New York (AFP) – Several defenders of artificial intelligence have been the target of violent acts carried out in recent days, reflecting the fears raised by this technology and the growing public resentment towards those who promote it.

First modification: 05/01/2026 - 18:57

Billionaire Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is one of the most notable cases. On April 10, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at his home. Authorities arrested Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20 years old.

But the violence goes beyond the Silicon Valley elite. On April 6, Ron Gibson's front door was shot at 13 times after the Indianapolis councilman expressed support for building a data center.

The perpetrators of the attack left a note that read "No to data centers."

“Anxiety over emerging technologies is nothing new,” said researcher Nirit Weiss-Blatt, whose Substack newsletter “AI Panic” addresses the growing hostility toward artificial intelligence.

"However, with artificial intelligence, it seems more extreme," he added, adding that Moreno-Gama radicalized his ideas through the "rhetoric of 'existential risk of AI' (...) We need to have a broader debate about how this rhetoric radicalizes the most vulnerable people," Weiss-Blatt said.

"The fact that some extremists justify violent acts is very worrying, and must be condemned as strongly as possible."

The attacks against prominent AI figures have no demonstrable links to each other, nor do those responsible for carrying them out belong to a common organization.

But Mauro Lubrano, professor of International Relations at the University of Bath, said that calling these actors lone wolves "is actually not so accurate, because these groups are integrated into a kind of digital ecosystem."

Lubrano links the recent wave of violence to acts of vandalism against Tesla vehicles and dealerships in 2025, in response to the collaboration of the founder, Elon Musk, with the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

Recent news about violent acts has caused an increase in demand for physical protection in technology companies.

"Over the last few months, we've certainly seen a clear uptick," said Rory Moran, head of executive security at United Security, Inc.

"These AI and technology companies, especially the big ones, are always in the news, and when that happens... we're going to see an increase in interest," he added.

- "Violence will be of no use" -

The reaction on the networks to these attacks has been moderate.

Many commentators on platforms such as TikTok have downplayed or justified the attacks, even comparing their perpetrators to Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024.

But some organizations that advocate limiting the spread of this technology, such as Pause AI and Stop AI, now fear being associated with these violent acts.

Dean Ball, a former AI policy advisor to the Trump administration, wrote in a post on

"This rhetoric has always had the potential to provoke violence and now it appears that this is no longer a hypothesis," he added.

Valerie Sizemore, one of the co-founders of Stop AI, said Moreno-Gama posted on the Stop AI Discord server to ask if she could speak out about violence against AI founders.

The server's moderators told him that posting about it would get him banned, and he never returned.

"Violence will do no good," Sizemore said.

"I really hope that this is the decisive moment that leads everyone to listen to the public and try to have the conversation that we need to have," he said.

© 2026 AFP

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