You Should Come to The AI Protest

It's fully legal and nonviolent (we'll have a full overtime SFPD escort the entire time), and it's not the worst way you can use your Saturday afternoon that weekend. Plus all of your coolest friends will be there.There's a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of protests and marches; I don't want to re-litigate that here when you can just ask your favorite model.[1] There's also lots of existing discussion on if/how/when we should pause, I'll point you to Katja's recent post and the discussion there as a start for that. This is a review of some concerns I have had or still somewhat have about this type of action, and how I've reasoned about and gotten through them. I imagine you might also have these concerns.The ask (stopping the race) is one that a large fraction of the public is likely supportive of, with the majority concerned about the current pace of development. Of course there is a ton of behind-the-scenes inside-baseball work to be done and the details do matter, but we do need to build the pressure and steer the conversation from the outside, so that those on the inside get the resources they need towards making it happen. The larger the demand that frontier AI companies, governments, and other actors put forth concrete proposals and start coordinating, the faster that it will happen.Coalitions and CommunicationThere will be people who care about data center water usage. There will be people who explicitly never use AI. There will be people who are concerned about CSAM and child suicide.But this protest is about a push for a conditional pause, specifically because of transformative AI leading to the value of human labor going to zero, gradual disempowerment and concentration of power, and catastrophic and existential risks.Coalition building is a necessary part of dramatic and positive change, and this march is a first