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Today in Focus

Will the backlash against AI turn violent?

Today in Focus

The Guardian

News, Daily News

4.65.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An attack on the home of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman – and on the company’s headquarters – has led to concerns the backlash against AI could become violent. Guardian journalist Nick Robins-Early and researcher Sean Fleming discuss. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:08.8

Today, could the backlash against AI turn violent? It happened in the early hours of the morning, a couple of Fridays ago.

0:29.4

Surveillance footage shows him in a champion hoodie walking up towards the gate of this mansion,

0:35.8

holding a Molotov cocktail in one hand. And then he proceeds

0:40.5

to hurl the Molotov cocktail at the house and flee. The house was in the exclusive

0:46.9

Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. It belonged to Sam Altman, the chief executive of

0:52.5

Open AI. And the attacker wasn't done there.

0:57.6

About an hour and a half later, he shows up three miles away at the headquarters of Open

1:04.8

AI, the artificial intelligence company that Sam Altman is the CEO of. And he attempts to break into the entrance with a metal chair.

1:16.6

Security comes out and confronts him.

1:19.6

And according to the criminal complaint, he says that he's going to burn down open AI and anybody who's inside it.

1:29.3

San Francisco police arrest him and find a jug of kerosene and a lighter and what appears

1:35.3

to be an anti-AI manifesto in which he has a list of CEOs and investors who he is planning to potentially

1:43.3

kill and a letter that includes a mention of

1:48.0

Sam Altman and is directly addressed to the CEO and says, if you should survive this attack,

1:55.1

then take it as a sign of divine intervention to change your ways.

2:04.1

The attack marks the first time that the head of a major AI company has faced a threat to his

2:09.8

safety. 20-year-old Daniel Moreno Gamma has now been charged with attempted double homicide.

2:16.7

And authorities say they intend to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.

2:21.0

And for now, there is relief that no one was hurt.

2:24.2

But it comes at a time when fears about artificial intelligence

2:27.7

and its impact on jobs, power and society are growing.

...

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