Even if you think it’s okay to kill him, he’s not the only person ever at the property.
Deface his stuff. It’s vandalism and not nice. But it’s justifiable escalation from peaceful protest if you think the justice and political systems are inappropriately unresponsive. But gamble with lives and best case you make him a sympathetic martyr and excuse for a crackdown by the very folks you don’t want having that kind of emergency authority.
I’m not making a moral argument (there is one), but a strategic one. Assassination is rarely directly useful. In this case, it won’t be. That means your actions have to spur the polity. Killing doesn’t do that. Massive, disruptive protest and—occasionally—lighting things on fire does.
It is not okay. But if we don't have any solution to the ramifications of what really is "AGI" then it unfortunately won't be the last.
Welcome to "AGI".
As we discuss policy ideas to pump the breaks on a domestic level, I hope we balance that against the arms race that's happening around the world.
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.
>In 2016, Sam Altman, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential entrepreneurs, revealed to the New Yorker that he had an arrangement with Thiel whereby in the eventuality of some kind of systemic collapse scenario – synthetic virus breakout, rampaging AI, resource war between nuclear-armed states, so forth – they both get on a private jet and fly to a property Thiel owns in New Zealand.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...
He isn’t, never has and never will. I know some of the bunker people. They basically have them in the way you or I might have a fancy tool in the garage or piece of art. It’s a discussion piece for a different class of wealth.
The people who are doing this stuff are unhinged but why? Perhaps they do not trust law and order. Perhaps they feel helpless and have been led to believe its over for the labour class due to the overhyped marketing and so on.
A serious frank conversation needs to be had and the hyping needs to stop.
What he really means is "Dont do this stuff because it affects my well-being and lifestyle and I like it the way it is".
Totally agree. I’m speaking to cases in America. If you’re in a rich country broadly at peace with competitive elections to any degree, and you’re choosing violence, you should vacation to e.g. Burma or Sudan or Libya or Ethiopia and see the cost of the violence you’re glorifying.
But carry on living in la-la-land.
Sure. Figurative language will be figurative. There have been tons of assasinations in the last 10 years of police chiefs, politicians, journalists and an MP.
If we’re being pedantic, there isn’t technically a CEO in America who’s been killed. Mangione potted a middle manager with a CEO title. The billionaires who own the company are fine, as is the group CEO, and none of them materially changed any policies as a result of his death.
I’ve got news for you, friend!
This sort of thinking causes extremism and division. It only perpetuates more of the thing you don't want!
It's also empirically not true: there are crazy people on both sides, but most people are pretty reasonable. If you treat them as if they are, despite your differences, they won't feel so alienated and perhaps you can both have a productive conversation. Both sides views are then likely to soften, and you can maybe even start working together.
California has a referendum system. Get signatures for a policy and put it to the voters.
All of those arguments will be vile, as they have to be given the context.
I'm not criticizing you, and I guess I'm glad someone wrote this comment quickly. You're right. But I would caution people against reading too much into the countervailing sentiment here. It's not trolling, but it is something adjacent to it.
The ruling class imagines themselves special; they, by virtue of their wealth and status, are exempt from the rules. They can demean you as Luddites, spend trillions to automate your job, threaten your family with homelessness and you with starvation and death, all while smiling gleefully and tittering about p-doom -- and they expect people to stand idly by while it happens. Yes, this violence is wrong. But it would also be wrong to hold these billionaires by a different standard than we hold one another -- when there is violence, that violence should be considered like the violence which already plagues San Francisco, and should be addressed through regular mechanisms, and given the regular consideration that police give all such crimes. Every camera that goes up, every crack squad of FBI agents dispatched, is proof that we and they are not equal under the law, not in any way that really matters.
also, if the worst case scenario does happen and most of the population finds itself without money. there are other ways to live with very little money.
Full stop, no "but". That's all that needs to be said on this thread.
You can't call yourself a democracy just because we can change the colour of the same bus every 3 to 4 years
Not playing at all makes you easier to beat still. Anyone pining for civil war should vacation in a war zone first. It’s difficult to encapsulate the privilege of peace until it’s been lost.
I completely agree. But political violence increasingly polarises the outcomes to those two. (The elites can buy gunmen faster than you or I can.)
California has a referendum system. Get an AI measure on the ballot. Companies that are doing the things Anthropic got fired for refusing to provide are banned from doing business in the State of California. (Or with the State. Find a balance that gets the votes.)
Keep pushing your state investigators. Work to flip the House. And keep protesting and disrupting the browncoats.
Alex Pretti did more to stop ICE than anyone e.g. killing an individual ICE agent would do.
Violence: Not only as resulting in physical injury but as being present where psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation occurs; acts of omission or neglect, and not only of commission, can therefore be categorised as violent.
The act of forcibly closing down debate, dictating what can and cannot be discussed, and using moral authority to silence dissent, demanding submission rather than dialogue, is inherently violent.
You’re describing harm. Violence involves physical force against living things. This idiotic reinterpretation of the word violence is beyond silly.
Violence can solve problems. This kind of violence is stupid, counterproductive and immoral.
Strategically deploying violence takes time, resources and discipline. Wanking off with a gun does not.
What us cushy engineers haven't realized yet is that the gradient for who are well off are sliding more and more towards one end. Sooner or later engineers will be on the wrong side of that gradient.
The elites after the French Revolution were not only mostly the same as before, they escaped with so much money and wealth that it’s actually debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos [1].
But it's hard to sympathize with someone like Altman who strikes me as an extremely slimy individual who's made a living out of gaslighting people.
For contrast: I felt bad for the healthcare CEO who Luigi killed - but I suspect I wouldn't feel bad for Altman. That's how distasteful an individual I find him, at least based on his public presentation.
The thing about rights is you believe in them universally or you don’t believe in them at all. If we have a right to life, sympathy isn’t relevant. Awful people can be awful, but if we start compromising their rights then we deface all of our freedoms and security.
So I disagree with your axiom that you have to believe in them 100% or 0%.
One hundred percent of those debates end at process, not unilateral action. If it can be unilaterally nullified, it is no longer a right.
> you have to believe in them 100% or 0%
Not degree but range. We don’t have a right to infinite life or medicine. But everyone has to have the same level of right for it to be a right. Otherwise I can disagree with your right to a right and nullify it on my own terms.
1. We shouldn't kill or harass or destroy the property of someone like Altman. AKA, I'm not in disagreement with your take on abiding by the laws of the land.
2. But it's not surprising that such things happen to individuals like him, for reasons outlined. Put it this way - if I was in his position, I would be very wary of my public image, and I'd be very wary of my intentions - am I acting for the greater good, or only for my own good?
Of course it's possible he's actually acting with the best of intentions and is just terrible at presenting himself, which is one of the reasons I'd agree with due process and respecting his rights.
It’s understandable. But that also justifies a crackdown against it. I want to see AI regulation. Dumbfucks shooting a housekeeper in Sam Altman’s house is only going to stall that.
I know what you mean, of course, but it's just not true in honesty - when pressed, there are no binaries in morality, as romantic and proud as the idea is. "Violence is never the answer" is both true and also irrelevant once a person is asked to consider the existence of his very way of life, his values, his livelihood, his culture, his home, or other resources historically at the center of revolutions.
babelfish•1h ago