On July 11, San Francisco became the epicenter of a new wave of public pressure on the artificial intelligence industry. About 200 protesters marched between the headquarters of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, demanding an immediate halt to the training of more powerful AI models. This is not just an emotional outburst — it is a clearly articulated position of the "Stop the AI Race" movement.
The activists are not insisting on shutting down existing services. Their proposal is far more pragmatic: keep current models but temporarily redirect development teams toward applied systems, safety issues, and AI alignment. In other words, they do not want to stop progress but to bring it under strict control.
The list of grievances from the march participants covers the full spectrum of socio-economic consequences: job cuts, environmental damage from data centers, strain on energy systems, rising housing costs in San Francisco, and the excessive influence of tech giants. Some protesters called on state authorities and local legislators to strengthen oversight of advanced AI systems.
The march organizer, former AI researcher Mikael Trazzi, acknowledged a shift in strategy. Previously, the movement relied on persuading company leaders. Now the focus has shifted to the political arena. "Protests are useful: they show that people care," Trazzi stated. The action was supported by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, as well as the groups AI Action and QuitGPT.
This is already the second major Stop the AI Race march. In March, a similar action gathered about 200 people outside the offices of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI with the same demands for a coordinated pause in advanced AI development.
Notably, in July, former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo proposed an even more radical idea — freezing the AI race until 2040. His scenario involves a bilateral agreement between the US and China to limit the development of superintelligence.
My comment: The protesters' demands seem reasonable at first glance, but in practice, introducing a voluntary moratorium amid intense competition between the US and China is a utopia. The political agenda that Stop the AI Race is betting on may only complicate regulation but will not stop the race. The market and geopolitics dictate their own rules, and as long as superintelligence has not been created, no one will voluntarily hit the pause button.