is a suspect, but he appears mentally ill and could have been paid by anyone to throw a molotov cocktail at the metal gate (to ensure that no one in the house got hurt):

https://sfstandard.com/2026/04/10/sam-altman-russian-hill-mo...

"Around 3:40 a.m., the suspect threw a bottle containing a flaming rag at the metal gate of 855 Chestnut St., according to a police report."

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#367

Post by benzible »

davesque wrote: post #255
h14h wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Critical" even feels strong. The article was essentially a collection of statements others have made about Sam.

Right, but the picture those statements painted collectively was not flattering. And that was certainly intended by the authors. Thus, critical, but not at all "incendiary." Update: To clarify, my personal stance is that the critical tone was both intended by the authors and, in my opinion, appropriate given how much power Mr. Altman holds. If he has a history of behaving inconsistently, that deserves daylight.

Are you arguing that because the authors knew the pattern they were documenting was unflattering, the piece is somehow compromised? That they clearly had an agenda? That's called reporting. They called a hundred-plus named sources and the picture those sources independently painted was damning. Altman has a history of telling repeated, easily-checked lies, followed by fresh lies when caught in the first ones.

Are you suggesting that they should have "both sides"-ed by reporting company PR and Sam-friendly sources and giving them equal weight? Sometimes the facts point in one direction.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#369

Post by username223 »

johnfn wrote: post #163
BloondAndDoom wrote: post #155

Can someone help me to understand why OpenAI and Anthropic talks as if the future of humanity controlled by them? We have very strong open (weight) Chinese models possibly only 6 months behind of them, gene is out of the bottle, is 6 months of difference really that important? And they don’t have good reasons for that 6 months to stay that way. Am I missing something or are these just their usual marketing? I’m not a…

Some people think there will be an exponential takeoff, which means that a 6 month lead effectively rounds up to infinity.

Those are the people betting on a business model of “create Robot God and ask him for money.” Why pay attention to them?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#370

Post by jmull »

rustystump wrote: post #253
Tyrubias wrote: post #103

[flagged]

Interesting you say not vs never. It seems this kid thought it was a time where violence was needed. The question i always ask in these situations is about what the line would be that would justify violence? Things like healthcare, crime, existential ai, have very grey lines as it isnt obvious when one needs to flip the table. How broken must a system be?

Violence is an extreme failure state.

If your goal is to improve the system then you always want to move away from it.

Probably a reasonable justification would be self-defense, committing violence to stop worse violence. (Preemptive violence is not self-defense.)

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