All corrections
Substack July 16, 2026 at 01:05 PM

www.astralcodexten.com/p/ai-chip-regulation-is-not-a-dystopian/comments

1 correction found

1
Claim
fly a plane into a skyscraper
Correction

This appears to refer to Joseph Stack's 2010 Austin attack, but he crashed into an IRS office building, not a skyscraper.

Full reasoning

The surrounding details strongly identify the incident being referenced: a "disgruntled programmer" who already had a pilot's license. That matches Joseph Andrew Stack III, an unemployed software engineer/pilot who deliberately flew his plane into the Echelon office building in Austin, Texas, on February 18, 2010.

Contemporaneous reporting described the target as a seven-story office building housing IRS offices, not a skyscraper. For example, The Washington Post reported that about 190 IRS employees worked in the "seven-story office building", and the Los Angeles Times likewise reported that Stack piloted his plane into the "seven-story building" where IRS employees worked.

So the historical example is being described inaccurately here: Stack did fly a plane into a building, but it was an office building / mid-rise building, not a skyscraper.

2 sources
Model: OPENAI_GPT_5 Prompt: v1.16.0