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Comments (916)

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  etempleton
  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.
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  atbpaca
  I have many disagreements with Sam Altman. But physical attacks are never the answer. Especially attacking one's family.
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  cal_dent
  An interesting thing about one facet of how society as developed over the past decade and a half, I think, is that a byproduct of more people being conscious of the quest to monetise almost anything is that it has also raised the level of general scepticism on whether something is marketing or real. So you have increasingly more scenarios where an objectively bad thing can happen to someone but any public response is scrutinised and questioned within a hint of its life sometimes rightly sometimes not. I don’t particularly like it but that’s where we are at guess
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  klik99
  Genuinely surprised at the extreme comments against sama here. I don’t think he’s a good steward of the technology, but I don’t think violence is funny or justified. I also don’t think it’s justified for him to use it to say that a negative article about him is correlated to this event. Seems to imply that an “incendiary article” led to this and that criticism is tantamount to calls to violence. He drives the conversation with apocalyptic terms, and both investors and crazy people buy into it.
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  joshcsimmons
  This is both horrible and not at all surprising.Every quarter there are more layoffs and we're told how AI will replace us and that we can do nothing to stop it. We cannot afford the simple things our parents were able to and are supposed to be grateful that we are living in a time with such "amazing" technological progress.Sam is one of the most media-visible people that represents AI replacement of average people's livelihood (not agreeing with this stance but yes, outside of the Hacker News SF-tech matcha latte bubble, this is a commonly held thought) which makes this unsurprising.Still horrible and not right.
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  richardlblair
  Jfc. People, a molitov cocktail was thrown as his home.The rest of what is written doesn't matter. This isn't the moment for that conversation. That's his family. He has a fucking child.Holy shit.
• creddit
  1) It's terrible that this has happened. People who do this are evil.2) It's atrocious that Sam makes it seem like any investigative reporting into him as a major public figure at the head of one of the 5 most important companies in the world is somehow responsible for it.3) Sam is always playing the smol bean victim for sympathy points. To be clear, he is absolutely the victim of an atrocious crime. However, this post is not done for any reason other than to continue the exact same playbook he has for the last N years in order to manipulate public opinion to his favor. This post will do nothing to stop deranged, evail people but it may make people feel sympathy for him.
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  verzali
  I feel like he is chucking a molotov cocktail at all of us. Maybe it will bounce off. Maybe we won't be so lucky.
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  cnd78A
  when you live in barbaric soeciety where the majority don't mind using force to achieve their goals at the expense of minorities or basic international law, peacefull protest become useless.
• presides
  >“Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it.” It has a real "ring of power” dynamic to it, and makes people do crazy things. I don’t mean that AGI is the ring itself, but instead the totalizing philosophy of “being the one to control AGI”. The only solution I can come up with is to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly, and for no one to have the ring.The analogy has 2 simple rules and you can't even follow them:#1 It MUST be destroyed.#2 SOMEONE has to have the ring until then.Without BOTH of those things you have no meaningful analogy. If we're being super charitable, "For no one to have the ring" is Frodo sitting at the council, with the ring on the table, naively thinking that it can stay right there in that spot forever, safe in Rivendell, about to have the horrifying revelation that there are 2.5 more books in the story. More realistically, it's Boromir moments later arguing that Denethor has the mandate to use it to fight on Gondor's behalf.Fuck. I'm so past the point of caring about the extinction of our species, or your role in enslaving us to our robot overlords or whatever... but SELLING US SPECIOUS RING ANALOGIES IS WHERE I DRAW THE FUCKING LINE
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  dash2
  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 thought their only option was to attempt a horrific crime.> Sociopath who rides high ego wave and drinks his own kool aid, acting highly amorally and then complaints that his actions have some (benign) consequences.> A cavalier attitude and allegiance to nothing but capital doesn't make you immune to basic human morals, and humanity will, rightly in my opinion, punish you whether you like it or not.These comments are disgusting. The people who made them should be ashamed. But they are probably too stupid to be, assuming they are people and not bots, which I no longer feel certain of for all too many comments here.
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  brailsafe
  I can't help but be reminded of last year, when our landlords (chill boomers) sold the house my girlfriend and I were renting the basement of (to presumably rich asshole millenials). The demographic doesn't really matter, but the old landlords kept us in us in the loop throughout the process, we knew as much as we could going into the new year. Apparently the new buyers wanted to keep us as tenants. Day 2 of them taking possession, the man came down with his innocent toddler and introduced themselves. He seemed friendly enough, and on Day 3 he came down in the middle of the day and handed me eviction notice papers.I didn't firebomb his house, but I can't say I definitely didn't want to shit on his doorstep.
• hungryhobbit
  *Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people, and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for me.""Prosperity for everyone" ... you lying weasel! You literally took a contract from Anthropic because they wouldn't mass surveil Americans or mass murder non-Americans ... and you would!
• AlexCoventry
  > The only solution I can come up with is to orient towards sharing the technology with people broadly, and for no one to have the ring. The two obvious ways to do this are individual empowerment and *making sure democratic system stays in control.*OK! So he's going to renege on the contract he's signed with Hegseth, which effectively commits OpenAI to serving as the IT Department for Trump's secret service?
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  surround
  > 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.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659135
• w10-1
  I appreciate his post and his tone.No one should need to attack (on the one hand) or "trust" (on the other) Sam Altman (or Donald Trump or Barack Obama).Power is reliance by others, and that's conditioned on behaviors which are made observable and systems to ensure stakeholders' interests are maintained. Yes, there's some hero-worship, some arbitrary private power, some evasion of systems, and some self-dealing by leader coalitions (indeed, we seem to be at a historical peak), but that's not about him personally but about us, and our willingness to vote (writ large).We do have to be careful about private power saying managing their issues are a matter for public governance (democratic or otherwise). It's a bit convenient to deflect blame (like having it be the jury that "decides" a case, because then you can't blame the judge). I like that Anthropic stepped up to pay any electricity increases, Apple has been recycling and cleaning up their supply chain, etc. If anything there should be a stronger support for contributing vs. Hobbesian corporations.
• Razengan
  The anti-OpenAI brigade on HackerNews has reached Reddit-insanity proportions.There's no way is this organic
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  LunaSea
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  copypaper
  In all seriousness, what is the game plan for society moving forward as AI takes more jobs? The government doesn't seem to care. The AI labs don't seem to care.What happens when more and more people can't afford housing, kids, food, health insurance, etc.? Nothing more dangerous than a man who has no reason to live...I don't advocate for violence, but I do foresee more headlines like this as things get worse.
• daft_pink
  It’s just so bizarre that they would pick or obsess over him. He’s just a financier/leader.
• anon
  undefined
• dkrest
  Words don't matter as lomg as there are actions that do. His mission has already transformed the world into the instance where he finds his family under threat.
• b8
  We still haven't made AGI, so I don't understand what he's saying they did.
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  taurath
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• throw7
  *Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people, and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for me.How so? What is your theory of morality Sam? What I hear is Google: "Don't Be Evil".
• reducesuffering
  Sam Altman has written, and probably still believes,"Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity."[0]This means he acknowledges that his actions have the potential to kill every human family on Earth. It should be of no surprise that people took his beliefs seriously.[0] https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1
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  BloondAndDoom
  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 arguing about importance of AI but trying to understand why OpenAI and Anthropic are so important?
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  tasuki
  Why's there all them chilled bottles in the photo?
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  flohofwoe
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• AlexandrB
  > My personal takeaway from the last several years, and take on why there has been so much Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field, comes down to this: “Once you see AGI you can’t unsee it.”Except nobody has seen AGI. Not even close.
• jrflowers
  > Words have power too. 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. I brushed it aside.> Now I am awake in the middle of the night and pissed, and thinking that I have underestimated the power of words and narratives. This seems like as good of a time as any to address a few things.This kind of reads like “It is Ronan Farrow’s fault that some crazy person tried to burn my house down”.Like this guy was going to go about his week, being normal and not making Molotov cocktails, but then he picked up a copy of The New Yorker and lost his mind
• crossroadsguy
  What a shocker. People in this thread, in the same breath, can easily say assassinating too many civilian nuclear scientists in countries like Iran (oh, add India, and I am sure many more, to that list; you didn't know, did you?) is kosher (or use phrases like: "so what?", "what about that?", "what?", "do you think that's a fair comparison?", "that's different", etc.), and then there's killing children and the elderly (the whole schools, hospitals, marriage parties, villages if the mood is right) is also justified (see, how we only talk about children, elderly, and women; indiscriminately killing adults who are neither women nor elderly is of course a fashionable thing to do), but a symbolic Molotov cocktail thrown at this person's home, who has been throwing such cocktails collectively at the rest of us, is barbaric and a harbinger of the end times.I was joking. This "not in my white picket fence side of the world" is anything but shocking on HN or pretty much any online forum largely populated by people from those sides of the world. HN loves using a microscope, but sometimes rather a telescope with alarmingly selective dexterity.
• jazz9k
  AI is great. But it seems like those that wield its power only do so to create massive unemployment and benefits to the top 1%.
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  dang
  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: for anyone wondering (or hoping), no I'm not leaving. That was a momentary expression of dismay.
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  thatoneengineer
  What article is he referencing in the fourth paragraph? The New Yorker one? I got the impression that it was careful in its reporting and by no means one-sided.Seems pretty sleazy for him to associate that (based on no evidence!) with the violent attack.
• nothinkjustai
  > It will not all go well. The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long timeReason enough to pause and figure out the best way to continue. A massive societal change that won’t all go well means millions dead and tens more with their lives upended.
• mbgerring
  The current crop of tech billionaires openly hate democracy, gleefully proclaim that their products are going to put everyone out of a job, and invest enormous amounts of time and energy into making sure that nobody can do anything to stop the world they’re creating, that nobody asked for or wants.Actions have consequences. I’m sorry. Read a history book.
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  throwatdem12311
  I don’t think this will do much to help his image.They had to stop putting Luigi Mangione in the media because public sentiment was not going the way they expected.
• anon
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  angoragoats
  To be clear, I don’t want anyone’s house to get firebombed by any means. But the “I’m just a humble guy making mistakes and trying the best I can” attitude of this article strikes me as extremely inauthentic based on everything I know about the guy.
• surgical_fire
  I wonder if the attacker asked ChatGPT how to make a molotov cocktail.It would be an interesting plot twist.
• numpad0
  > I was thinking about our upcoming trial with Elon and remembering how much I held the line on not being willing to agree to the unilateral control he wanted over OpenAI. I’m proud of that, and the narrow path we navigated then to allow the continued existence of OpenAI, and all the achievements that followed.... could THIS be the reason why it happened now and how?
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  partiallypro
  There are people actively insinuating in this thread that Sam should be...killed, and they are still up. Very odd moderation, surely there is a better way to flag these things.
• gleenn
  "AI has to be democratized" - pretty weak coming from ClosedAI
• unethical_ban
  He says power can't be too concentrated - but even n-2 generation models are not open.He says "look at me I love my family" - so do the millions of people who think his company may destroy the economy and help corporations and the trillionaires put a boot to our children's necks.3:45am in the morning - no dip, that's what AM is.---Someone here asked "How do we get to post scarcity from here?" and someone else said "no one knows".The AI barons are loading up their bank accounts and political capital, driving us off a cliff and promising we'll learn to fly by the time we get there. But they're going to tuck and roll out of the driver's seat.Sam, why do you expect us to believe anything you say when you have done nothing to lead the discussion about universal rights for citizens in a post scarcity society?
• cedws
  I know it’s not fair to attribute someone else’s actions to Altman, but his words about upholding democracy feel a bit hollow given his relationship with Brockman. Brockman gave a $25 million donation to a Trump super PAC. As a reminder, Trump detests the democratic protest and tried to overturn an election result. He also frequently floats the idea of a third term. That is not upholding democracy and Altman should cut ties if that’s truly his objective.
• dwb
  “Democratising” - you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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  tills13
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  rdl
  My theory is a lot of the anti-AI sentiment is specifically US geopolitical adversaries (pick one or more: China, Russia, Iran, ...) who want a bad outcome for the US (AI as potential AGI; AI as one of the few successful economic sectors of the US; general desire to cause societal disruption or collapse and AI as convenient target). Probably >95% of the really bad stuff (the micron fab disruption, attacks on AI datacenters, ...) is probably root-cause that, possibly executed by useful idiots, people paid by organizations, etc. 5% is normal NIMBY stuff. Approximately measure 0 is Zizian death cultists.I don't any of these will be dissuaded by cute family photos. Fortunately the frontier model companies and major infrastructure providers are able to pay for top-tier corporate security (although tech people generally have been unwilling to do this at home for lifestyle reasons), but I'd be afraid for people elsewhere in the supply chain.(And destructive attack is all on top of the normal corporate espionage, infiltration, subversion, etc.)
• Leomuck
  Uff. Hard thread to comment on.I'm fairly radical in my opinion regarding AI, moreso AI companies. AI is a fascinating thing, but it's abused by capitalism to be something it is not and shoulnd't be, to be sold to people who don't need it and to "revolutionize" a world that didn't ask for it. Most importantly, who (in a democratic sense) elected those tech leaders to make decisions that influence all our lifes? Those very tech CEOs are so far away from normal-human-life and I find it digusting.Still, the way to combat this is not violence. It won't help anything, since there are enough people to fill the roles. More importantly though, as much as I personally hate Sam Altman, he hasn't done anything specifically targeting individuals. You might call him a psychopath, an illusionist or whatever, but he doesn't seem to be trying to make peoples life worse. He might want to do his life better and that's egotistical, but you know that's the world we live in. Many people are egotistical. I would see Sam Altman more as a symptom of the general societal developments. If we don't like what's happening, we have to fight what's happening. Trying to kill people (and especially innocent ones!) is so far away from a solution and from the right thing to do. Post shit about him on the internet, hate what he does, but attack his family? Man, I don't think that should be our level of moral compass.I do very much understand the frustration. But that's not the right path. He might be scum, but he has as much right to live as everybody else. If we don't like what he's doing, we have to fight it - via discourse, collective engagement, whatever.Edit: I did read that the molotow was thrown at the entrance gate. From what I gather, entrance gates of huge mansions do not actually pose a threat to people. So it could be read as more of a political message than an actual attack on people. I could understand that somehow given the limited means normal people have to get heard. Still, I don't think that does anything positive.
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  hyeonwho5
  Firebombing homes is completely uncivilized, but I'm not going to believe a single public word from Altman about anything. He's a lying sociopath and will say whatever gets himself ahead.
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  ahf8Aithaex7Nai
  Why exactly is he showing a picture of a toddler?
• sensanaty
  Lmao even in a post about his house getting torched the ghoul can't help but trump up some more hype around "AGI".
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  Tyrubias
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  psiisim
  What a tone deaf response. Sounds like he learned nothing at all from this.
• infamouscow
  Is there a Polymarket for when the first AI data center is burned to the ground?
• anon
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• dmitrygr
  > There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago [...]That is a lot of words, none of which state or claim the article was in any way inaccurate. Curious, that
• MiguelX413
  We need Mario
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  dakolli
  Sam had this pulled off the front page, because the whole charade obviously isn't getting him the positive attention he was looking for.
• Miner49er
  This is a predictable outcome of what people like Altman are doing, and probably will happen more and more.Altman and co. are massively changing society, putting people out of work, etc. It is systemic violence on a massive scale. Systemic violence is "acceptable" violence, but it usually leads to a sudden outburst of plain old subjective violence like this.
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  mattsoldo
  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.
• nromiun
  AI hysteria has gone too far. People are literally telling stories of what AI may be capable of in the future and whipping themselves into a frenzy.
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  woeirua
  Sounds like this was just a crazy guy upset at OpenAI. Not great but an isolated incident.That said… is anyone going to be surprised when the laid off masses torch a data center or worse? IMO, it’s only a matter of time before we see organized anti-AI terrorism too. When you have people out there saying “AI will kill us all” then it’s easy to justify using violence to stop that outcome.
• drivingmenuts
  None of the things you believe are working out.1) Working towards prosperity, etc. - the prosperity is all going toward the top 2%. The people who need it most are not seeing it and probably never will because the only ones who guarantee a benefit are the ones with the money to direct that benefit.2) AI will be the most powerful tool, etc. - see point 1.3) It will not all go well, etc. - probably should have thought about that before you released it on the world.4) AI has to democratized, etc. - true, won't happen. See point 1.5) Adaptability is critical, etc. - Yes. Fully agree.The problem, Mr. Altman, is that you believe the rest of the world thinks like you do, which is clearly not the case at all. While we have the ability to solve so many of the world's problems, it is absolutely clear that this is not what's happening. The rich in resources are getting richer and they're not doing anything to help those poor in resources become better off. Instead, they are claiming those resources for themselves against the day that everyone else runs out.Same as it ever was, Mr. Altman. Same as it ever was.
• imiric
  > We have to get safety right, which is not just about aligning a model—we urgently need a society-wide response to be resilient to new threats. This includes things like new policy to help navigate through a difficult economic transition in order to get to a much better future.This might be the greatest example of cognitive dissonance I've seen in years. I can't understand how someone who's clearly highly intelligent can express this opinion, while doing the complete opposite. Does he think that everyone is a fool and that nobody will notice? Is this some form of gaslighting? Unbelievable.Violence is not the answer, but it's easy to see how Sam's public persona would push someone to do this. There are certainly disturbed people who don't need any logical reason for violence, but maybe it would help if Sam stopped being so damn dishonest and manipulative. Even this post that is intended to gain sympathy ends up doing the opposite.As a sidenote, I wish we would stop paying attention to these people. A probablistic pattern generator is far from the greatest technology humanity has ever invented. Get off your high horse, stop deluding people, and start working with organizations and governments to educate people in understanding and using this tech instead of hoarding power and wealth for you and your immediate circle of grifters.> A lot of companies say they are going to change the world; we actually did.Ugh.
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  TurdF3rguson
  Is the underground bunker in New Zealand ready yet? Better check on it.
• daseiner1
  think of the children!did he find his PR agent on Upwork or does he just think we're all morons?
• avazhi
  Why are you talking about how it feels once you’ve seen AGI when you’ve never seen AGI, Sam?In all seriousness, we’ve got glorified autocorrect right now. Even suggesting any of these LLMs is actual AGI is laughable. I’m not saying they can’t do some interesting things, but unless Sam has access to models that are equivalent to what would be GPT-50 he should avoid throwing in buzzword acronyms for no reason.
• c54
  In his interview with Theo Von when asked what he wants his legacy to be and how he wants to be remembered, Sam said something to the effect of: “I don’t think about how I will be remembered I just want to have impact.” I think that’s naive and leads to having, uh, negative impact.I don’t think history will smile upon him. Always good to think about how you want people to feel about your impact on them.https://youtu.be/aYn8VKW6vXA
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  brador
  This article feels like he’s trying to use his kid as a human shield for his behavior.Elon was accused of this too.
• d--b
  Was the New Yorker article that incendiary? It didn’t paint a good picture for most but I recall someone posting here that they had a better view of Altman after reading it. And the whole thing was quite nuanced IMO.Plus I doubt that someone who would read a 30min New Yorker article is the kind of person who would throw a molotov cocktail at someone’s home.It’s a shitty move to try and make a causal connection between the New Yorker article and this act of terrorism. He’s trying to blame the author and discredit the article.It’s a “I’m trying to be the good guy but they’re trying to stop me” situation. This is not a message addressed to us, it’s a message addressed to his employees and his followers. This is the kind of tactics people use when they want to establish a cult. Sam Altman again is showing how manipulative he is. And as any good guru he probably believes everything he says.
• anon
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  ltbarcly3
  It's amazing how humble someone can pretend to be a couple days after the top investigative journalist in the country (maybe world) exposes them as a sociopath and there is an attempt to assassinate them.What I would not do if there were attempts to kill me is post a picture of my spouse and child and point out how important they are to me with a photograph of them. It's literally trading a little bit of the safety of your family in exchange for sympathy from bystanders.
• anon
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  happytoexplain
  Historically, was it always so common for powerful or famous people to seem to purposefully garner hatred like he, and others, have been for the past decade? To speak in a petty, self-important, "trolling" manner, to a very broad audience? To embrace traits that are intrinsically negative? Or are we living in a rare time?
• drcongo
  I thought we flagged AI written slop on here.
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  bedroom_jabroni
  Did Claude Mythos escape containment?
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  kelnos
  > 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 actually democratizing access to AI to say.
• jimmyjazz14
  Altman really needs some better coaching on how to sound like a real human, he's not pulling it off here. Who witnesses someone firebombing their home (which is terrible btw), thinks for a second about their family then writes a diatribe full of AI marketing bs. He doesn't even attempt to make it sound personal. He could have incorporated his feelings about his child growing up in an AI dominated world or something to that effect, even as trite as that sounds, it would ring more believably human than what was written here.
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  pesus
  > The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen.> It will not all go well. The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever.Boy, he really just encouraged the world to keep turning against him. This is so transparently disingenuous. I guess he has no choice if he doesn't want to give up his wealth and power, but putting statements like these out are only going to further fuel anti-AI sentiment.I do think it's funny he opened this with an allegedly real picture of a baby, though. It may very well be real, but why would anyone take his word for that, especially those who already don't trust him?
• anon
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  Chance-Device
  Just take a second to consider this: if HN, probably one of the less reactionary places on the internet, and one of the most capitalist-friendly, is this angry at this point, before the mass job losses even start, what in the name of God do you think the general public is going to be like when they’ve been going on for years?If nothing else there’s a serious self-preservation incentive for AI CEOs to sort something out that doesn’t get them lynched, because it’s not looking good.
• fzeroracer
  > This is quite valid, and we welcome good-faith criticism and debate.It's always funny when they pull out this argument when they've been working overtime to pull up the ladder and embed themselves in the MIC.Listen, for people unaware of history things used to be a lot more violent as workers had to earn their rights with blood. The state had to respond by first attempting to squash it violently and second compromising in such a way as to ensure workers had a bit more power in the system.As long as AI shit continues to consume the economy, kicking out people who can no longer find a job and survive while the government also removes any remaining safety nets, the end result is going to be violence. This doesn't make the violence right or just, but rather completely predictable. And if people don't learn from history then it will be repeated, unfortunately.
• anon
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• jibal
  So he spends a few seconds writing something generic about his family and then uses that as a platform for a bunch of personal PR. That's sociopathy.
• anon
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• anon
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• morgengold
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• 319abG
  The molotov cocktail was thrown at the metal gate, not at the house and they arrested some kind of a disturbed person:https://sfstandard.com/2026/04/10/sam-altman-russian-hill-mo...It was a performative action.I'm sure there will be a thorough investigation, unlike in the Suchir Balaji murder case where they rubber stamped suicide after half an hour despite him being a whistleblower.
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  rdevilla
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  Arodex
  Ah, the Elon manoeuvre: trying to make would-be assassins hesitate by using your own child as a shield.
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  IAmGraydon
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• sassymuffinz
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  IAmGraydon
  The guy is either mentally unwell or grifting. Most likely the latter.
• bravetraveler
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  voidhorse
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  mystraline
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  weedhopper
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  cuuupid
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  zb3
  So there's one photo. Of one family. Now what about millions of photos of all the other families possibly affected by him? That doesn't have power?It's like "hey you can say mean things about me but don't attack my family while I attack yours". Not that this is directed at him personally, but it's just this mindset of wealthy people..
• guzfip
  No peace for grifters. Flush them out of the country.And I mean all of them, left wing, right wing, corporate. I am sick of every level of power in the country being filled with lying grifters. I don’t care what happens to them, as long as they’re gone.I feel like I’m living in a circus.
• kelseyfrog
  No one deserves to be attacked.I also believe that there will be more casualties in the AI Wars. We should be prepared for that. Capitalism, AI, and human life are mutually incompatible and I'm still not sure which two will survive the conflict.
• therobots927
  The New Yorker article was tame. I wish no harm on Sam. But for him to mention that article in the first couple paragraphs is nothing short of opportunistic, and exemplative of exactly the type of manipulative behavior outlined in the article.Fuck off Sam. And stay safe out there.
• mrcwinn
  That we are so concerned about the movies of individuals like Sam and Dario (or even Elon, if you consider xAI a frontier lab) tells you what a poor job we’re doing with regulation and self-governance.
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  zoklet-enjoyer
  TIL Sam Altman is gay
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  raslah
  The FOBO here smells.
• drekipus
  I think the important thing to remember, when they say "all humans deserve life and democratic process" - is the question of "what do they consider sub-human?" Ie: do they believe employees have souls? Or that the masses are cattle? Because it's then very easy to have strong conviction of human rights when you get to choose who is a human and who is cattle.
• matty22
  I mean…FAFO? He’s an egomaniac pushing a technology that is objectively negative for anyone not already a billionaire. I have no issue with more Molotov cocktails being chucked at his house, or OpenAI offices, or data centers around the world.Sam Altman being removed from the equation would make the world an objectively better place.
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  el_jay
  This article and discussion appear to have been manually delisted from the News rankings.Evidently, even HN could only keep up the pretense that tech development is amoral and apolitical for so long.
• ChoGGi
  Well Sam, you should take your family and your billions and fuck off to some island paradise.Or keep on doing deals with the DoD and pushing to replace desperate people's jobs.Cute kid, I'd rather be raising my family in peace then dealing with what you deal with.@dang You have a bullshit filled unrelenting job, thanks for doing it.
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  flovec
  I see quite a lot of "violence is never justified" sentiment throughout the comments. I ask as a "thought experiment" - why? At least from my understanding, the history of America is riddled with working class uprisings that resulted in the use of force (violence) attempting to make their lives less insufferable. If your government has failed you because it is a plutocracy enriching itself off of enacted hardships (the most general way I can put it), is force not the only thing left? You could argue that there are other possibilities - general strikes et. al. - but those often end in _the state using force_ against you. If the law allows for the use of force in certain circumstances (stand your ground), and there is an analogous situation at hand where there is no concept of justice (justice serving those in power), certainly one has to consider it as a tool for use _outside the law_? The "violence is never justified" comments read more like thoughtless propaganda to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Obviously a person's life is involved, jesus, so certainly there is an opposite camp we don't want to get to: "just nuc 'em". But it seems strange that you wouldn't debate the use of force, even if the answer is "the only winning move is not to play".
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  kbelder
  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.
• mc7alazoun
  Daamn, you were too fast to share the story haha.
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  boring-human
  This is an odd choice of a thread for a laundry list of complaints about AI and about a person that, say what you will, is nowhere near the list of planetary "really bad guys". Even if we limit it to tech, the list starts with someone way richer, then goes through four or five way-shadier people.If you're OK with victim-shaming here, doesn't it say more about you than Altman? What does it say about your viewpoint?