As I See It: Push Back

June 15, 2026 Victor Rozek

According to police reports, it happened between 3:30 and 4:00 in the morning. On April 10 of this year, a 20-year-old Houston resident, Daniel Moreno-Gama, made his way to San Francisco’s plush Russian Hill neighborhood, where he located the home of OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman. While the Altman family slept, he lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it at the gate in Altman’s driveway setting it ablaze.

Then he made his way to OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, where he allegedly struck the glass doors with a chair and threatened to “burn it down and kill anyone inside”.

His extreme behavior resulted in his prompt arrest by local police. Apparently Altman and OpenAI’s employees were not amused. A search of his vehicle recovered kerosene, multiple incendiary devices, an unregistered weapon, and a written manifesto suggesting a deep unassuageable loathing of artificial intelligence executives. (A sentiment that appears to be growing in popularity.) The document included lists of names and addresses of OpenAI’s board members, and CEOs and investors of other AI companies.

But Altman was not yet free of the displeasure of the unhinged. Just two days after the Moreno-Gama arson attack, San Francisco police reported that two individuals were arrested for gunfire directed at Altman’s home.

As an act of defiance, Moreno-Gama garnered momentary attention, with the likelihood of long-term consequences. He pleaded not guilty but faces a slew of state charges including attempted murder and arson, which can earn decades to life in state prison, along with federal explosives charges for good measure. It would be the height of irony and, one has to wonder, if Moreno-Gama, a Texan, was only able to find Altman’s San Francisco home with the help of AI.

Moreno-Gama’s misguided attempt to save the planet from AI developers, is nonetheless indicative of a growing national discontent. A month before the Moreno-Gama attack, an NBC News poll “found that a strong majority of Americans think risks from AI outweigh its benefits.” That’s putting it mildly. Consider that congressional approval scores in the teens but AI polled even lower than Congress on issues of trust.

In an online poll, 70 percent of 1,500 people surveyed expressed concern about AI’s influence on the November elections. Specifically, they are worried about pervasive deepfakes, fictitious campaign ads, and the growing swamp of AI slop.

On the ground, residents packed a Pennsylvania council meeting to stop a land purchase by datacenter developers. People across the country have decided it is not in their best interest to support the construction of land grabbing, power sucking, and water guzzling behemoths in their towns.

But even as AI becomes an increasing source of tension in communities across America, Washington hosted an AI Honors gala, where billionaires, politicians, lobbyists and the like gathered in black-tie to schmooze and promote the notion that free-range AI is what’s best for the country.

Based on job description and lack of financial interest in AI, a surprising guest was invited to the proceedings: a Catholic prelate who is the Vatican’s incoming ambassador to Washington, Gabriele Caccia. He was asked to give the opening address but the audience seemed disinterested in looking at AI through a moral lens. Side chatter and clanking silverware apparently made Caccia’s message difficult to hear.

But the essence of his message echoed Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, an extraordinary warning about the likely consequences of unregulated, unrestricted AI. “At every stage,” said Caccia, “the development and application of artificial intelligence must be guided by the dignity of the human person, by the common good of the human family.”

High ideals, arguably a distant consideration for many AI developers and the government agencies that, in less corrupt times, would be tasked to regulate them. But the Pope made it clear that he was more concerned with people, than product. “Through work, human beings bring their freedom, creativity and capacity for cooperation into play, contributing to the cultural and moral elevation of society. In light of this, the various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency, but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration and the genuine possibility of participating in society.”

The Pope argues that “in the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. By “profoundly human” the Pope is obviously urging us to exercise our better angels; to allow no person or group of people to be treated as expendable in the process of AI development.

That would take considerable commitment to mitigating potential consequences, an investment of time and resources made unlikely by the frantic quest for market share. When spiritual guidance competes with the guidance of manufactured intelligence in which hundreds of billions of dollars – soon to be trillions – have already been invested, future profits speak louder than the whispers of the Vatican.

Still, it is remarkable that a global religious leader would issue a 42,300 word document expressing apprehension and concern about the direction of technology and its effect on humankind. “True progress,” writes the Pope in his encyclical, “always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen, and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.” In today’s fractured world that seems hopelessly idealistic. But regardless of one’s relationship to Catholicism, idealism can be a powerful antidote to acquiescence and despair.

Pared down to its essence, the Pope argues for the relevance of his theology “because it provides the criteria for recognizing what humanizes or dehumanizes and what liberates or oppresses in ever-changing situations.” The message is timely, because all too often those distinctions are not widely recognized until it’s too late.

The alarm is being sounded from multiple directions. The Pope is pushing back gently with a mixture of faith and reason. Communities are using legal challenges and land usage restrictions to prevent data center development. Polls reveal widespread distrust of AI technology. And the least resourceful among us choose violence to assuage their fear and vexation. The canary is chirping faintly in the agentic AI coal mine. The quality of our collective future may well depend on who notices.

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