[Moved to June] May 13 OpenAI Protest - San Francisco w/worldwide hour of silence

@Tyler and I are planning a silent demonstration at OpenAI from 10-11am PT on Monday May 13. We will invite anyone from around the world to join the hour of silence in solidarity.

The main goal of this protest is to drive turnout. (Because we've had such great media converage from small, we really think 10x'ing our attendance could take us to the next level.) To that end, we're doing this by creating a coalition of sponsors (i.e. not just PauseAI) under the banner that "OpenAI needs to be held accountable".

Right now we need volunteers to:

do graphic design for invitations and posters
post posters around the Bay Area and anywhere else they'd like to advertise the hour of silence
post the invitations and the protest website (openaiprotest.com - still has info from last protest atm) in groups you are in online and share on list-servs
lots more!

Ping us if you want to help.

worthy-azureOP•4/8/24, 11:25 PM

@Yo interested?

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:43 AM

I can do some graphic design for posters, but I can't attend since I'm in NY

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:45 AM

Maybe use the slogan AI will silence humankind or something like that

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:45 AM

@Holly Elmore

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:46 AM

I think this suggests existential and deeply problematic risks, but is general enough to apply to most critical risks

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:49 AM

Or Don't let GenAI speak over us

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 12:59 AM

Or AI will silence _ and replace the space with all the risks that AI creates, like AI will silence your employability, AI will silence the voices of minorities, AI will scream louder than the truth, AI isn't designed to listen to humanity

popular-magenta•4/9/24, 1:10 AM

AI will silence creativity, AI will silence democracy, AI will silence trust in each other, AI will whisper lies to our most vulnerable, AI will silence romance, AI will silence objective news reporting, AI will silence its creators, AI will silence its users, AI will silence software development jobs, etc.

hurt-tomato•4/9/24, 7:47 AM

Awesome! @Holly Elmore do you already have a press release draft?

dead-brown•4/9/24, 8:47 AM

!track

ProjectBot•4/9/24, 8:47 AM

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wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:45 PM

@Joep Meindertsma No press release draft but I'm writing an open letter that will be shared alongside the event. Will share with you now!

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:45 PM

I've created a simple page this afternoon btw: https://pauseai.info/2024-may

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:49 PM

I think @Holly Elmore and I were planning on the event being hosted under a broader coalition than just PauseAI — hoping this can help us with partnerships and increasing turnout (kinda a reprise of the event we discussed last fall). Any thoughts on this?

Wwispy-yellow I think @Holly Elmore and I were planning on the event being hosted under a broa...

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:49 PM

Makes sense, but it would still make sense to have a page on our site, right?

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

Also, there are people in the discord who want to organize a protest on the same day

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

Under the PauseAI banner

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

Yeah definitely! I just think it could be confusing if it coincides with the PauseAI pre-seoul protests, since the demands/identity of the event would be different

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

Ahh I see. Who is it? If so maybe we should coordinate to avoid it being the same day haha

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

huh?

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:50 PM

I would prefer it's on the same day

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:51 PM

feeling of unity, i think we can get more people to organize protests that same day

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:51 PM

do you think pauseAI's involvement would put people off?

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:52 PM

What Holly and I were thinking for this event would be that the primary goal is turnout, and I do think organizing as a coalition (which includes PauseAI) is better for that. Some people might be turned off by the pause ask, plus the goal of this one was more about OpenAI specifically than e.g. global coordination for a pause

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:52 PM

I like the idea of a pre-Seoul pauseAI event but maybe that should be distinct from this high-turnout openAI one

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:53 PM

That does not make sense to me. I don't think we can get protestors to join 2 protests in 2 weeks time or something. That would lead to a lower turnout.

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:54 PM

Having a seperate page for the broader coalition makes sense though

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:54 PM

I can simply link to that from the PauseAI site

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:54 PM

Maybe Holly and I can push ours back then

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:54 PM

We did something similar with the previous international protest, where there was a separate org that did their own thing - but still on the same day

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:55 PM

Like so

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:56 PM

I guess my concern is just that, reading your page now, the event reads like a PauseAI international day of protest under which there's a single non-pauseAI protest in e.g. San Francisco, which might negate the coalition goal.

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 4:57 PM

Here's the reasoning I wrote up when we were planning this event for why I think it's worth at least experimenting with this coalition type event:

I think this protest could be more effective if the organizers were like “the coalition for safe AI” rather than “PauseAI.” Here’s my cruxes:
A lot of people already have beliefs about PauseAI that might prevent them from attending. EAs think a pause would be net negative, AI ethics people might think PauseAI is just doomers (despite you correctly identifying that they should support a pause), etc.
“PauseAI protests in SF” will ring a bell to lots of people (after Fishermans Wharf and the most recent OpenAI protest) and might be less juicy, leading to lower turnout or media interest. Even though it’s being organized by the same person, calling the organizer “Coalition for Safe AI” might make the media look at it closer again.
We might have success recruiting co-organizers in the bay. Right now it’s just me (I’d like to count The Midas Project as a co-organizer if you’re down) and you. But maybe CAIS, or FLI, or Encode Justice, or SAG-AFTRA would get involved if we proposed this. They don’t even have to show up to the protest — the main thing could be a petition that they are cosigned on and the protest could be an event supporting that.
If nobody else wants to co-organize/co-sign, I’d be more open to it being PauseAI-focused. I’d still like to promote my brand if possible.
I don’t actually think this will detract too much from the salience/awareness of the pause message, but I could be wrong.

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 4:59 PM

Would there be a message / ask for the protest?

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 5:01 PM

Yes! It's exclusively anti-OpenAI. Here's the open letter draft we have right now:

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 5:01 PM

OpenAI Must Be Held Accountable

It is becoming clear that OpenAI and its leadership cannot be trusted to responsibly develop advanced artificial intelligence. Since pivoting from their nonprofit origins to begin rapidly scaling AI models in 2020, OpenAI and its senior executives have shown repeated, critical failures of oversight and accountability.

While the “move fast and break things” attitude may be celebrated at some tech companies, it is not remotely appropriate for a technology as consequential and dangerous as this one. We must hold the people and corporations building it to an unusually high standard. “Good enough” won’t cut it for something this important.

This website contains a list of evidence supporting our conclusion. The signatories of this letter demand that OpenAI be held accountable for its past and future actions to ensure that it does not cause future avoidable harm.

Relevant accountability mechanisms may include, but are not limited to:

Ceasing lobbying efforts to weaken regulation and government oversight.
Appointing a nonprofit board predominantly composed of leaders in AI safety and civil society, as opposed to its current overwhelming bias toward industry leaders.
Expanding internal teams focused on safety and ethics, and publicly committing to assign them meaningful “veto power” in future development decisions and product releases.
Creating procedures for global, democratic input on key OpenAI decisions and products.
Increased government scrutiny to ensure that OpenAI follows all applicable laws and regulations.
The assignment of clear legal liability to OpenAI for the current and future harms to people and society caused by its products.
The responsibility for implementing these accountability measures falls on everyone: OpenAI, its leaders, local and federal government agencies, lawmakers, and the global public.

Sincerely,

(undersigned)

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 5:03 PM

Gotcha. I'll remove it from the website for now.

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 5:03 PM

I do think a PauseAI pre-seoul international day of protest is a good idea, but I think it's worth expirimenting with this one also. The OpenAI one isn't exactly on a deadline like Seoul is — if you want you could keep as is and this one could get pushed back to June?

hurt-tomato•4/10/24, 5:05 PM

I need Holly in SF for the international one - it's the one location that is most important

wispy-yellow•4/10/24, 5:06 PM

Makes sense! So does pushing coalition-led OpenAI protest to June make the most sense? And how does this sound to you @Holly Elmore?

popular-magenta•4/13/24, 12:55 PM

I can see if the NYC group would be open to joining whenever this is.

popular-magenta•4/13/24, 12:55 PM

Any thoughts on going ahead with working on some of my 'AI will silence' poster designs

[Moved to June] May 13 OpenAI Protest - San Francisco w/worldwide hour of silence

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