The attack on Sam Altman exposed a dark underbelly of the anti-AI movement | CNN Business

Mainstream artificial intelligence safety groups moved quickly to distance themselves after a 20-year-old allegedly attacked the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week in what law enforcement officers said appeared to be part of a plot to harm AI executives. But people in some corners of the internet cheered the attack. One X user compared the attacker to Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a politically motivated attack, in a post calling the two men “heroes.” Multiple users on X called the attack “justified.” “If this relentless push for AI and the completely (sic) commoditization of what it means to be human is allowed to continue, this sort of episode will be much more common,” one user posted in an anti-AI Reddit group. Worries that AI could take human jobs, upend the economy, harm the environment and even pose an existential threat to humanity have grown as the technology advances rapidly. Even tech executives have issued stark warnings. But recent attacks represent a fringe of the AI opposition movement that’s now moved from anonymous online comments to dangerous, in-person action, prompting debate in Silicon Valley