Comment by etempleton
7 days ago
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.
7 days ago
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.
If I torture 1 person that is bad. If I inflict a smaller suffering on millions of people, does it reach parity? Were the Sackler's actions that ruined so many lives, led young girls/boys into forced prostitution, led to so many ODs and suicides, something that ranked close to deserving violence? Or does the 'LLC/Corp' absorb all responsibility like some capitalist papal indulgence?
If the Sackler's actions are visible evil, where on the 'LLC/Corpo' scale does evil turn to 'acceptable business' and the choices made by management to inflict damage on many many people switch to 'acceptable business' where the perpetrators are disconnected from their actions/choices?
'LLC/Corporations' absolve management of liability/accountability in the government eyes, but you are making an assumption that then extends to absolving when it comes to actual morality. While you can try to sell 'articles of incorporation' count as modern indulgences freeing people from sin under the religion of capitalism I'm not sure all of society agrees. I think the concept that LLC/Incorporation is a blanket 'papal indulgence' absolving management of all accountability/moral behavior in our modern techno feudalist social structure is wearing thin for a lot of people. Clunky as hell language but it's a discuss that needs to be had, and better for all sooner rather than later.
> Or does the 'LLC/Corp' absorb all responsibility like some capitalist papal indulgence?
That was a solid line
Callous indifference seems fine if it’s done at a large scale and the harm impersonal enough. Murder is too small, too targeted.
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I think he means murder, not killing processes /s
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Didn’t we just go through several weeks of hearing about OpenAI allowing its tech to be used for conducting warfare?
Not saying that justifies harming Altman but I am confused that he seems surprised he is now in physical danger? [Or chalks it up to just some single specific incendiary article rather than the companies actual actions?] If you involve yourself in the act of killing people then, yeah, you’re going to get blowback for that and some people are obviously going to want to hurt you
The US is still a democracy.
It's absolutely ok to oppose war.
It is absolutely not ok for "some people to want to hurt" someone who is running a company that is vying for contracts from a democratically elected government's defense department.
It's also ok to protest that, to boycott it or to refuse to work for or with them for it. But escalating that to physical violence is not ok, and nor should people be "confused that he seems surprised he is now in physical danger"
(As an aside, from the statements I've heard so far it seems the person was more an anti-AI, anti-tech person than anti-war)
I completely agree with all your statements. But I think most people in America have moved on from even trying to operate in the political system we have - because it’s been completely subverted by bad actors on both sides of the supposed 2-party system they see it as pointless.
And as such they’ve either become completely irrational (most far left or far rightists), checked out (the rest of us), or fully mentally ill (people like this, or that Gracie Mansion wacko)
I don't think anyone is saying this is justified. But that doesn't mean it's not going to happen and I can understand why people would do this. ESP people that are pushed beyond the limits they can endure.
Right now we have a huge imbalance in the world and more situations like this are going to manifest as we slide further and further into authoritarianism.
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>The US is still a democracy
Let's see if that still holds after the midterms...
Calling it “a democratically elected government's defense department” is extremely generous and not a good point even if the premise were true.
Hitler was democratically elected, who cares?
The premise doesn't make sense either because it's hardly a “defense department” either. It's been more of a “kill civilians and destabilize other democratically elected governments in Latin America and the Middle East department” for the past half century. It's the same “defense department” that overthrew democratically-electdd Allende in Chile and installed a dictator, killed schoolgirls in Iran (I'm not including Iran in the list of democratic places though), bombed a wedding in Pakistan with a drone, and more. It's a massive “defense department” for a country that hasn't been attacked in ages.
The US is hardly a democracy either because a choice between genocide-supporters isn't a real choice, there was no real anti-Zionist candidate.
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Being able to vote between Moloch and Baʿal is hardly “a democracy”.
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>It is absolutely not ok for "some people to want to hurt" someone who is running a company that is vying for contracts from a democratically elected government's defense department.
Why though?
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> Didn’t we just go through several weeks of hearing about OpenAI allowing its tech to be used for conducting warfare?
Unfortunately warfare is a thing. Why wouldn't you want the best technology used for your country when conducting warfare? Or do you just believe warfare would cease to exist if a country gave up any means of defense or offense?
You're allowed to authorize your technology to be used to kill people, but if you do so, you shouldn't be surprised when those people also try to kill you. America and Americans somehow keep forgetting that actions have consequences and the government can't always override the consequences.
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I wouldn't want my country to use the best technology when conducting warfare because my country only conducts offensive warfare resulting in millions of innocent deaths in the Middle East, having a massive military budget that dwarfs most others combined whilst hardly ever being directly threatened.
Can we at least drop the sports games terminology ("defense", "offense") and acknowledge we're talking about mass killing of people here?
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"I'm not saying violence is okay, but violence is okay"
What I am saying is if you involve yourself in violence (and directly profiting from violence) you should not be allowed to act shocked when that same violence turns up on your doorstep
Not ok, but anybody who is ok with terrorizing, say, an Iranian civilian nuclear scientist ought to be equally indifferent to this.
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Pretty much everyone thinks that violence is ok against certain people. You probably do too. The disagreements are about who violence is ok to use against.
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When was the last time a molotov cocktail was thrown at the house of an arms manufacturer?
Trump and other presidents literally started wars and ordered people to be killed. When was the last time they were physically attacked?
> When was the last time they were physically attacked?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...
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Seriously? Not even the DOD partnership?
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If you work to inflict violence on others, you shouldn’t be surprised when it’s attempted to be inflicted back on you. I’m not saying it’s a just worldview, but it is pragmatic.
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You make it sound like an american company has a choice under this administration
They always have a choice, it just doesn't make them as much.
Anthropic clearly showed that they have a choice.
Anthropic seemed to have a choice.
They were just following orders, right
Is it a democracy or a dictatorship?
You may want to sit with that one for a while.
Agreed! Have you heard of Suchir Balaji?
Holy shit how is this the first time I am hearing about this? This should not be my first time hearing about this.
> Suchir Balaji (November 21, 1998 – November 26, 2024) was an American artificial intelligence researcher who was found dead one month after accusing OpenAI, his former employer, of violating United States copyright law -Wikipedia
There was a Tacker Carlson interview with Sam Altman where Tacker probed him on Balaji's murder and Sam quickly got confused and disoriented. Make your own conclusions.
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Unpopular opinion. It depends.
I totally agree with your statement if we are talking about the average citizen starting to throw Molotovs at his house. If you’re afraid AI is taking your job, just do something else. It’s not the end of the world changing careers.
Plenty of work AI won’t be able to do, or allowed to do without a human assisting in some way that secures the human a good income and way of life.
So if this is done by an individual citizen, they need to be hunted down, arrested, and get the full force of the justice system to deter others from doing the same.
On the other hand, right now, Sam Altman is a valid military target for assassination in the US / Iran war.
OpenAI did snatch up the contract from Anthropic at the Pentagon, and their technology is in some capacity used to murder Iranian HVTs (High Value Targets). Altman is therefore technically a legal HVT for the Iranians.
If you say it’s valid and not a war crime for the US to assassinate former political Iranian figures and their families for aiding the new regime and therefore becoming enemy combatants in the eye of the US Military, it’s also valid to assassinate Altman and his family for doing the same to the other war party.
It’s a bit of a Schrödinger situation. He is technically a valid target in a current war, but not for the private citizen.
In both cases, though, I’d advocate that violence is neither a solution to solve the problem that AI might be creating for a lot of people in the future, nor should he be treated as an enemy combatant and his infant child and wife bombed to smitherens.
Diplomacy is key here, just like it would have been the better solution than going to war with Iran.
If you disagree with Altman, send him a letter, show up at his workplace, talk to the man, gather people who think the same of him you do, write letters to your voted representatives, make calls, vote politicians into office that are anti AI and who will go after him and regulate his company to shit. Bureaucrats can make Altman’s life more miserable than a thousand Molotovs ever could.
If you gather enough support, you can reach the same goal, taking his power over your life away, without any violence.
But are you really surprised people chose violence over the democracy toolbox in the US if they get told by the people in charge of their country that violence is indeed a good way to solve problems, that you should have a "warrior" spirit and everything is up for grabs, even sovereign countries like Greenland because you can outviolence any other nation on the planet?
Violence only creates more violence and as long as there is a president who chooses to put oil in the fire and pretends it’s ok to murder US citizens like Alex Pretti, you don’t really need to wonder if the average citizen starts murdering tech CEOs in the near future.
They just follow the Top-down approach to using violence as a tool the leadership lives by example.
> If you say it’s valid and not a war crime for the US to assassinate former political Iranian figures and their families for aiding the new regime and therefore becoming enemy combatants in the eye of the US Military, it’s also valid to assassinate Altman and his family for doing the same to the other war party.
Sam isn't a political leader, so this comparison is flawed. What the hell, are we really arguing about if assasinating a long-standing figure of this community here is valid? Seriously??
He is a leader and a political figure. This blogpost is political (as well as sharing a family photo, which is itself imbued with a political message in that context).
Engineer archetypes hate politics and refuse to think about it. For most engineering, there is negligible political dimension. But culturally-transformative technology is inherently political to the degree it's transformative. Altman recognises this.
He is working towards a social goal, and attracting support to achieve it. Yes, he is a political leader.
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Neither were the Iranian nuclear scientists.
People on this forum applauded Charlie Kirk’s murder too. Unfortunately theres a number of people here who believe it’s okay to murder instead of argue with words. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
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I am not saying he should not be criticized or even held legally liable for actions. Merely that, you know, fire bombing peoples homes whose actions you disagree with is bad thing.
Controversial hot take, I know.
Sure, it's bad in a vacuum. I think people notice the decades long pattern (the Sacklers, etc) and just know that if some rich dude causes a million of people to lose jobs and live in poverty (or straight up die) nothing will happen to the dude.
Dysfunctional political systems tend to break the states monopoly on violence.
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if every business(man) who lobbies against regulations for their business is a fair game to go after violently (not just her/him but his family as well) there would be a bloodbath of epic proportions… one day, this might be you and your family too…
It already is our families. We don't have healthcare. We live in rentals that enrich others. We take rented scooters to work. We have no retirement funds or futures.
Live in slavery and be happy? Hold a sign no one reads? Own nothing? Feel no peace, have no medicine?
I don't condone it, but I understand it.
I believe there's still the possibility for us to fix things in peace, but I can see why others don't.
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I hope so, because if instead of reflecting and trying to prevent whatever I created is used to hurt people, my option is to try to lobby/shield me from it, I hope the angry mob to come after me and put me my head on the stake, I will deserve it.
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> In essence, he has threatened to kill millions of people.
“In essence” is doing enormous work here, and it will be basically impossible to have any kind of discussion if that work is considered acceptable.
This kind of word-twisting can be used to make pretty much anyone into a murderer, at which point “discussion” will come down to who the mob chooses to listen to.
>“In essence” is doing enormous work here
What kind of health insurance does one have when one is employed in the USA? What is the life expectancy of unemployed people vs. employed?
Case closed.
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These comments have gone beyond Reddit levels and reached Facebook insanity levels.
This is not an argument or a rebuttal, and I don't think you're really understanding what I'm saying.
I'm not saying altman is actually a murderer or that AI is even bad for society as a whole.
I'm saying that what he is saying is directly threatening to a lot of people, and it should be obvious that some of those people will lash out.
Something being good for society can still be bad for you. If you're someone who altman is bragging about making redundant, then you might be mad at altman. It's very simple reasoning.
I simply don't understand how somebody able to enjoy modern comforts precisely because of innovations resulting in job eliminations will suddenly draw the line when AI might risk some jobs.
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Words can justify violence. A serious threat of violence is a reasonable basis for acting in self-defense. Another comment said the same about pre-emptive self-defense as if one should wait to be shot at even whilst a gun is pointed at them before shooting back.
By this incredibly specious logic, many of your comments here represent “threats” towards people who work in AI, or with the DoD, etc, in any capacity. I guess they’re now justified in trying to murder your children, right?
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what?
I mean, those things are true too.
I don't see how they relate or what your point is.
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> 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.
Actions have consequences. There will always be people in the world that get pushed beyond the limits they can endure. It reminds of that CEO that got gunned down by someone that was being affected by the company profiting off of making a business of denying health insurance claims on technicalities.
I don't support this and yet I know for every harm people in these corrupt institutions are involved in, the universe gives back your due.
If you want to stop the harm. Stop harming the world with your actions in what every way that needs to manifest for you.
So how often are arms manufacturers and leaders starting wars gunned down?
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Reading that BBC article, how the attacker got caught while shouting at an OpenAI building, it would seem likely that this attacker is confused or deranged. Not specifically someone with deliberate evil intent.
So the headline seems to be more "high profile person attacked by lunatic" than "OpenAI CEO attacked for being evil".
Or Iran, for that matter.
Justice isn't just about punishing the guilty. It is also about restoring the trust in our society when it has been damaged by criminals. Very few Americans I know have any faith in our justice system's ability to hold the wealthy accountable. As a result, we will see more and more violence as a natural consequence.
Sam Altman could use his considerable wealth to hold billionaires like himself accountable for crimes that they commit through lobbying or funding investigations. Seeing criminal billionaires face justice would go a long to reducing this kind of violence.
Is there anything anyone can do that justifies violence or threats of violence? No. Even if that person is a proven child molestater, a just society stands on just law.
But as far as political justification stands, he is as valid of a target for hostile nations just as Iranian nuclear scientists were (unless he has 0 involvment with USG). That's just the world we live in.
Use your tech for war in other nations, you give a justification for other nations to target you. Same goes for Lockheed Martin ceo etc, nothing specific against Sam. But saying nobody has no valid reason to target Sam like this is pretty stupid imo.
I’m pretty sure if someone sexually assaulted my child or murdered them I’d be more than morally justified to get a few or a lot of punches in.
Some people are treated a whole lot better than others in prison.
Are the parents of an Iranian nuclear scientist murdered by an OpenAI-powered drone morally justified to murder Sam Altman?
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