Hundreds Marched Through London Screaming Pull the Plug on AI and It Was Bigger Than Anyone Expected

Picture this: hundreds of people marching through one of the most powerful tech neighborhoods in the world, chanting "Pull the plug! Stop the slop!" and waving signs that say things like "EXTINCTION = BAD." That is exactly what happened in London this past Saturday.

The protest, organized by activist groups Pause AI and Pull the Plug, targeted Kings Cross, the London neighborhood that houses the UK headquarters of OpenAI, Meta, and Google DeepMind. Organizers are calling it the largest anti-AI protest ever held.

The concerns ranged from job losses to killer robots to the flood of AI-generated garbage content (they call it "slop") taking over the internet. One woman wore a homemade billboard on her head reading "WHO WILL BE WHOSE TOOL?" with the Os cut out as eye holes. Another protester carried a sandwich board saying "AI? Over my dead body."

What is really interesting is how fast this movement has grown. Back in May 2023, only two or three people showed up to heckle Sam Altman at a London talk. By last year, Pause AI drew a few dozen. Now they are pulling hundreds. The group says they have been growing rapidly and show no signs of slowing down.

Whether you agree with them or not, the anti-AI movement just became impossible to ignore.

As reported by MIT Technology Review.

Source: MIT Technology Review