AI Populism Turns Violent

**Nathaniel Whittemore** (0:01)
Today on the AI Daily Brief, why AI populism is turning violent and what we can do about it.
The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and video about the most important news and discussions in AI.
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Lastly, I am back from travel and had intended today to be a normal episode, headlines, main, etc. But the discourse and discussion around the multiple attacks on Sam Altman's house over the weekend, I think creates a context to zoom out in a way that I believe is unfortunately important right now. We will be back with our regular format tomorrow, and I've got some great episodes this week coming up about changes to quad code, how people are building things in new ways with AI. So we will be back very shortly with our operator-centric content. But for now, let's get into what happened this weekend.
Today we are doing an episode which on the one hand, I wished I would never have to do, and on the other has for some time felt increasingly inevitable. At 4 AM on Friday morning, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home. The gate was set ablaze and there were no injuries. It was mostly just terrifying. Suspect Daniel Moreno Gamma was later arrested outside the OpenAI headquarters, threatening to burn the place down to the ground. Police said that the 20-year-old Moreno Gamma was in possession of an anti-AI manifesto, a jug of kerosene and a lighter at the time of his arrest. When the FBI raided his Texas home on Monday morning, they found a written document that police said not only displayed anti-AI sentiment, but also which included the names and addresses of other AI executives, investors, and board members. Prosecutors have declined to name the other people on the list.
An affidavit said that the written document identified views opposed to artificial intelligence and discussed the purported risk AI poses to humanity. The manifesto included the line, If I am going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, then I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message. Moreno Gamma had been posting anti-AI and X-Risk related messages and content on Substack, Instagram, and as part of the Paws AI Discord, where he posted under the name Butlarianji Hottest. One post from December said, If we do nothing very soon, we will die. I'm very sure of that. A Substack essay in January discussed the existential risk posed by AI executives that, quote, appear to lack strong morals. In that essay, he wrote, These people are almost nothing like you. They are most likely sociopathic, psychopathic, and in the case of Altman, consistently reported to be a pathological liar. Prosecutors claim Moreno Gamma traveled from Texas this month to carry out the attack. In court on Monday, Moreno Gamma was charged with attempted murder alongside attempted damage and destruction of property by means of explosives and possession of an unregistered firearm, among other charges. There are 11 charges in total with a maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors said the attack would be treated as an act of domestic terrorism if the purpose was to instigate a change in public policy or coerce government officials. This was also not the only violent attack focused on Sam Altman and his family this weekend.
Amanda Tom and Mohammed Tariq Hussain were arrested for allegedly firing a gun at Sam Altman's home on Sunday morning. Unlike Moreno Gamma, who traveled from Texas, this pair live nearby.
On Friday evening, Altman tweeted, I wrote this early this morning and I wasn't sure if I would actually publish it but here it is. He starts by saying, Here's a photo of my family. I love them more than anything. Images have power, I hope. Normally we try to be pretty private, but in this case I am sharing a photo in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house no matter what they think about me. The first person did it last night at 3.45am in the morning. Thankfully it bounced off the house and no one got hurt. 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 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. First what I believe. Working towards prosperity for everyone, empowering all people and advancing science and technology are moral obligations for me. AI will be the most powerful tool for expanding human capability and potential that anyone has ever seen. Demand for this tool will be essentially uncapped and people will do incredible things with it. 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. 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. 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. Adaptability is critical. We are all learning about something new very quickly. Some of our beliefs will be right and some will be wrong and sometimes we will need to change our mind quickly as the technology develops and society evolves. No one understands the impact of superintelligence yet, but they will be immense.