7 ms·
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." r
by velominati 5mo ago
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.
- Noaidi 5mo ago‘Working towards prosperity for everyone’ was extremely hollow as well. If he believed this, he would be running his company as a cooperative and not as a for-profit company.
- nslsm 5mo ago> It's never OK to physically attack someone like this. Full stop. I agree. The French Revolution was really, really mean.
- tempestn 5mo agoAre you familiar with the details of the French Revolution? Some of the eventual outcomes were indeed positive, but a lot of what actually went on was pretty horrific.
- kelseyfrog 5mo agoAt the same time considering the people participating, there wasn't a way out of the problems that didn't involve violence. Different outcomes would require different choices that require different people.
- mjamesaustin 5mo agoIt was horrific. Revolutions tend to be. Yet our institutions continue consolidating money and power in fewer and fewer hands. If that doesn't stop, we'll be headed there again. It will probably be even worse this time.
- happytoexplain 5mo agoA lot of what happened during the French revolution was horrific... This is such a bewildering sentence in this context. Yes, killing the rulers is horrific. Revolutions are horrific. Wars are horrific. It seems irrelevant to what the parent is (sarcastically) saying.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- tempestn 5mo agoTheir point was that violence is sometimes justified, using the French Revolution as an example. I'm pointing out that the FR wasn't just a matter of "killing the rulers". Many, many people were killed. It wasn't such an unambiguous good as they seemed to be implying. Also, other countries have transitioned to democracy without such bloodshed.
- hackable_sand 5mo agoIt's just not helpful to the conversation "If we don't put the brakes on this car it's going to go off the cliff!" "Historically, cars falling off cliffs was horrible for all the passengers involved."
- GeoAtreides 5mo agowhat are you arguing? that people should not violently overthrow their corrupt leaders? that the french should've let the Ancient Regime entrench and continue? That the serfs (slaves) in tsarist Russia should've stayed put and not revolt against the corrupt and incompetent Nicholas II? Or that the Hungarians and Czechoslovaks not revolt against the totalitarian regimes propped by the Russians? Should've the Romanians in 1989 stayed at home, in cold and hunger, and let Ceausescu regime continue to cruelly oppress them?
- matheusmoreira 5mo agoYou think the cyberpunk dystopia we're headed towards isn't going to be horrific? The one where 99% of the human race has no economic value? Where the 1% helm megagigaultracorporations with fully autonomous AI powered kill bots? Where they think it's no big loss if they genocide an entire human population because all those people were doing nothing but costing them money anyway? This is our only chance to transition to a post-scarcity society. We won't have another. Allowing them to monopolize access to AI is a fatal mistake.
- alex_suzuki 5mo ago99% of humanity is too busy scrolling on their phones, consuming “content”, to even notice.
- matheusmoreira 5mo agoThey won't be for long.
- duskdozer 5mo agoIt looks like I'm a bit slow in noticing this, but I see more and more young people today getting dumbphones. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a backlash among them
- Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago17 year old guy who had rocked a dumb phone for an year or two and I still don't use a phone (I have a tablet that lies around but yeah) I feel heard from this statement, thanks! > I wouldn't be surprised if there's a backlash among them The backlash is more than what people might imagine. We are a generation that most of us would have nothing to gain and thus nothing to lose as colleges are diluted more and more and job security becomes a question as we are still connected more than ever seeing all the darkness taking place live time while our consciousness has just sprung out in this chaotic unpredecented world. Thinking about it, We as a generation are more lonely than ever, more hopeless than ever, more angry than ever. I feel like my generation might be watching phones not out of enjoyment but out of desperation for the day to end if meaning of life can't be derived from a normal place.
- bitcurious 5mo agoThe French Revolution brought on Napoleon, wars that brought about the deaths of many millions of people, and then another emperor. The subsequent events are where they found liberty.
- dakolli 5mo agoAGI will be democratized when its discovered.... just right after AWS, Microsoft and Oracle finish their 6 month beta test.
- burnte 5mo agoAgreed. Sam's full of crap and the way we tackle that is with conversations, not violence. He deserves to grow old like anyone else, violence isn't an answer.
- Arodex 5mo agoEveryone else deserves to grow old, too...
- tyre 5mo agoIt's pretty amazing to observe people experience the past ten years in American history and continue to think that we can out-talk the bad people in the world. Michelle Obama's, "When they go low, we go high", is some of the stupidest political advice and a generation has lost so much because of it. (The generation before got West Winged into believing the same thing.) When you look to the right, you have a stolen election in 2000, a stolen supreme court seat, an attempted coup, and relentless winning despite it.
- lostlogin 5mo agoThis may come right when Americans see themselves backsliding relative to other power blocks, and allies turning away. It’s started. But it seems a distant hope at best.
- burnte 5mo agoI don't think street violence solves anything. I don't think Michelle was right, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, but you don't fight words with literal firebombs.
- teachrdan 5mo ago> the way we tackle that is with conversations, not violence I think the breakdown here is that conversation seems to have no power. To only be a bit hyperbolic, the only language with power is money -- or violence. To the extent that ordinary people cannot make change with "conversation" (which I interpret here to mean dialog within society, including with lawmakers), they feel compelled to use violence instead. A non-rhetorical question: What recourse to non-billionaires have when conversation has less and less power, while money has more and more, and those with money are making much more money?
- tailscaler2026 5mo agoSam eagerly pursued DoD contracts to weaponize AI. And then lobbied for legislation to ensure OpenAI cannot be held accountable if people are killed due to their systems.
- pesus 5mo agoI find it interesting that Altman's fans seem to keep skipping past this fact. I'd love to hear their defense as to why one person potentially being responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths is acceptable, but attacking that one person isn't. If violence is never the answer, they should be condemning Altman with even more vigor.
- AlexCoventry 5mo agoYeah, it's kind of terrifying, how this incident seems to have faded from people's memories.
- IMTDb 5mo ago> why one person potentially being responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths is acceptable I am not sure who exactly is that one person ? Is it Altman, who is according to many people not that knowledgeable in AI in the first place; the scientist who found a breakthrough (who is it ?); is it the president of the United States who is greenlighting the strikes; the general who is choosing the target (based on AI suggestions); the missile designer; the manufacturer; the pilot who flew the plane ? I get the point of concentrating power in fewer hands, but the whole "all the problems of this world are caused by an extremely narrow set of individuals" always irks me. Going as far as saying there is just one is even mor ludicrous.
- maest 5mo agoAccountability sinks are good value and wealthy people always make sure they have enough of them
- idiotsecant 5mo agoAh the old 'everyone is responsible so nobody is responsible' canard. I will give you a helpful rule of thumb: when in doubt the guy with a bank account larger than the total lifetime income of hundreds of thousands of people is probably the one to blame.
- smallmancontrov 5mo agoIf only that sentiment was reciprocal! When the job losses hit in earnest and the vague handwaving about making it right all inevitably turns out to be hollow, those on top will be exceedingly comfortable using violence to keep the underclass in line. It has happened before and it will happen again.
- Ms-J 5mo ago[flagged]
- nielsbot 5mo agoIf you live under the tyranny of capitalism, sometimes the choice isn’t entirely yours to make
- AndrewKemendo 5mo agoUnless you’re physically disabled the choice is always yours it’s a question of commitment: -You vote -You go to a protest -You join a union -You join a strike -You risk your livelihood through speech -You join a direct action -You risk your life Most people never get past commitment level 0 which is doing nothing including voting Then throw their hands up that nothing changes claiming they have no ability to do anything There are thousands of examples to the opposite and it boggles my mind how people can think they aren’t capable
- jatora 5mo ago[flagged]
- pocksuppet 5mo agoThis firebombing falls under "direct action" for anyone wondering. This is what the phrase "direct action" refers to. I would swap strikes and speeches in your ordering. Strikers have been brutalized by the government and definitely lost their jobs, but public speakers mostly just risk losing their jobs.
- hungryhobbit 5mo agoI categorically reject that assertion. Two simple examples: 1) when you see someone assaulting someone else, it's absolutely ok to attack them, and 2) the American revolution! It's like that old joke: A man offers a young woman $1,000,000 to sleep with him for one night. “For a million dollars? Sure, I’ll sleep with you.” He smiles at her, “How about $50, then?” “How dare you! I’m not a whore!” “Look, lady, we’ve already agreed what you are, now we’re just negotiating the price.” Similarly in this case, you can't make up absolutes and assert the're true, while ignoring that the real world is more complicated. And once you do realize the world is complicated, you realize there aren't absolutes: everyone is a prostitute, terrorist, or whatever other bad label you want to throw at them ... it's just a matter of degree. So no, it's not always wrong to physically attack someone like this. You can debate specifically whether Altman has committed enough violence himself to justify violence against him: that's something two people can reasonably disagree on. But you can't just say "violence bad" like its some great pearl of wisdom, while ignoring that violence has in fact been good many times throughout history.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- etchalon 5mo ago[flagged]
- Jerrrrrrrry 5mo ago[dead]
- suby 5mo ago[flagged]
- bdangubic 5mo agoyou should read up on DHH and then perhaps pick another example
- 5mo ago
- zinodaur 5mo agoIs it okay to profit off of a machine that kills innocent people? Would it be immoral to attack the builder of that machine, if it stopped the operation of the machine?
- imiric 5mo agoI'm on the skeptic side of "AI" and find this entire industry obnoxious, but your argument doesn't hold any water. Technology that can be used to kill innocent people is all around us. Would it be moral to attack knife manufacturers? Attacking one won't make the technology disappear. It has been invented, so we have to live with it. Also, it's a stretch to say that "AI" "kills innocent people". In the hands of malicious people it can certainly do harm, but even in extreme cases, "AI" can currently only be used very indirectly to actually kill someone. Technology itself is inert. What humans do with technology should be regulated. IMO the fabricated concern around this tech is just part of the hype cycle. There's nothing inherently dangerous about a probabilistic pattern generator. We haven't actually invented artificial intelligence, despite of how it's marketed. What we do need to focus on is educating people to better understand this tech and use it safely, on restricting access to it so that we can mitigate abuse and avoid flooding our communication channels with garbage, and on better detection and mitigation technology to flag and filter it when it is abused. Everything else is marketing hype and isn't worth paying attention to.
- Barrin92 5mo ago>Would it be moral to attack knife manufacturers? if they're selling the knives knowingly to a knife-murderer, it might be worth discussing. Sam Altman is not, although he portrays himself that way, some geeky guy without power who just builds products, he's the guy who makes the decision to supply this tech directly to the US government who is on the record about using it for military operations. And you're right on the last point. Sure the 20 year old guy who threw a molotov cocktail at Sam's house is, I'm going to assume for now given the topic Sam chose for the piece, an anti-tech guy. But assume for a second you had your family wiped out in a bombing run because Pete Hegseth attempted to prompt himself to victory with the statistical lottery machine. If the CEO knew this and enabled it to add another zero to his bank account, not so sure about the ethics of that one.
- gnuvince 5mo ago> 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. We should call it what it really is: oligapolization of intellectual work. The capital barrier to enter this market is too high and there can be no credible open source option to prevent a handful of companies from controlling a monster share of intellectual work in the short and medium term. Yet our profession just keeps rushing head first into this one-way door.
- Waterluvian 5mo agoThe thing about the rich is that they have access to sufficient levels of abstraction that they can commit terrible, disproportionate violence without it looking that way. And then fools who crave the simplistic safe comfort of moral absolutes come to their aid. Throwing a petrol bomb at a building with children inside is about as evil as murdering 150 students at an all-girls school. I'm obviously not defending that.
- lostlogin 5mo ago> Throwing a petrol bomb at a building with children inside is about as evil as murdering 150 students at an all-girls school. I'm obviously not defending that. Really? I don’t know how many were in his house but at most it’s attempted murder of a few versus killing 150. I see a difference. US law sees a difference too. The person that threw the firebomb will get the full weight of the law if they are caught, and spent an awfully long time in prison. Those that killed the school girls will never face punishment.
- rootusrootus 5mo agoIf you want to draw that distinction, then don't you need to account for intent? I don't think the USG intended to bomb a school. The guy throwing a Molotov cocktail has even less claim to it being an accident.
- lostlogin 5mo agoIt would be manslaughter where I am, 150 counts. But the idea that the US cares is laughable.
- Waterluvian 5mo agoThe people barely care. The government certainly doesn’t.
- Planktonne 5mo agoThe US has advanced targeting systems the molotov thrower didn't have access to; it's more reasonable to account for intent in the other direction.
- d_silin 5mo agoViolence is language that needs no translation. Everyone across the world, every culture, every country, every social group - from elites to homeless can converse in it using the same vocabulary. It is useful to have some degree of mastery in this discipline. Sometimes it is the only language that can deliver the important message to an unwilling listener.
- ambicapter 5mo agoHe's saying that just so he can use if another company gets bigger than OpenAI ("you can't have all the power"). If OpenAI were the top dog by a large margin, you wouldn't hear him say a peep about this (as was demonstrated by his actions with the charter).
- lores 5mo ago[flagged]
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo agoThe idea that firing you or stealing your wages is the worst a CEO can do to you is itself a product of the taboo against physical violence. There are a number of famous incidents from the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the taboo was weaker, of CEOs sending private armies to shoot inconvenient labor movements. It's not an equilibrium you should defect from lightly.
- lores 5mo agoA CEO can choose physical, mental, legal or financial violence against the common man. The common man only has the choice of physical violence. Without it he is impotent.
- xvector 5mo agoThis mindset trivializes the immense achievements of "the common man" over the course of millennia.
- pocksuppet 5mo agoMany of those achievements were achieved through physical violence. The 5-day work week, for example. We don't work 7 days because people kept shooting bosses until the bosses agreed to compromise on 5 days.
- xvector 5mo ago[flagged]
- lores 5mo agoChange and progress like the people of France deciding they had enough of injustice and nobles' impunity, then? A little short-term pain for social progress? We agree.
- Teever 5mo agoThat's not true. As a defense contractor Altman is a legitimate target for a country that the US has attacked like Iran. The US is engaging in military action against many countries and has threatened to annex or invade allies. In that context Altman is 100% a legitimate target to those whose sovereignty is threatened and whose people are being killed.
- minimaxir 5mo agoI didn't think Hacker News needed an explicit "calls for violence are bad" guideline but the comments here have shown otherwise.
- Teever 5mo agoDo you feel the same way about comments that support the US military action in Iran? Why or why not?
- johnisgood 5mo agoIt is unnecessary, and it was an obvious offense, not defense. Of course it is "bad". We (Trump) need(s) to stop creating wars and fucking up the economy, while killing others. It is bad all the way down.
- chipsrafferty 5mo agoWhich one is more bad? Trump bombing hundreds of people or someone throwing a bomb at Trump because he keeps bombing hundreds of people?
- vizzier 5mo agoPeople think the trolley problem is easy.
- stavros 5mo agoAre calls for violence bad when you're calling for throwing a molotov cocktail at a child? At an adult? At a serial killer? At someone who's about to shoot you unprovoked? At someone who murdered your family? At someone who's about to? If you said "yes" to all of the above, I'd love to know your reasoning.
- lostlogin 5mo agoThe general tone here is that freedom of speech is absolute and nothing should curtail that. Not my personal view.
- HeavyStorm 5mo agoLike this, for sure not. And Sam has not, even with that article, done anything to warrant violence.
- pocksuppet 5mo agoHe killed a few tens of thousands of people, doesn't that count?
- quantified 5mo agoIf Sam disperses his power, we can believe him. So long as he's just concentrating wealth and power, he's just another tech bro.
- Ms-J 5mo ago[flagged]
- jlebar 5mo agoAssuming this is a serious question, here are some ideas you could read about! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilantism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilantism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(law) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial
- mememememememo 5mo agoIdeas. Now back to reality. Law: Epstein. ICE, Geneva Convention, Segregation Bill: Going once, going twice, highest bidder wins. Ironic on a Sama thread. Trial: OJ Simpson. Many miscarriages. Vigilantism: Revolutions I am not saying break the law. I am saying look back at history.
- andrewjf 5mo ago[flagged]
- Noaidi 5mo agoConcerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. Malcolm X There’s a whole bunch more here if you’re interested. https://www.azquotes.com/author/9322-Malcolm_X/tag/violence https://www.azquotes.com/author/9322-Malcolm_X/tag/violence
- BloondAndDoom 5mo ago“the chickens are coming home to roost”
- xvector 5mo ago[flagged]
- mememememememo 5mo ago"Like this" is doing some serious work in that statement!
- truncate 5mo ago>> 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 The question is what are they doing about "getting safety right" and are they doing enough. To me it seems like all the focus is on hyper growth, maximum adaptation and safety is just afterthought. I understand its competitive market, and everyone is doing it, but its just hollow words. Industries that cares about safety often tend to slow down.
- intrasight 5mo agoI told my GF over dinner tonight that historians in 1000 years will look back to Nov 2023 as a pivotal fork where humans lost. Without missing a beat, she said " If humans loss was that complete, there would be no historians. I responded that I never said they were human historians.
- deaux 5mo ago> I told my GF over dinner tonight that historians in 1000 years will look back to Nov 2023 as a pivotal fork where humans lost. Yes, because no one listened to me. It was early-mid 2024, and here as well as on other places, people kept saying "oh well the cat's out of the bag now, nothing can be done, it can't be stopped". I pointed out that only 4 or so planes being made to collide with TSMC, NVIDIA and ASML would be enough to give at least a decade of breathing room while we try to figure out how to keep this technology safe. I'm almost certain there were people who read it on here as well as elsewhere who could have made it happen. _Now_ it is indeed too late.
- slopinthebag 5mo agoDon't worry, we'll vote our way out of this! :P:P:P
- an0malous 5mo agoWell said, I condemn the violence as well. I had to stop at that point too though, it's so blatantly disingenuous and hypocritical.
- matheusmoreira 5mo agoCan't say I feel sorry for the guy. Anyone who actually believes his platitudes about "democratizing" AI is far too naive. If he really believed that, he'd make a torrent out of ChatGPT's weights and upload it to the pirate bay. The fact of the matter is these AI CEOs are actively trying to economically disenfranchise 99% of the human race. The ultimate corollary of capitalism is that people who aren't economically productive need not be kept alive any longer. Unproductive people are nothing but cost, better to just let them die. A future where the richest classes can turn the underclasses into soylent is now very much within the realm of possibility. If this doesn't radicalize people into actual violence, I simply have no idea what will. "Attacking someone is wrong" is a completely meaningless statement to make to someone who believes society as we know it today is going to be destroyed. Honestly, I can't even blame them.
- avs733 5mo agoIf we are going to say violence isn’t okay then it is important that we be clear about the boundaries of what we define as violence. Theft is a nice analogy here. The default model of theft is property crime but the largest type of theft is wage theft. If we fret about violence done against individuals but not violence against groups our attention is going to end up steered in a narrow direction.
- what 5mo ago> wage theft Like when you poop on the clock?
- lostlogin 5mo ago> It's never OK to physically attack someone like this. I broadly agree. But… there are some who have lived who made the world a worse place. Who gets to decide? Trump has done a bit of this Sort of deciding and it hasn’t gone great so far and there is no sign that it’s actually helped.
- notyourwork 5mo ago> OpenAI has abandoned its open source roots. It was only a matter of time. The font on the dollar sign kept increasing, eventually selfish humans will always crack. Keeping it open had to be instilled with it becoming a public utility. Private companies don't do altruistic things unless they benefit.
- grafmax 5mo agoAn oligarch who promotes “democracy”. Is trying to cynically ingratiate himself, or is he really that deaf to the irony?
- nothinkjustai 5mo agoSo you think it would always be wrong to throw a molly at Hitler?
- roysting 5mo ago> AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated That sounds like something someone says when he understands his weak position, especially someone as ruthless, dishonest, and narcissistic as Altman.
- popalchemist 5mo agoWas it not OK to kill King Louis? Just saying.
- toofy 5mo agoit isn’t ok to attack people. whether this way or in slow motion mass attacks on people. an attack on a society that lasts years is still an attack and i wish the collective we would realize this. “it’s ok if millions suffer now for me to realize my dream” is just wrong. i’ll never understand how these guys fail to realize: they actively push for people not to care about the destruction they cause. that’s obviously going to bite them in the ass whenever they’re on the receiving end.