OpenAI Locks Down San Francisco Offices Following Alleged Threat From Activist

A message on OpenAI’s internal Slack claimed the activist in question had expressed interest in “causing physical harm to OpenAI employees.”

OpenAI employees in San Francisco were told to stay inside the office on Friday afternoon after the company purportedly received a threat from an individual who was previously associated with the Stop AI activist group.

“Our information indicates that [name] from StopAI has expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees,” a member of the internal communications team wrote on Slack. “He has previously been on site at our San Francisco facilities.”

Just before 11 am, San Francisco police received a 911 call about a man allegedly making threats and intending to harm others at 550 Terry Francois Boulevard, which is near OpenAI’s offices in the Mission Bay neighborhood, according to data tracked by the crime app Citizen. A police scanner recording archived on the app describes the suspect by name and alleges he may have purchased weapons with the intention of targeting additional OpenAI locations.

Hours before the incident on Friday, the individual who police flagged as allegedly making the thread said he was no longer part of Stop AI in a post on social media.

WIRED reached out to the man in question but did not immediately receive a response. San Francisco police also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. OpenAI did not provide a statement prior to publication.

On Slack, the internal communications team provided three images of the man suspected of making the threat. Later, a high-ranking member of the global security team said “At this time, there is no indication of active threat activity, the situation remains ongoing and we’re taking measured precautions as the assessment continues.” Employees were told to remove their badges when exiting the building and to avoid wearing clothing items with the OpenAI logo.

Over the past couple of years, protestors affiliated with groups calling themselves Stop AI, No AGI, and Pause AI have held demonstrations outside the San Francisco offices of several AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, over concerns that the unfettered development of advanced AI could harm humanity. In February, protestors were arrested for locking the front doors to OpenAI’s Mission Bay office. Earlier this month, StopAI claimed its public defender was the man who jumped onstage to subpoena OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during an onstage interview in San Francisco.

In a Stop AI press release from last year, the individual who police said was alleged to have made the threat against OpenAI staffers is described as an organizer and quoted as saying that he would find “life not worth living” if AI technologies were to replace humans in making scientific discoveries and taking over jobs. “Pause AI may be viewed as radical amongst AI people and techies,” he said. “But it is not radical amongst the general public, and neither is stopping AGI development altogether.”

Public statement by the StopAI organization (@stopai_info):

Stop AI is deeply committed to nonviolence and protecting human life by achieving a permanent global ban on artificial superintelligence.

Earlier this week, one of our members, Sam Kirchner, betrayed our core values by assaulting another member who refused to give him access to funds. His volatile, erratic behavior and statements he made renouncing nonviolence caused the victim of his assault to fear that he might procure a weapon that he could use against employees of companies pursuing artificial superintelligence.

We prevented him from accessing the funds, informed the police about our concerns regarding the potential danger to AI developers, and expelled him from Stop AI. We disavow his actions in the strongest possible terms. We are an organization committed to the principles and the practice of nonviolence. We wish no harm on anyone, including the people developing artificial superintelligence.

Later in the day of the assault, we met with Sam; he accepted responsibility and agreed to publicly acknowledge his actions. We were in contact with him as recently as the evening of Thursday Nov 20th. We did not believe he posed an immediate threat, or that he possessed a weapon or the means to acquire one. However, on the morning of Friday Nov 21st, we found his residence in West Oakland unlocked and no sign of him. His current whereabouts and intentions are unknown to us; however, we are concerned Sam Kirchner may be a danger to himself or others. We are unaware of any specific threat that has been issued.

We have taken steps to notify security at the major US corporations developing artificial superintelligence. We are issuing this public statement to inform any other potentially affected parties.

To Sam: We care about you. Please let us know you're okay. As far as we know, you haven't yet crossed a line you can't come back from. We will NEVER pause. We WILL win.

Public statement by PauseAI US (@Holly_Elmore's faction):

There was a report on Friday of a threat of violence against OpenAI employees from an individual associated with the organization StopAI. 1) PauseAI condemns violence and threats of violence categorically. Our volunteers must sign an agreement committing them to nonviolence and to following the law as core values of PauseAI US’s mission. 2) StopAI is a completely separate organization from PauseAI.

PauseAI does not work with StopAI and has not since StopAI was founded. The reason StopAI was founded, in fact, is that PauseAI leadership did not allow the eventual StopAI founders, Sam Kirchner and Guido Reichstader, to do illegal direct actions, such as chaining themselves to the doors of OpenAI and obstructing egress.

PauseAI is a law-abiding organization. Protests are undertaken legally, in consultation with the authorities and any on-site security of the location. At a PauseAI US protest, the signs are vetted (and sometimes turned away) if they contain any words or imagery that could unintentionally be interpreted as suggesting violence, such as blood. Hyperbolic or figurative language that could be interpreted as a threat of violence is not allowed. A volunteer is even assigned to make sure we are not obstructing the sidewalk. We have a strong and serious message for the AI companies that we protest— what they are doing is putting the entire world at risk— but our mission is to deliver a moral message, never a threat.

Before the founding of StopAI, Sam Kirchner operated social media accounts and organized protests under the name “No AGI”. PauseAI US collaborated with Kirchner/No AGI on a protest in front of OpenAI’s MIssion campus in San Francisco on February 12, 2024. This protest was primarily organized by PauseAI US and followed PauseAI US’s high standards of abiding by the law and nonviolence.