alt Hacker NewsSam Altman's response to Molotov cocktail incident
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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?
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.
think of the children!
did he find his PR agent on Upwork or does he just think we're all morons?
Responses in this thread are embarrassing. Cat's out of the bag and needs a steward. People acting like Altman can just turn the machines off and this all stops are deluded.
> 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.
What a tone deaf response. Sounds like he learned nothing at all from this.
Is the underground bunker in New Zealand ready yet? Better check on it.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
> 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?
> 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.
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.
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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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Ah, the Elon manoeuvre: trying to make would-be assassins hesitate by using your own child as a shield.
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Not that I excuse this behavior, but it's expected is it not? He's claimed to have built the replacement for human labor while participating in the regulatory capture that ensures that process screws the affected parties out of any effective recourse.
He's stood atop a soapbox, in earshot of everybody, and shouted to the corporations that because of him, they can now fire hundreds of thousands — millions — of people with impunity. It doesn't matter that it's not true and that the firings are probably not actually due to AI. But he's standing in front of them and providing the cover.
He's a marketing guy. He made himself the face of AI. His message out of the gate was that it was going to replace human workers. What did he think was going to happen?
It's like all of these people think that humanity has evolved out of the collective rage spirals that powered political revolutions in the 1500's, 1600's, 1700's — every 100's. Nope. It's always still there. We've had a middle class for awhile to mask it but it's being hollowed out and when it collapses completely, that ugly and ever-present human urge to eat the rich will rage right back to the surface again. Yet, they all seem to be apt to fight to be first in line to be the face of injustice during a volatile period for some reason.
It's kind of baffling but also interesting to witness.
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The guy is either mentally unwell or grifting. Most likely the latter.
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'Discourse is getting too hot' says Man selling Large Language Microwaves
Sam had this pulled off the front page, because the whole charade obviously isn't getting him the positive attention he was looking for.