# Marc Andreessen — "a form of murder" > [!quote] "We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder." > — Marc Andreessen, "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," October 16, 2023 ## Context [[Marc Andreessen]] published this in the [[Techno-Optimist Manifesto]] on the Andreessen Horowitz website — a 5,000-word credo that repeats "We believe" over a hundred times and names "tech ethics," "trust and safety," "sustainability," and "the precautionary principle" as enemies (see [[Marc Andreessen - Techno-Optimist enemies list]]). The "form of murder" line is its sharpest claim: that anyone slowing AI down is morally responsible for the deaths AI would otherwise have prevented. ## Why this matters It is the cleanest statement of the [[Effective Accelerationism]] moral inversion: restraint, not deployment, becomes the act of violence. By defining regulation as murder, the line forecloses safety debate before it starts — any proposed guardrail is reframed as lethal sabotage, and the venture capitalist funding AI becomes its humanitarian. The rhetorical structure is identical to [[Palmer Luckey]]'s "shadow campaign" move: skepticism of the product is never legitimate caution, only complicity in death. That makes it a foundational receipt for how the tech right weaponizes the language of harm to disarm its critics. ## Verification - **Primary source:** [a16z, "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," October 16, 2023](https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/) — the line appears verbatim. - **Reporting:** [404 Media](https://www.404media.co/marc-andreesen-manifesto-says-ai-regulation-is-a-form-of-murder/); [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/slowing-down-on-ai-will-cause-preventable-deaths-and-thats-a-form-of-murder-says-marc-andreessen/articleshow/104492102.cms). - **Status:** Verbatim, undisputed; published under Andreessen's name. ## Related quotes - [[Marc Andreessen - Techno-Optimist enemies list]] — from the same manifesto. - [[Palmer Luckey - shadow campaign at the UN]] — the same "criticism = complicity" inversion.