[hax0ron3]

In Sam Altman's case that is true. He is just one frontman for and beneficiary of a giant technological revolution that is almost inevitably happening whether anyone wants it to or not, since it is pushed forward by pure Darwinian logic: all key world actors feel compelled to develop AI, since they know that if they don't they will be outcompeted by others who do develop AI. Altman's death would change nothing about that fundamental calculus. You'd have to kill probably tens of thousands of people to really put a dent in AI development, and even then it would probably just be temporarily delayed.

In general, violence can certainly solve problems, especially when the problems are not being caused by almost-inevitable technological revolutions. One of the issues to keep in mind, though, is that it often also creates new ones, often surprising ones. For example, the assassination that led to World War One. For another example, if Trump had been assassinated last year, that would have solved many problems for people who dislike Trump. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it would have made the world overall a better place - that is almost impossible to predict. Hence the sci-fi sort of scenario of "you go back in time and kill Hitler, but when you return to your own time it turns out that Hitler dying just let mega-Hitler take power".

[dTal]

>Altman's death would change nothing about that fundamental calculus. You'd have to kill probably tens of thousands of people to really put a dent in AI development

Your analysis seems to assume that people will remain more afraid of being "outcompeted" than of being murdered, even after a campaign of terrorism that would make 9/11 look minor.

>it often also creates new [problems], often surprising ones

Let's reframe this to remove the negative bias: murder has the obvious direct first-order effect of removing the target from existence, but also a host of non-obvious higher-order effects resulting from people's response to that violence. These can be counterproductive to the goals of the murderer, but they can also work in favor of it. That is why "terrorism" is a real thing - the higher-order effects are essentially a force multiplier, and if you have nothing to lose then the calculus of causing a major disruption begins to look favorable; any disruption, because regression to the mean is good if you're at the shitty end of the bell curve.

[hax0ron3]

>Your analysis seems to assume that people will remain more afraid of being "outcompeted" than of being murdered, even after a campaign of terrorism that would make 9/11 look minor.

AI is such an important technology that in the face of such a campaign of terrorism, governments would bring the development of the technology directly under the protection of the state security forces, largely outside the reach of terrorists. If not in the US, then in China or other places. At that point the terrorists would have to attain a level of power where they could feasibly overthrow the government in order to stop the development of the technology. Now, some scientists would be uncomfortable in such conditions and would stop working on the technology, but enough would remain that the technology would continue to progress, albeit more slowly.

>and if you have nothing to lose then the calculus of causing a major disruption begins to look favorable; any disruption, because regression to the mean is good if you're at the shitty end of the bell curve.

Very true, if the status quo feels shitty enough one becomes extremely willing to just roll the dice.

[bluefirebrand]

> Hence the sci-fi sort of scenario of "you go back in time and kill Hitler, but when you return to your own time it turns out that Hitler dying just let mega-Hitler take power".

Sure, but keep in mind that Hitler is already pretty bad. So while yes, killing him might open the door to someone worse stepping in, it may also open the door to someone more level headed.

You know. In theory.

[red75prime]

Hitler survived 40 assassination attempts, BTW. I don't know what to make out of it. Non-professionals have low chance of success maybe?