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Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

blog.samaltman.com

581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#581

The problem is sam is a prolific liar, as has been proved many times. It's difficult to sympathize with the boy who cried fire

I don’t think someone should be burned alive because they’ve lied unless they’ve spread intentional lies that have caused death or harm to others which I don’t believe Sam has done. Personally I find it very easy to sympathize with someone who was attacked in their own home with their family unprovoked even if they have lied in the past. It’s crazy how blood thirsty people have became lately.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#582
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is “they”?

It's well-known that right after, the Whatsapp/Signal group of Zuck, Reddit leadership et. al collectively agreed to clamp down hard on positive discourse of it.

source?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#583
post #524

I've skimmed the thread here and I am now seriously considering leaving HN for the first time in about 15 years. Here are some quotes from what used to be a pretty interesting and thoughtful community: > Ah, the Elon manoeuvre: trying to make would-be assassins hesitate by using your own child as a shield. > the words and narratives that Sam Altman promoted caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger that someone t…

[flagged]

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#584
post #524

I've skimmed the thread here and I am now seriously considering leaving HN for the first time in about 15 years. Here are some quotes from what used to be a pretty interesting and thoughtful community: > Ah, the Elon manoeuvre: trying to make would-be assassins hesitate by using your own child as a shield. > the words and narratives that Sam Altman promoted caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger that someone t…

[flagged]

No, people don't have "have rights to have and voice their opinions whatever it may be" on this site. What people have the right to here is use HN as intended. That intended use is described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Mobs foaming at the mouth, triggered by a disturbed person's violence into a mutually foaming frenzy, is not an intended use of this site. I shouldn't have to tell any of you this.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#585
post #524

I've skimmed the thread here and I am now seriously considering leaving HN for the first time in about 15 years. Here are some quotes from what used to be a pretty interesting and thoughtful community: > Ah, the Elon manoeuvre: trying to make would-be assassins hesitate by using your own child as a shield. > the words and narratives that Sam Altman promoted caused so much fear and uncertainty and anger that someone t…

I don’t think they’re bots, the strength of feeling is real.

Rightly or wrongly people feel cut out of society at a time when the tech elite are not only making billions but seem to be actively trying to ruin everyone else’s lives, they are legitimately hated.

And when you’re that hated you do need to be careful, money can’t protect you from everything. At the end of the day we do all have to live in the same society.

(I don’t have this strength of feeling personally but some people do)

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#586
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 malici…

Sibling comment already said it, but yes I was specifically alluding to Altman's decision to allow the US government to use their AI to choose bombing targets without a human in the loop - perhaps this is why the US government double-tapped[1] a school killing 160 girls, all younger than 12, when the school was clearly marked on google maps. I also vigorously dislike the industry, but your stance 'I'm on the skeptic…

Regardless, "AI" is not doing the killing in that case. Rather, humans have deployed it to control weapons that kill people. There are several layers of indirection there before you can claim "AI kills people". This is the same indirection as when a human chooses to press a button that fires a missile, or stab someone, just with more steps involved.

So you can also be outraged at weapon manufacturers, which is one step closer. Or, you can skip the indirection, and be outraged specifically at people in charge of using this technology, which is my point.

I'm disgusted by this industry as much as you are, believe me. But blaming the companies that produce "AI" for people dying is misplaced. They're certainly part of the problem, but not the root cause.

> AI needs to be opposed

AI doesn't exist. It is a marketing term used by grifters to sell their snake oil.

But even if it did, it's silly to claim that any technology needs to be opposed. This one is potentially more problematic than others because it raises some difficult existential and social questions which we might not be ready to answer, but it's still ultimately on us to control how it's used. We've somehow been able to do this for nuclear weapons which can literally obliterate civilization at the press of a button, so a probabilistic pattern generator seems trivial in comparison. It's going to be bumpy, but I think we'll manage.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#587
post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years...

HN (and ycombinator) has implicitly enabled, dogwhistled, or pretended to ignore all sorts of hateful and violent rhetoric. Sometimes it hides behind a veneer of "curious conversation" but other times its disgustingly blatant - last article I saw about sama was filled with horrific racism.

I come here because there are sometimes good posts, but this stuff has been here the entire time. Now its your guy getting the hate you are acting like its the worst thing in the world?

Frankly people calling out a post from a billionaire is a good thing. You would have to be terminally detached from reality to not see how all these festering issues - wealth inequality, injustice, cost of living, future employment etc etc - are starting to come to a head which would cause people to feel something - frustrated, angry, wrathful.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#588
post #587
post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years... HN (and ycombinator) has implicitly enabled, dogwhistled, or pretended to ignore all sorts of hateful and violent rhetoric. Sometimes it hides behind a veneer of "curious conversation" but other times its disgustingly blatant - last article I saw about sama was filled with horrific racism. I come here because there are sometimes good posts, but t…

> Not sure what world you have lived in for the past at least 10 years

The world I have lived in for longer than 10 years is HN. I'm gut-wrenchingly familiar with the worst things that people post here—probably more than anyone, simply because it's my job.

If you can dig up a single example of a thread this bad that we knew about and didn't do anything about, I'd be shocked, because it would go against everything I believe and feel. Perhaps you can, nonetheless? If so, let's see it.

Here's what I mean by "this bad", if you want to calibrate:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47727099

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725722

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47725717

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726427

The number of people who feel that anything at all is justified if it reinforces their feelings—particularly their angriest and most vicious feelings—is so large that it's clear that it is human nature in action, and that makes me yearn for a cool and heavy rock to crawl under, with moist earth to sink into.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#589
post #575

I don't think I've ever seen a thread this bad on Hacker News*. The number of commenters justifying violence, or saying they "don't condone violence" and then doing exactly that, is sickening and makes me want to find something else to do with my life—something as far away from this as I can get. I feel ashamed of this community. * Edit: It would have been clearer to say "I've never seen a mob dynamic this bad on Hac…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#590

It is fair to be critical of Sam and other tech leaders regarding AI, but he has done nothing to begin to justify violence or even the threat of violence against him or his family.

> he has done nothing to begin to justify violence

No One does!

I also found news hard to believe but it is true:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx91rdxpyeo

I'm not a big fan of Sam Altman, but violence like this is not a solution; it has the actually opposite effect as it probably did with Trump.

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