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Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

blog.samaltman.com

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#241

> 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…

Turns out the article was not in fact incendiary.

Yeah, it's one thing to write an incendiary article, it's a very different thing to write an objective article about someone who will say anything to get what they want.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#242

> 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…

Wouldn't it be more correct to call the article "critical" and not "incendiary"? I looked it over and I don't remember seeing any calls to violence. Altman needs to remember that he holds an incredible amount of power in this moment. He and other current AI tech leaders are effectively sitting on the equivalent of a technological nuclear bomb. Anyone in their right mind would find that threatening.

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

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#243

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.

> OpenAI has abandoned its open source roots.

It was only a matter of time. The font on the dollar sign kept increasing, eventually selfish humans will always crack. Keeping it open had to be instilled with it becoming a public utility. Private companies don't do altruistic things unless they benefit.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#244
post #208

> AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated. Control of the future belongs to all people and their institutions. AI needs to empower people individually, and we need to make decisions about our future and the new rules collectively. I do not think it is right that a few AI labs would make the most consequential decisions about the shape of our future. What a bullshit thing for someone who is not act…

Maybe they're about to open source their weights?

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#245
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity... why do you think this? I think this is complete madness. Im not someone that is in a job so I have the luxury to think critically about what is going on and... I just dont see it. What I see is that LLMs will complement Labour and the excess returns of model producers will be very minimal (if at all any) due to the intense competition - keeping switching costs to a minimum (close to zero). This is…

I think what you’re describing is a more general race to the bottom where everyone loses, including the AI companies. This won’t happen because the AI companies will collude to prevent it from happening, meaning they’ll drop out of that race leaving the rest of us to claim victory. Generous of them, really.

No Im not describing a race to the bottom. Im saying that its in Google's best interest to ensure Anthropic and OAI do not continue to operate as a going concern and generate enough cash flows to finance reinvestment - by providing a very competitive offering.

Price of tokens is one competitive-instrument for them to achieve that but not the only one - they offer a whole lot more to enterprises that OAI and Anthropic don't.

By doing so Anthropic and OAI's valuations go crashing into the ground along with future prospects of raising funding externally.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#246
post #83
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 el…

This may come right when Americans see themselves backsliding relative to other power blocks, and allies turning away. It’s started.

But it seems a distant hope at best.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, if someone truly achieves superintelligence it won't be controlled by anyone for long.

That's my other nightmare scenario :P

Just imagine how inexpensive paperclips will become, there is always a silver lining.

We will finally have achieved abundance.

Re: Sam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident

#250
post #78

Sure, he's sleazy. Doesn't matter. It's not ok to firebomb jerks or saints. Rich or poor. It's both a criminal and an immoral act.

This question doesn’t apply to Sam, but since you made a general statement, I’m trying to understand. When it comes to people who openly incite or directly use violence. why do you think it’s unethical to attack someone like that? If one responsible from directly or indirectly killing hundreds, what’s the ethical argument to not use violence against that person? Not trolling or anything I’ve been just thinking about…

It's an interesting question. Here's my reductive, off-the-cuff take: violence is justified when defending oneself or another from imminent bodily harm, or even under threat of imminent, considerable property damage. When a threat is not imminent, or an action is past, we use the police and the courts, because we as a society–in the sense of subscribers of the US constitution or similar tracts–believe that it is better to have a judicial system and impartial officials determine whether it is worth depriving someone of their bodily liberty or taking their property, that is, jailing or fining. Taking some sort of extrajudicial action or applying corporal punishment (!) requires a much higher bar. How and when would one determine that the judicial system is so unreliable as to morally permit vigilantism? It requires a great deal of moral self-confidence to take matters into one's own hands.

I focus on the question of vigilantism because that I think is the issue. Many people feel an emotional impulse, that they want to side with the CEO killer, for example, and they find ways to rationalize. What I'd say is, if you think Joe Blow is so evil , why don't we take him to court? What kind of possible actions could we not jail or fine him for but for which we would accept Johnny Anarchy, y'know, igniting his lawn furniture? Of course, the justice system is imperfect, but nobody lawfully elected the next sexy assassin as judge, jury, and executioner.

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