Here is the timeline. On April 7, OpenAI published a 30-page policy paper titled "Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age." In it, the company that has done more than any other to accelerate AI-driven job displacement laid out a plan for governments to tax robots, create a public wealth fund, raise capital gains taxes, and transition to a four-day work week.

Three days later, a 20-year-old from Texas threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's $27 million San Francisco mansion. Two days after that, two more people drove past the same house and opened fire.

Vox's headline on the policy paper: "OpenAI is pivoting to... socialism?" With a question mark that did a lot of heavy lifting.

The Company Destroying Jobs Wants the Government to Fix It

Let us be very specific about what OpenAI is proposing. The paper calls for higher capital gains taxes, more public funding for healthcare and education workers, giving employees more influence over corporate governance, and holding AI companies accountable for the downstream effects of their technology. It explicitly suggests that if machines replace workers, the economic value those machines create should be taxed and redistributed.

This is coming from a company that is about to IPO at a valuation north of $300 billion. A company that burns $85 billion a year. A company whose CEO just told investors he expects ChatGPT ads to generate $100 billion in revenue by 2030.

The cognitive dissonance is staggering. OpenAI is simultaneously building the technology that will displace millions of workers and publishing policy papers about how to cushion the blow. It is the arsonist handing out fire extinguishers.

The Timing Was Terrible. Or Perfect.

Altman wrote a blog post after the firebombing. "The fear and anxiety about AI is justified," he said. "We are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever." He asked people not to target his family.

The SF Standard connected the dots: OpenAI published a New Deal for AI, and days later someone tried to burn down the CEO's house. The paper was not the cause. But the paper and the attacks share the same root: a growing, visceral public fear that AI is moving too fast for anyone to control, and that the people building it are getting extraordinarily rich while everyone else gets a policy paper.

Three arrests have been made. The Molotov thrower was a 20-year-old who also threatened to burn down OpenAI's headquarters. The shooters were 23 and 25. None of them appear to be sophisticated political actors. They appear to be angry, scared people.

The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

OpenAI's policy paper is, on its merits, surprisingly thoughtful. Robot taxes are not a new idea. Bill Gates proposed them in 2017. A four-day work week has strong evidence behind it. Public wealth funds exist in Norway and Alaska. These are not radical proposals.

But the question nobody wants to answer is this: should the company causing the problem be the one writing the solution? OpenAI is not a neutral policy institute. It is the largest AI company on the planet, about to go public, with every financial incentive to frame displacement as inevitable and its own growth as unstoppable. "Tax the robots" sounds progressive until you realize it also means "do not slow down the robots."

Altman wants the government to redistribute the wealth his company creates. He does not want the government to slow down the creation. Those are very different propositions. And the firebombs suggest that at least some people have noticed the difference.