Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama interview.txt

gistfile1.txt

All right, well, let's just uh let's 
 just start here. I'm going to call you 
 Discord Dan. Are you okay with that? 
 Yeah, it's great. So, a few months ago, 
 I interviewed this young man that our 
 team had found posting anonymously on a 
 Discord server called Stop AI. Can you 
 tell me a little bit about your 
 background? You know, where'd you grow 
 up? Uh suburbs, mainly just suburbs my 
 whole life. He'd gotten our attention 
 because some of his posts were raising 
 questions about the possible use of 
 violence to stop the frontier AI labs 
 from building AGI. And while he was far 
 from the only person online to be 
 posting stuff like that, he was one of 
 the very few people who was willing to 
 sit down with us for an interview and 
 talk to us about his views and his life. 
 You know, I hate to sound like an old 
 man here, Mhm. 
 but you are what we call uh Generation 
 Z, right? Yeah. Okay, and did you have a 
 smartphone when you were super young? 
 Like, what's your How would you describe 
 your relationship to the internet 
 throughout your life? Yeah, I was I grew 
 up quite uh close to the internet. I 
 think I got my iPad uh when I was like 
 in sixth grade, so or maybe a younger, 
 maybe fifth, fourth grade actually. The 
 two of us talked about him growing up in 
 the suburbs, about how starting around 
 age nine, he'd begun to live online 
 pretty much every day. Mainly just like 
 YouTube comment sections. Like, I would 
 debate people on there. In the comments? 
 Yeah. We talked about his shifting 
 political views, how he was at first on 
 the right. Just like Ben Shapiro clips, 
 basically. But how later he became a 
 Bernie Sanders guy and how all of that 
 was essentially driven by what he was 
 watching online. And it was actually 
 those online videos, he said, that led 
 him to debates around AI. You know, the 
 arguments of people like Eliezer 
 Yudkowsky and uh Max Tegmark, Connor 
 Leahy like on YouTube, for example. But 
 when we got to the subject of the 
 possible use of violence to stop AI, 
 when I asked him about the views that 
 he'd shared online and what lengths he 
 was willing to go through to stop what 
 he believed might lead to human 
 extinction. Do you think that if if we 
 continue to see 
 the industry move in the direction it's 
 moving now, that by whatever means 
 necessary, we have to stop the 
 extinction of the human race? 
 He paused. Mhm. 
 I'll say no comment. 
 And he eventually seemed to back away 
 from some of the sentiments that he'd 
 shared online. So, you don't really 
 think it would be wise for someone to, 
 let's say, kill Sam Altman. 
 Um 
 no. 
 >> [music] 
 >> But then 
 came Friday, 
 April 10th. Scary Friday morning for 
 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his employees 
 after The disturbing firebomb attack in 
 San Francisco. Authorities say targeting 
 the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, one 
 of the leaders in artificial 
 intelligence. 
 At around 3:30 in the morning in a quiet 
 neighborhood in San Francisco, home 
 security cameras caught a young man 
 throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home 
 of Sam Altman. A few hours later, what 
 appeared to be the same young man then 
 attacked OpenAI's headquarters. 
 When security guards approached him, he 
 allegedly pulled out a jug of kerosene 
 and said that he had come to burn the 
 building to the ground and kill anyone 
 who was inside. 
 We're learning more about that suspect, 
 as you said, arrested here in the 
 vicinity of OpenAI's headquarters, 
 reportedly making threats to try to burn 
 the building down this And when the 
 local authorities released the name of 
 the man that they had arrested, 
 Investigators identify him as Daniel 
 Moreno Gamma and we're holding as a 
 suspect. Daniel Alejandro Moreno Gamma. 
 Daniel Alejandro Moreno Gamma in custody 
 after 
 I was like, 
 holy [ __ ] 
 That's Dan. I want to start by saying I 
 don't believe I'm a violent person. I 
 don't I would normally only advocate for 
 violence as the absolute final 
 like 
 I don't want to say final solution, but 
 uh you know, the final 
 >> [snorts] 
 >> you know, final 
 Mhm. 
 Okay, you get what I'm saying, okay? 
 The FBI released a statement saying that 
 it appeared Dan had a much larger plan 
 and was carrying something of a 
 manifesto. Sources tell me the suspect 
 was driven by strong anti-AI views. When 
 he was arrested in San Francisco, he was 
 carrying a manifesto that includes a 
 list of names and addresses of other AI 
 CEOs and investors. In addition to the 
 names and addresses of several leaders 
 and board members in the world of AI, he 
 had also allegedly written, quote, "If 
 I'm going to advocate for others to kill 
 and commit crimes, then I must lead by 
 example and show that I am fully sincere 
 in my message." 
 >> [music] 
 >> I'm Andy Mills and you're listening to 
 The Last Invention. 
 And in light of this recent attack, as 
 well as the growing number of threats to 
 those building AGI, to lawmakers who are 
 voting on data centers, we wanted to 
 share our interview with Dan. 
 Right now, Dan is 20 years old. He's 
 being held in custody without bail and 
 has been charged with 13 felonies, 
 including attempted murder. 
 But back in January, he was still only 
 19. And as you'll hear, still unsure of 
 how far he and others should go in their 
 belief that creating AGI 
 may lead to human extinction. 
 >> [music] 
 >> As far as I'm aware, this is the only 
 recorded interview 
 with Daniel Moreno Gamma. 
 When is the first time you have any 
 memory of hearing 
 about artificial intelligence? 
 When ChatGPT came out and, you know, at 
 first I thought it was the greatest 
 thing on Earth. I thought, this is 
 awesome. Like, I get to basically, you 
 know, cheat on everything. And I wasn't 
 thinking about, you know, like the 
 repercussions that might have on, you 
 know, learning. At the time, I was just 
 a sophomore when ChatGPT came out. So, 
 you were in high school and you thought, 
 oh, this is going to really make my 
 homework easier. Yeah. But at the same 
 time, I guess I was a bit more curious 
 to like, what actually is this? And so, 
 I kind of started looking a bit more 
 into it and that's I can't exactly 
 remember the first video I came across, 
 but probably it was Yudkowsky, I 
 imagine. The basic description I would 
 give to the current scenario is, if 
 anyone builds it, everyone dies. Eliezer 
 Yudkowsky is a notable member of the 
 group of AI commentators adamant in 
 their belief that there's very little 
 hope for humanity's survival short of 
 brute force intervention. What really 
 got me into it was the arguments of 
 people like Yudkowsky. Please, come on. 
 Eliezer Yudkowsky. My opinion, Eliezer 
 is the most important thinker of our 
 time. 
 I expect an actually smarter and 
 uncaring entity will figure out 
 strategies and technologies that can 
 kill us. Don't listen to this episode if 
 you're not ready for an existential 
 crisis. 
 And when you came across videos from 
 people like Eliezer Yudkowsky, did you 
 immediately think like, wow, this guy's 
 right? 
 Well, I don't think 
 many people would uh 
 want to believe what Yudkowsky is 
 saying. The AI doesn't hate you, neither 
 does it love you. You're made of atoms 
 that can use for something else. That 
 that's all there is to it in the end. 
 But, you know, as I kept watching it, I 
 am worried about the AI that is smarter 
 than us. I'm worried about the AI that 
 is good enough at AI research to build 
 the AI that builds the AI that is 
 smarter than us and kills everyone. It 
 was a mix of, you know, scary, but very 
 interesting. There's no fire alarm for 
 artificial general intelligence. I've 
 always liked watching debates. So, I was 
 like, okay, I hope he's kind of wrong, 
 but over time I realized 
 very few of his main criticisms ever got 
 refuted or rebuttled in a proper way, I 
 think. Mhm. 
 And that made me think, okay, this 
 merits a sim- similarly simple, solid 
 counterargument, but it I just never saw 
 that. I saw a lot of the 
 counterarguments from, I guess, the 
 accelerationist side seemed to be very 
 like fallacious. They never wanted to 
 engage with his core arguments. And that 
 made me realize that, you know, I should 
 probably do something to 
 get what he's saying 
 uh out there more, get it to be part of 
 the public conscious a little bit more 
 than it is 
 currently. What form did that take? You 
 getting into the comment section on 
 YouTube videos? Is that kind of step 
 one? That was step one, yeah. Then 
 probably 
 talking to my parents about it, 
 strangely enough. Talking to people in 
 my life about it, being like, hey, did 
 you know this technology is kind of 
 strange. Like, uh 
 we don't really understand what's going 
 on about it and all that. 
 That didn't go too well. Uh I kind of 
 became a bit like 
 annoying, a bit autistic about that. So, 
 uh my mom kind of recommended, hey, 
 maybe you should join an organization or 
 something. I'm like, okay, yeah, that 
 makes sense. So, 
 I did that um with Pause AI in 2024. 
 All right, well, a global call to stop 
 >> artificial intelligence in its tracks. 
 Close OpenAI. Close OpenAI. 
 The protesters are demanding that OpenAI 
 be shut down and that the government 
 permanently ban the development of 
 artificial general intelligence or AGI. 
 Do you, at this point, consider yourself 
 an anti-AI 
 activist? Is that the right language we 
 should use to describe you? No, I think 
 AI is too broad of a concept. I would 
 say I'm an AI safetyist. I'm against 
 general intelligence. You're saying that 
 you're fine with like chatbots. You're 
 even fine with, you know, maybe what 
 DeepMind is up to with AlphaFold and 
 trying to do scientific discoveries. 
 What you're worried about is trying to 
 actually create something more like a 
 digital species. This this AGI dream. 
 That's the thing you're worried about. 
 >> Yes, absolutely. And primarily is your 
 fear that it's going to disrupt the 
 economy, that it's going to lead to some 
 kind of AI dictatorship when one person 
 or a company has too much control or 
 like Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky, 
 are you concerned that this in short, if 
 anyone builds it, everyone dies? 
 Yeah, I would say definitely the latter. 
 And if if most people were as educated 
 as me on this topic, they knew the 
 amount of information, the amount of 
 statistics I knew, they would probably 
 lean towards my position pretty heavily, 
 I'm guessing. Like, if there was a 
 bridge where the engineer said there's a 
 25% chance that it collapses, most 
 people probably wouldn't take that. 
 >> Mhm. And I think the doomers, right? I 
 think they're actually a lot more 
 populist and democratic than people 
 would make them out to be. I find that a 
 lot of the accelerationist tend to be 
 almost anti-democratic. They often talk 
 about like how it's going to make the 
 lives of people better, but they'll 
 never 
 seem to really dive deep into like 
 arguments about like these people didn't 
 consent for that, they didn't vote for 
 that. You wouldn't give them an option 
 to vote for that because we know who 
 would win. 
 Mhm. But what do you make of the 
 argument that I've heard from several 
 accelerationists in the past that, you 
 know, 
 it was not up to a vote whether 
 Gutenberg should make his printing 
 press, right? It's not up to the 
 populace to decide if Edison makes the 
 light bulb. You know, that's just not 
 how the real world works. And so why 
 would this be any different? Uh yeah, I 
 think the difference is Edison and 
 Gutenberg didn't say there was a one in 
 four chance everybody dies cuz I made 
 this invention. 
 You know, the light bulb is just a 
 different type of invention than what is 
 essentially an autonomous species. This 
 is less like 
 the light bulb and more like the 
 Manhattan Project, like nuclear weapons. 
 And 
 if there is truly an existential risk 
 Mhm. that if 
 the OpenAIs, 
 if the DeepMinds, 
 if, you know, the xAIs, if these big 
 companies actually are going to make 
 AGI, 
 how great of a threat do you think that 
 poses and what kind of response should 
 we be willing to make 
 to 
 mitigate that risk? 
 Well, what response? I think we need 
 policy, 100%. We need policy to ensure 
 that, you know, this technology gets 
 regulated on how big data centers can 
 get, like maybe putting a moratorium or 
 a cap on the construction of new data 
 centers. I feel like we have regulated 
 technology before. 
 So, there's no reason why we couldn't 
 take it for artificial intelligence. 
 Just to put my cards on the table here, 
 you know, I'm I'm working on a story 
 about political violence. And I want to 
 understand just personally for you, Mhm. 
 if this technology really poses an 
 existential threat 
 and right now 
 lawmakers are not 
 motivated to 
 heavily regulate it, 
 what do you think we should be willing 
 to do 
 to ensure that this technology that you 
 believe is going to lead to the likely 
 extinction of the human race doesn't get 
 made and doesn't get released? 
 Well, first, I think before we even 
 think about violence, uh we need to 
 exhaust all our peaceful um means first. 
 I think protesting, I think sharing 
 information, I think that needs to come 
 way before we even consider that. 
 But is it on the table? Do you think 
 that if if we continue to see 
 the industry move in the direction it's 
 moving now, that by whatever means 
 necessary, we have to stop the 
 extinction of the human race? 
 Mhm. 
 I'll say no comment. 
 But is it true that you have online at 
 times 
 at least toyed with the idea of 
 advocating violence against the leaders 
 in these tech companies? 
 I think my producer said something about 
 a post about Luigiying some of these 
 CEOs. 
 Right. I mean, it was kind of 
 it shouldn't be taken too literally. I 
 mean, people kind of say that all the 
 time. I didn't really mean that as a 
 threat or anything. 
 You were essentially being provocative. 
 Yes, that's kind of my idea. I'd rather 
 be provocative with my statements than 
 actually, you know, promote something 
 like that. 
 So, you don't really think it would be 
 wise for someone to, let's say, kill Sam 
 Altman. 
 Um 
 no. 
 I mean, I think these people 
 they have unlimited resources. One 
 person is not really going to do that 
 much of a dent. 
 I understand the frustration with a 
 person who might advocate for that, but 
 I it's not practical. It's not worth it. 
 You know, it's almost all risk and no 
 reward. So. 
 People may feel that way, but mhm 
 I don't know. 
 Not too many people would do it. 
 >> [music] 
 >> My name is Matt Kobos. I serve as the 
 acting special agent in charge for San 
 Francisco FBI. 
 Today's charges outline a dangerous and 
 deliberate plan to bring violence into 
 San Francisco. 
 This was not spontaneous. 
 This was planned, 
 targeted, 
 and extremely serious. 
 >> [music] 
 >> Daniel's parents did not respond to my 
 request for an interview, but [music] 
 released a statement saying that their 
 son was, quote, a loving person who has 
 been suffering recently from a mental 
 illness. 
 But according to law enforcement, in 
 [music] Daniel's three-part manifesto, 
 he makes clear that based on his belief 
 in humanity's, quote, impending 
 extinction, 
 Daniel had not only planned this attack 
 on Sam Altman, 
 >> [music] 
 >> but was also attempting to inspire 
 others to attack and kill the leaders of 
 the frontier AI labs. 
 He allegedly supplied their names and 
 home [music] addresses. 
 Daniel also allegedly included a 
 personal note to Sam Altman that read, 
 "If by some miracle you live, then I 
 want you to take this as a sign from the 
 divine to redeem your life." 
 In the last few days, many prominent AI 
 safety organizations like Pause AI and 
 figures like Eliezer Yudkowsky have 
 released statements strongly condemning 
 this attack and saying that 
 impressionable young people should not 
 follow Dan's lead. 
 But online, several anonymous users in 
 places like Reddit have already begun to 
 compare Dan to Luigi Mengioni, including 
 calls that someone should finish what he 
 started. 
 This reporting is a part of our ongoing 
 coverage of the AI race and the debate 
 around [music] it. There's a longer-term 
 existential threat that will arise when 
 we create digital beings that are more 
 intelligent than ourselves. We have no 
 idea whether we can stay in control. To 
 hear the backstory of this moment we're 
 in, including the views of the 
 accelerationists, This really will be a 
 world of abundance. the AI doomers, I 
 was selling AI 
 >> [music] 
 >> as a great thing for decades, and I was 
 wrong. I was wrong. 
 >> [music] 
 >> We'd recommend going back and starting 
 in episode one of our eight-part series. 
 We're going to continue to cover this 
 story as well as the ongoing 
 developments around the AI revolution. 
 >> [music] 
 >> This podcast is produced by Longview. If 
 you'd like to drop us a line or send us 
 a tip, you can reach [music] us at hello 
 atlongview.report. 
 To leave a comment or subscribe to our 
 newsletter, visit us on our Substack, or 
 you can become a subscriber and support 
 our reporting. Links are in the show 
 notes. Thank you for listening, 
 >> [music] 
 >> and we'll be back soon. 
 Hello everyone. This is Matt, co-founder 
 here at Longview, where we report 
 stories that are grounded in curiosity 
 and context, not political bias. As we 
 say, it's not the left view, not the 
 right view, but the long view. One way 
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 Until then, here is a brief message 
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