To me it increasingly seems like there's no version of reality where doing anything will solve the problem, unless you're one of the special few people who can influence the world. The violence is a sign of that. Average people don't do things like these, but when they start feeling helpless, the most unstable people of that society that don't have anything to lose will start acting more erratically. If there's no pressure relief, these actions propagate and will become more common and normalized. This is driven by desperation, not strategically weighing the pros and cons and what impact it'll have on society or what have you.
This kind of sentiment, on its own, is hollow. Just more "violence bad", until the next round.
There is growing anger and discontentment in a large part of the population, driven by inequality of wealth and power. Hopelessness and a lack of control over the future.
Are the nodes of power willing to spread wealth and control more widely to stabilize the country? What are they willing to do to consolidate their power? The vast majority of violence is perpetrated by those nodes, to either consolidate power, or gain more of it.
Other people in this thread have already suggested more actionable responses: organize, unionize, understand class dynamics, and vote accordingly.
The type of person who posts here is unlikely to be the type of criminal that does that sort of thing. The virtue signaling is well-noted - good to have good citizens on here with strongly-worded top posts that get upvoted to the top.
I'm just waiting for dang, et. al to fix our thread voting system as it's a little too Reddity around here these last days.
1. Violent attacks against AI CEOs, researchers, and engineers is going to begin. This is due to widespread negative press that AI receives and as well as a pervasive feeling of economic uncertainty and doom in the population. Some of this being caused by the current administration's leadership, but much of it attributed to AI taking jobs and destroying opportunity.
2. Violent acts taken against non-tech CEOs will increase hand-in-hand.
3. If AI continues to demonstrate impressive new capabilities for automation, this rate will increase substantially.
4. The government may come down hard on these individuals, which will further inflame the situation.
5. Data centers will come under attack / sabotage.
6. This will all wind up further inflamed by prediction markets.
I have a colleague at Anthropic that refuses to put it on his LinkedIn. We all now know why.
Altman needs to sell off that house and move to an anonymized address. I don’t see these attacks letting up any time soon. Two targeted attacks in three days is nuts.
I am seeing information about the attacker that show he was being influenced by Rationalist thinkers - he posted about “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares.
This information of course might be false, so take the words below with a grain of salt. I might be completely wrong.
When an influential group in the Valley that has ties to many tech companies spends years speading rhetoric about “bombing data centers” or the title of the book above, I fear this kind of psychosis is inevitable. People in this thread are focusing on labour and AI issues as the motivation but I am afraid the problem might be closer to home.
Disclaimer: I am not American, just an outside observer.
Violence against datacenters or AI company CEOs is very bad, they must be allowed to fail organically so that they don't have any excuse.
The last thing I want is for someone, in 2029, to say "but LLMs just weren't given a fair chance last time, we would have definitely reached AGI with more funding if it wasn't for [targeted attack]"
Somewhat funny to read all these holy, well-tamed, moral people condemning violence with most dumb, ungrounded "violence bad" that cannot even hold a second of scrutiny.
Yes, violence shouldn't be the first resort, and when violence is unleashed innocent suffer as well, but there is a great difference between choosing not to use violence due to whatever consideration, and being so toothless and tamed that a sight of dog that finally bites when being constantly beaten sickens you.
I feel like Altman's PR team is dropping the ball. We somehow need to get the word out that AI tools will benefit all of humanity, not detract from it.
sama, i know the odds of you seeing this are very low, but i'm so sorry you're being targeted like this. you don't deserve this. i recently saw you do a q&a with francois challet and.. after it was over, you went to your car very quickly and you were driven away. i think these days you must think a lot about your safety and the safety of your family and i wish it didn't have to be that way. wishing you and your family all the best.
Not a proponent of this, but it's worth understanding that a certain part of the population believe once AGI is reached the world will change, and whoever reached it first wields all power. The increase in usability of recent models has no doubt shocked them. With such a mindset it does make sense to consider it a life or death thing. I can understand that some people think attacking these companies is the only way of protecting themselves from a whole different and much less dignified life.
I don't know if they are right, neither in world view nor conclusion. But it seems this is the world we currently lived in. This is one of the cases where for once i wish there was a manifesto to read, because i badly want to understand why
To stop AI now, you would need an absolutely totalitarian government. I am a libertarian but AI will kill us all unless we get an absolutely totalitarian government.
Look, I think Sam Altman is a terrible person too, but to anyone reading that hates people like him as much as I do you should want him alive while we work to build a world where he can live out a long life in complete safety, in prison.
Violence never solves anything. You will never make anything in this world better by becoming a worse person than your enemies.
This is unacceptable and a growing issue in America, anti-AI has become just another focal point for the far end of the political spectrum to rally and ultimately radicalize violence.
Somewhere I read that vigilanteism arises when there is a perceived last of justice. This guy gets rich while people everywhere are losing jobs. Seems about right.
375 comments
There is growing anger and discontentment in a large part of the population, driven by inequality of wealth and power. Hopelessness and a lack of control over the future.
Are the nodes of power willing to spread wealth and control more widely to stabilize the country? What are they willing to do to consolidate their power? The vast majority of violence is perpetrated by those nodes, to either consolidate power, or gain more of it.
Other people in this thread have already suggested more actionable responses: organize, unionize, understand class dynamics, and vote accordingly.
I'm just waiting for dang, et. al to fix our thread voting system as it's a little too Reddity around here these last days.
1. Violent attacks against AI CEOs, researchers, and engineers is going to begin. This is due to widespread negative press that AI receives and as well as a pervasive feeling of economic uncertainty and doom in the population. Some of this being caused by the current administration's leadership, but much of it attributed to AI taking jobs and destroying opportunity.
2. Violent acts taken against non-tech CEOs will increase hand-in-hand.
3. If AI continues to demonstrate impressive new capabilities for automation, this rate will increase substantially.
4. The government may come down hard on these individuals, which will further inflame the situation.
5. Data centers will come under attack / sabotage.
6. This will all wind up further inflamed by prediction markets.
I have a colleague at Anthropic that refuses to put it on his LinkedIn. We all now know why.
Full stop, no "but". That's all that needs to be said on this thread.
This information of course might be false, so take the words below with a grain of salt. I might be completely wrong.
When an influential group in the Valley that has ties to many tech companies spends years speading rhetoric about “bombing data centers” or the title of the book above, I fear this kind of psychosis is inevitable. People in this thread are focusing on labour and AI issues as the motivation but I am afraid the problem might be closer to home.
Disclaimer: I am not American, just an outside observer.
The last thing I want is for someone, in 2029, to say "but LLMs just weren't given a fair chance last time, we would have definitely reached AGI with more funding if it wasn't for [targeted attack]"
Yes, violence shouldn't be the first resort, and when violence is unleashed innocent suffer as well, but there is a great difference between choosing not to use violence due to whatever consideration, and being so toothless and tamed that a sight of dog that finally bites when being constantly beaten sickens you.
I don't know if they are right, neither in world view nor conclusion. But it seems this is the world we currently lived in. This is one of the cases where for once i wish there was a manifesto to read, because i badly want to understand why
You get comments like "violence is bad but we would not have $x if not for violence" and then you get to justify violence for any pet cause they have.
I expect to see more of this until it dies down because of how ridiculous the premise is.
Violence never solves anything. You will never make anything in this world better by becoming a worse person than your enemies.