FBI Raids Texas Home of Man Suspected of Firebombing Sam Altman's SF Mansion

The FBI searched the Texas home of a 20-year-old man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's San Francisco residence. Authorities say the suspect also made threats at OpenAI's headquarters, and reports indicate he had written extensively about fears over AI and opposition to AI executives.

The suspect reportedly authored a Substack blog and was a member of the Discord server PauseAI, an activist group focused on banning the development of the most powerful AI models to protect the public. In one post, they wrote: "These machines have already shown themselves to be unaligned with the interest of the people creating them. Models have often been found lying, cheating on tasks, and blackmailing their own creators whenever convenient; let alone the broader question of aligning them to whatever general 'human interest' may be." The Houston Chronicle reports: The search happened hours before the Justice Department charged 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama with possession of an unregistered firearm and damage and destruction of property by means of explosives. An FBI spokesperson on Monday morning confirmed agents were executing a search warrant in Spring, but provided no other information.

Around the same time, FOX News reported the search was being conducted at the home of Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20, who last week was arrested by San Francisco police suspicion of attempted murder, making criminal threats and possession of a destructive device. The charges were first reported by the Associated Press. When Moreno-Gama was arrested Friday, he was carrying a document that "identified views opposed to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the executives of various AI companies," the Associated Press reported. Moreno-Gama has no criminal history in Harris or Montgomery counties, according to public records. [...] Agents had left the cul-de-sac by 1 p.m. It was unclear if they removed any items from the house. Another incident occurred outside Sam Altman's residence early Sunday morning. "Early Sunday morning, a car stopped and appears to have fired a gun at the Russian Hill home of OpenAI's CEO," reports The San Francisco Standard, citing reports from the local police department. Two suspects were arrested and booked for negligent discharge.

UPDATE: The suspect has been charged with attempted murder.

requisite Onion headline

[SirSlud]

Man Who Threw Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s Home Claims He Was Following ChatGPT Recipe For Risotto [theonion.com]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is deranged.

It seems more like premeditated violence,
One would hope all administrations would react strongly to it.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

If that happened to you or me the cops would spend 10 minutes looking for a suspect before the paperwork goes to the bottom of the pile.

Re:a treasonous offense

[alvinrod]

Arson is usually taken pretty seriously, but that's because there's a tendency for offenders to be serial offenders as often as it's a directed one-off attack. You'd have a better argument if it were something like burglary or vandalism which the cops will do fuck all about unless you've got video evidence at which point they'll take that from you and then do fuck all 90% of the time unless they already know the suspect.

Re:

[easyTree]

I guess Altman's prototype autonomous weapons weren't online yet.

Re:a treasonous offense

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

It's free speech in isolation, but he was caught in the act of firebombing Sam Altman's house which makes it evidence, also.

Re:

[Misagon]

Anyone can join PauseAI's Discord server. No invite necessary.
It is not a place where people get radicalised: it is a place where people who already have concerns about AI go ... and then be disappointed that PauseAI's mission is a bit narrow.

PauseAI is about avoiding dangerous artificial superintelligence, by pushing government regulations for AI safety.
As such, it is largely academic, about avoiding a future that even Sam Altman and other AI company leaders, and scientists are saying is possible.
It is not

Re:

[Tailhook]

Corroboration is a valid and frequently employed legal concept. It's used to establish "state of mind" is real cases every day. This is not an invention of Trump or any other contemporary boogeyman you been trained to hate. It's been around since before the US was a thing, and the order and prosperity you luxuriate in every day is a consequence of such wisdom.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

They refers to an activist group.

Re:

[Pascoea]

If the sex (or gender) of the person making the post was not given, "they" would have been grammatically correct.

It's also grammatically correct when the gender or sex of the subject is not relevant, or is not needed to add understanding or context to the sentence. Since the sex/gender was already established, using "they" in place of "he" adds variety and avoids repetition, while not losing any necessary information. It's only a "problem" because crybaby OP can't handle reading "they" in a sentence without getting triggered. Not my problem.

\o/

[easyTree]

Where is Pete Hexdeath's house? Maybe the Police could go there as he's killed several thousand people via subservient proxies? What's that - 15,000 years in jail with parole?

Will he stand trial?

[labradore]

Can he avoid trial by reason of insanity or is that just something reserved for repeat offenders who kill random white girls on the subway?

Re:

[martin-boundary]

He can avoid trial if you collect 1M dollars in a GoFundMe account, which can be funneled to the orange one.

waiting for the movie

[zlives]

“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Attempted Murder? BS

[Sean Clifford]

Meh, sounds like a charge of Arson would be warranted, but not Attempted Murder.

Re:

[Cyberpunk Reality]

When a random jihadist throws a firebomb at your house, that's Arson. When a random jihadist throws a firebomb at a billionaire's house, that's Attempted Murder.

Morena-Gamo

[fubarrr]

> Morena-Gamo