Is The AI Backlash Going Physical?
Image: The Justice Department
AI just got physical, and this is nothing to do with robotics (this time…yet). The debate has entered the real world and is moving away from those think pieces, podcasts, and LinkedIn posts into something a little more real.
Because a man — allegedly — attacked Sam Altman’s home, Molotov cocktail in hand.
No one was hurt. Not even a chatbot.
But that’s not really the point.
Extinction Rebellion
There is no excuse for attacking people like this, even if they are Sam Altman. There isn’t any excuse for (as the accused did) attacking property in their attack on OpenAI’s headquarters.
Yet the excuse was revealed on the documents held by the accused.
“Some more words on the matter of our impending extinction”
Although to some extent I do sympathise with this, as I fear my job won’t be there in the near future.
Yet if you’ve worked in tech long enough, you know this pattern isn’t new.
New technology emerges
People fear it
A sub group becomes obsessed with stopping it
Most of the time, this plays out harmlessly.
Think angry blog posts. Think Reddit threads predicting the end of humanity. Think coworkers proudly telling you “we don’t use AI and never will” like they’ve just discovered fire in reverse.
But every now and then, someone decides debate isn’t enough. The Luddites start with their pitchforks and set fire to the means of production.
The Difference This Time
AI is different in so many ways. Not because it’s more dangerous (we don’t know that yet), but because it feels more personal.
AI isn’t:
A faster database
A better framework
Another JavaScript library nobody asked for
AI threatens something much more fundamental. People’s sense of worth.
At the point a machine can:
write code
debug systems
generate ideas
Then what exactly are you for?
That question doesn’t sit well with people. And when people feel threatened, they don’t always respond rationally.
The Industry Didn’t Help Itself
Let’s not pretend the tech industry is blameless here.
We’ve spent the last few years doing the following.
Hyping AI as replacing jobs
Publicly debating whether junior developers are obsolete
Shipping tools faster than we can explain them
Acting surprised when people panic
There’s a concept I keep coming back to: short-term thinking.
The industry optimizes for
funding rounds
headlines
shipping fast
Not for
societal understanding
long-term workforce stability
or, apparently, not getting your house set on fire
That sounds dramatic. Yet it’s not a situation where things are overly dramatic, it’s the correct feeling about the drama which is playing out
Don’t Dismiss the Danger
It’s easy to dismiss this as one individual acting irrationally.
Maybe it is.
But the worrying part isn’t the act itself, it’s the justification behind it.
Reports say the suspect had written material about
AI risks
human extinction
targeting executives
That’s not random. That’s ideology.
And ideology scales. When people lose their jobs with efficiency gains they’re going to be angry.
There is an uncomfortable truth. The risk is clear, the risk is that humans are reacting to AI in the worst possible way.
You all know what is happening. I’ll give you a bullet point list for this.
Developers worried about their careers
Executives promising “efficiency” (read: fewer jobs)
Media amplifying extreme narratives
A public that doesn’t really understand what’s going on
Mix that together and you don’t get thoughtful debate, you get fear instead. Fear doesn’t produce balanced takes. It produces extremes.
Again I don’t need to tell you. It’s an extreme world outside at the moment.
So even though AI isn’t replacing engineers overnight, the panic is real and it is affecting people around the world.
Is This the Start, or the End?
Probably not.
But it’s a signal.
This is a true signal that shows
the rhetoric is heating up
the fear is real
and the conversation is no longer contained to tech circles
Most people won’t throw Molotov cocktails or try to do whatever it was he thought he could do to Sam Altman.
But in the end more people might start
protesting
targeting companies
demanding regulation from a place of fear rather than understanding
We won’t be able to solve this with clearer JIRA tickets.
We all need to be honest about the limits of AI. Invest in people and not just tools, and start thinking beyond the share price.
Conclusion
If the industry keeps pushing without bringing people along?
This won’t be the last incident.
It’ll just be the first one we couldn’t ignore.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper and regularly publishes articles through Medium.com
Debating AI on the internet? As long as I won’t be attacked