What: Lawful protest outside Google DeepMind + awareness-raising/recruitment outside EAG London

When & where:

• 1200-1400 Fri 19 May outside Google DeepMind
• 1200-1400 Sat 20 and Sun 21 May outside EAG London
• 1700-2000 Mon 22 May outside Google DeepMind
• In the future: regular (weekly?) protest?

Exact locations:

• Google DeepMind in building S2 Handyside: 8 Handyside Street, King’s Cross, London, N1C 4DJ
• Effective Altruism Global London (EAG London): Tobacco Dock, Tobacco Quay, Wapping Lane, Wapping, London, E1W 2SF

Why:

• To call for a global moratorium on the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems more powerful than GPT-4
• To raise public awareness of the threat posed by artificial general intelligence (AGI) development
• To create and leverage social pressure on Google DeepMind and other AI companies
• To build momentum for a social movement calling for better AI safety, governance and ethics in general
  • In particular, to set a precedent for a regular (weekly?) protest

How:

• We will lawfully and peacefully stand outside Google DeepMind with placards and a banner, possibly handing out flyers / stickers / pin badges to DeepMind employees and passers-by
• We will have respectful, cooperative conversations
• We may give speeches (more likely) and/or sing and/or chant (less likely)
• We may dress up in attention-grabbing costumes
• Our tone will be informative, inclusive and even humorous rather than confrontational and disruptive
• We aim to get up to 30 people to this first protest
• Legal:
  • This is a wholly lawful, legal and non-arrestable protest
  • We will stand on the pavement (public space), not on private land

Background:

• “This is an existential risk” – Geoffrey Hinton
• “the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die” – Eliezer Yudkowsky
• “AGI is basically here. Alignment is nowhere near ready.” – Greg Colbourn
• “Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.” – Future of Life Institute (FLI) open letter
• “we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4” – FLI open letter
• “So we did this open letter because we want to help these idealistic tech executives to do what their heart tells them by providing enough public pressure on the whole sector to just pause so that they can all pause in a coordinated fashion. And I think without the public pressure, none of them can do it alone, push back against their shareholders, no matter how good hearted they are.” – Max Tegmark talking about the FLI open letter

Steps to take:

• Read the full details of the protest here and join us
• Click ‘going’ on the Facebook event here
• Share details on social media using the hashtag #PauseAI
• Talk to your family and friends about this
• Go to the protests in San Francisco or Brussels or organise your own
• Follow the action points here and here

PauseAI are a group of volunteers, AI (safety) researchers and engineers who are worried about the risks of AI. We are not affiliated with any company or organisation.