You're being nice about it but I think you're inadvertently expressing literally the sentiment Dan was referring to.
The main point I was trying to make was in highlighting the perceptual and emotional disconnect between knowing and working with someone personally, versus those who haven't (myself included).
Most people's perception of Sam was shaped in recent years, by press coverage that tends to treat him as the face of AI, with sentiment that usually goes something like: "hey, this guy's stealing all your water so he can take your job too, and by the way he lies a lot."
A couple follow-on points there were:
a) Dan shouldn't take it personally for not being able to control a tidal wave of negative sentiment stemming from that dynamic playing out.
b) I don't think it does anyone any good to dismiss the negative sentiment driving that as mere mob mentality. Even Sam appears to understand this quite well, in the very blog post the submission links to.
To echo another comment[0]:
>... while the vast majority of us think "holy crap, that's horrible" but aren't adding it because of course that's already been said and there just isn't any more nuance needed.
I agree; explicit condemnation just felt performative and hollow.
For what it's worth, I'm actually rooting for Sam assuming his words ultimately line up with his actions, and my opinion of him is neutral or slightly positive. I don't think it's widely appreciated just how crazy a position the guy is in; there's no way he can make everybody happy.
To touch on the hollow part: this is someone pg once described in so few words as more than capable of handling himself. [1]
I recall reading that years ago he insisted offices be swept for bugs after a visit by Musk, and he hangs out with similarly powerful people.
In other words, you don't operate in that world without your security already being excellent, and it's probably going to get even better now. Give it a couple years and he'll probably have a humanoid robot perimeter that'll smoke anyone on sight with a level of efficiency that is comical.
So, in that context taking a thoughts and prayers tone felt a little unnnecessary.
Anybody whose perception of Sam Altman was "he deserves for me to throw a molotov cocktail at his house" is a horrible person. I don't care if Paul Graham says he's a tough guy.
Explicit condemnation is only hollow if you don't mean it.
That said, please don't twist my words. I think there's utility in understanding why people feel and act the way they do.
Otherwise, everybody just takes the de facto stance of "those people are intrinsically bad people, and not good people like us!" which is pretty useless and typically just leads to more escalation.
You could also spare me the one-line zinger at the end.
You keep writing comments where you try to wiggle between it being really important to think about the context in which people commit crimes and the context in which people are OK with crimes being committed based on not liking the victim, but also you keep clarifying that you don't condone what they're doing or saying.
What is your actual point? The best I can try to pluck out, the summation of the above is that the people throwing molotov cocktails, and the people saying it's justified, are bad people but they're bad for understandable reasons?
Fair enough.
>If you felt zinged by it, maybe it's worth considering why.
Conditioned response from years of defending comments against immediate pedantry, of which I'm probably guilty of myself. Not saying that you were being pedantic.
>What is your actual point?
Originally dang seemed pretty burnt out from moderating this thread, so I just wanted to pitch in with my two cents saying that he's dealing with a tidal wave of larger negative public sentiment that's perhaps beyond his control.
I think there's an important distinction to be had between whoever threw the cocktail (fuck them), and the folks expressing what I termed callous indifference.
People are allowed to not give a shit and say as much, and while that might be bannable I don't think it's particularly productive to take that route.
Moreover, I thought it was important to note that some people here (like dang presumably) actually know Sam personally, so it might not be appreciated that it comes off as extra ghoulish to them when they're reading said callous comments.
At the same time, if your only source of information about the guy is recent press, it's easy to understand how someone arrives at that position; anti-AI sentiment is gaining popularity rapidly.
That's it. That's my point or stance if you will, I don't think it's that unreasonable; just trying to highlight what I see as a disconnect.
When you say things like "it's easy to understand how someone arrives at that position", you're laying the groundwork to justify why what you class as "callous indifference" is just a logical and natural state that we should accept.
We shouldn't. The people who are celebrating or ok with molotov cocktails being thrown are also bad people. To borrow your language: fuck them, too.
I didn't say it should be accepted nor was I laying groundwork for justification, be it implicit or explicit.
Rather, only stating that such indifference does logically follow in those circumstances.
Quoting my prior comment:
>>Most people's perception of Sam was shaped in recent years, by press coverage that tends to treat him as the face of AI, with sentiment that usually goes something like: "hey, this guy's stealing all your water so he can take your job too, and by the way he lies a lot."
People's reaction here isn't exactly shocking when taken in that context.
>To borrow your language: fuck them, too.
Yeah, agreed.
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
>This is exactly what I’m talking about.
In other words: There's a lot of people angry about AI right now, and it isn't much of a surprise that indifference and insensitivity follows.
Suffice it to say, point-by-point rebuttal exchanges/slap fights tend to not lead anywhere good, let alone in a comment section that's emotionally charged and personal from the outset.
In retrospect, I should've just left my original comment stand by itself rather than panic and dive into a detailed follow-on explanation which snowballed from there.
I was genuinely trying to post in good faith for positive effect while taking a middle tack that still condemned violence while perhaps humanizing some of the anger.
It didn't quite work out, but I do very much understand where the opposing positions were coming from now.
And, my apologies for swearing.
---
You brought up a dynamic in the second incident's discussion touching on essentially redundant condemnation, where normal people don't bother because it's universally assumed that violence is bad.
Having closely watched the comment section unfold there, I see what you meant by that: it ends up being negative space for what you termed countervailing sentiment to expand within.
I think that was actually the first time I was happy to see a thread taken off the main page early, for everyone's sake.