OpenAI wants a New Deal for AI. An attack on Sam Altman’s home made it urgent
April 12, 2026
Days before someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s San Francisco home, OpenAI had published a 13-page policy document(opens in new tab)warning that the technology it is building could reshape society faster than society is prepared to handle. The document called for a public wealth fund, a robot tax, and a four-day workweek — a New Deal for the AI age, authored by a company responsible for making the old one feel precarious.
Then came the 3:45 a.m. attack. Police arrested a suspect within hours; no one was hurt. But Altman, writing that morning(opens in new tab) soon after the attack, acknowledged that there was a growing sense of anxiety around AI. “The fear and anxiety about AI is justified,” he wrote. “We are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever.”
