San Francisco (AFP) — A man who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s luxury California home was trying to kill the boss of artificial intelligence giant OpenAI and in possession of an anti-AI document, United States officials said.
The claims came as prosecutors levied federal charges against Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20, over the attack on Friday in San Francisco.
The Department of Justice said Moreno-Gama had traveled from his home in Texas to carry out the attack on Altman, whose company is behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot.
“Violence cannot be the norm for expressing disagreement, be it with politics or a technology or any other matter,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“These alleged actions -– which damaged property and could well have taken lives — will be aggressively prosecuted.”
Prosecutors say that after lobbing a firebomb at the gates of Altman’s home, Moreno-Gama fled on foot to the San Francisco headquarters of OpenAI, where he tried to smash the glass doors of the building with a chair.
He “stated that he had come to burn down the location and kill anyone inside,” prosecutors said in the federal criminal complaint.
According to the complaint, when police arrived, they found Moreno-Gama with a jug of kerosene, a lighter and a document entitled “Your Last Warning” which “advocated against AI and for the killing and commission of other crimes against CEOs of AI companies and their investors.”
The three-part document was allegedly authored by Moreno-Gama, and listed “names and addresses that purported to belong to multiple CEOs and investors.”
Another part of the publication dealt with the “purported risk AI poses to humanity,” according to the complaint.
Prosecutors say he ended the document, which included an admission he was trying to kill Altman, with the phrase: “If by some miracle you live, then I would take this as a sign from the divine to redeem yourself.”
Moreno-Gama faces one charge of damage and destruction of property by means of explosives, and one of possession of an unregistered firearm.
It is the latest high-profile attack in the US allegedly involving a call to arms against executives or influential figures.