Lawless political violence landed on Silicon Valley’s doorstep this month when an attacker hurled a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco compound of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive. The incident was a disturbing sign that simmering public anger about AI is spilling out of polling data and into the real world.
The attack shook tech employees who wondered whether this was a watershed moment. I believe it should be. While jarring, I hope it changes how tech leaders handle the societal consequences of their success. Until recently, Americans viewed tech more positively than any other sector. Now, tech is heading down the same path as healthcare and government institutions Americans believe no longer serve them.
AI is accelerating this shift. We see jobs replaced by technology that doesn't fully work, deepfake pornography generated without consent, and communications overrun with fraud. 77% of Americans believe AI could pose a threat to humanity — an idea Altman himself has advanced. Yet the vast majority feel they have no recourse. Unlike other industries, tech faces little accountability. No regulator can recall a harmful software update. Boycotts fail against infrastructure like cloud services or email. When anger has no productive outlet, it takes only one unhinged person to turn it dangerous.
This lack of accountability is the model. Consider Meta, which pivoted away from its metaverse namesake after enormous investment. Imagine if General Motors spent $80 billion on jet packs, rebranded as Copter, missed the electric-vehicle wave, and laid off 20% of its staff. No one believes GM’s chief executive would keep his job. Yet because "super-voting" shares allow him to control the board, Mark Zuckerberg remains in charge despite one of the most expensive failures in corporate history.
Meanwhile, families are filing wrongful death claims against OpenAI, arguing ChatGPT encouraged relatives to die by suicide. Roblox faces numerous lawsuits alleging the platform enabled child endangerment and grooming. If these companies sold food, cars, or medicine, their products would be recalled during federal investigations. Yet tens of millions of children use Roblox daily, and ChatGPT counsels over a million people weekly who show signs of suicidal intent. The idea that these platforms would go dark to address such harms seems laughable.
You would think an industry creating such outrage would recalibrate. Experts teach that companies facing backlash should acknowledge failure and earn back trust. But tech titans no longer seem interested in convincing the public. Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz proudly announced he practices "zero" introspection. Zuckerberg said he is done apologising. An industry that once inspired us to "think different" has changed its message to "deal with it."
This attitude shift has led some leaders to choose force over persuasion. Aren’t employees using AI tools? Executives will make them. Brands don’t want to advertise next to white supremacist content? Elon Musk will sue them. Don’t like a magazine’s tech coverage? Venture capitalists threaten to buy them.
As Big Tech grows more powerful, I once compared it to finance, where growth outweighs values. Now, healthcare is a better analogy. When UnitedHealthcare chief Brian Thompson was shot, many read that deplorable violence as an indictment of a system defined by corporate apathy. 53% of Americans held an unfavourable view of healthcare in 2024, shaped by denied claims, medical debt, and indifference to patients who have no choice but to use it. Healthcare is heavily regulated, yet consumers still view insurers and pharmaceutical companies as institutions that do not answer to them. Both healthcare and tech offer the same frustrating message: You’re stuck with us, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
When institutions become this powerful and this unresponsive, the social contract begins to fray. The attack on Altman is a terrifying symptom of that breakdown. It signals that when people feel they have no legal or economic lever to pull against companies that fundamentally alter their lives, some will resort to the most desperate and lawless measures. For the sake of both public safety and the industry's own future, Silicon Valley needs to stop telling the public to "deal with it" and start finding ways to be truly answerable to the society it seeks to transform. Without a course correction, the distance between Silicon Valley and the society it serves will only continue to grow, inviting further volatility and resentment.
The New York Times