‘Freeze AI Now’: Bay Area Activists Rally Outside OpenAI Headquarters
Bay Area activists joined a nationwide walkout on Tuesday to demand a pause on the development of artificial intelligence, so that the public — and Congress — can set development and use guardrails for the technology.
About two dozen protesters held signs that read “We Didn’t Elect Big Tech” and “Water For People, Not Data Centers” outside of OpenAI’s office in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood.
They joined activists across 50 U.S. cities and college campuses, including in Los Angeles, New York and Florida, where rallies had been organized by the nonprofit organization Irreplaceable.
Irreplaceable, founded by several climate activists, leaders of civil rights organizations and national labor unions, launched in August with the goal to “give voice to anxiety and anger about AI” and spur federal legislation regulating the technology.
Jeremy Ornstein, an organizer with Irreplaceable, spoke to the protesters outside OpenAI’s office. “The world is about to change,” he said. “AI is being advanced so quickly, [and] the people building it know that catastrophes, critical catastrophes, are going to hit everyday people as soon as next year.
“But there’s another kind of change that’s coming too,” he continued. “There’s thousands of people who are demanding … a freeze on AI until it can be under public control and benefit us.”
Irreplaceable’s website makes the case that people are “irreplaceable by AI.”
Its executive director, Phil Aroneanu, previously co-founded 350.org, a grassroots climate movement pushing for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
“We’re building a movement to Freeze AI Now. It’s time for the people to determine the future of AI, not big tech CEOs,” Irreplaceable’s website reads.
The organization has laid out a three-year plan: To coalesce a base of Americans angry and concerned about AI development in 2026, develop a “shared federal agenda on AI” in 2027 and launch a pressure campaign on politicians in 2028, the year of the next presidential election.
But it hasn’t given details about what regulations and legislation it hopes to see those politicians pass. The Atlantic in August reported that another climate activist behind the project, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence, said a concrete agenda would come later.
But there doesn’t seem to be consensus yet on what that plan will look like.
Even sisters Junia and Gwen Martens, who came to the San Francisco protest from Berkeley High School, have different opinions on how far regulation should go. Gwen, 14, thinks “AI should be stopped,” but Junia, 16, wants to see regulation and education about the technology in schools.
“I kind of disagree with my sister. I think that AI can be helpful in a lot of different situations,” Junia told KQED.
Junia and a classmate are co-presidents of a club at Berkeley High, called AI Effects and Consequences, which talks to elementary and middle school students about AI and its effects.
That “lets the students form their own opinions,” she said.
The sisters are in agreement, though, about cutting back on AI use in schools.
“I don’t use generative AI,” Gwen said. “It really stops you from thinking, which is how you learn. That is my worst fear. I would never want to dim down my education.”
She said “few” of her other classmates agree.
KQED’s Sara Hossaini contributed to this report.