PauseAI
pauseai.info
We need to Pause AI
We are risking human extinction. We need to pause AI development, right now.
Join
This is our nuclear moment. Rapid AI advancement represents one of history’s most consequential and dangerous technological shifts. We demand politicians and companies pause AGI development until international safety agreements are established.
Act
AI won’t get safer unless we act decisively to push for safety.
Events
If you want to organize an event, please create an event on lu.ma and press the “submit event” button on our calendar page · Read more about local organizing
Proposal
Implement a temporary pause on the training of the most powerful general AI systems.
Factsheet
Formation May 2023; 2 years ago (2023-05)
Founder Joep Meindertsma
Founded at Utrecht, Netherlands
Formation May 2023; 2 years ago (2023-05)
Founder Joep Meindertsma
Founded at Utrecht, Netherlands
Built In
builtin.com › artificial-intelligence › anti-ai
Anti-AI Explained: Why Resistance to Artificial Intelligence Is Growing | Built In
The anti-AI movement opposes artificial intelligence due to numerous concerns, such as the spread of disinformation, elimination of jobs, violation of copyright laws and AI’s potential use in mass surveillance or autonomous weapons.
Published August 6, 2025
Videos
01:26
The anti-AI movement is growing every day. - YouTube
10:28
The Anti-AI Movement - YouTube
03:10:58
How Corporations Hijacked Anti-AI Backlash - YouTube
r/aiwars on Reddit: The anti-AI movement is an extension of creative ...
r/accelerate on Reddit: Apparently this video is changing a lot ...
24:56
Why are many pushing back against AI? | The Stream - YouTube
What does “anti-AI" mean?
Anti-AI refers to an opposition to the training, deployment or usage of artificial intelligence tools. People with anti-AI attitudes may be motivated by a wide variety of potential risk factors, like the violation of copyright laws, the usage of lethal autonomous weapons or a fear of a superintelligent AI exterminating the human race.
builtin.com
builtin.com › artificial-intelligence › anti-ai
Anti-AI Explained: Why Resistance to Artificial Intelligence Is ...
Why are people against AI?
People are against AI because it may eliminate jobs, spread disinformation and amplify societal biases. Creative professionals are opposed to their work being used to train a technology that aims to displace them, and human rights groups are worried about its potential role in mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons. People may have concerns about the way AI is being trained and used without opposing the technology itself.
builtin.com
builtin.com › artificial-intelligence › anti-ai
Anti-AI Explained: Why Resistance to Artificial Intelligence Is ...
Can AI be regulated without stopping innovation?
AI is a complex topic to regulate, but it’s possible to create guidelines that don’t halt innovation. The European Union’s AI Act may require additional transparency, documentation, governance and oversight, for example, but these regulations also provide legal certainty and could increase public trust in AI technologies. European companies may be at a relative disadvantage against American companies, though, as the U.S. has not adopted federal AI regulations. This is why AI safety experts advocate for international cooperation in AI regulation.
builtin.com
builtin.com › artificial-intelligence › anti-ai
Anti-AI Explained: Why Resistance to Artificial Intelligence Is ...
NYTimes
nytimes.com › 2025 › 12 › 29 › opinion › ai-democracy.html
Opinion | An Anti-A.I. Movement Is Coming. Which Party Will Lead It? - The New York Times
10 hours ago - I disagree with the anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, bitterly reactionary right-wing pundit Matt Walsh about basically everything, so I was surprised to come across a post of his that precisely sums up my view of artificial intelligence. “We’re sleepwalking into a dystopia that any rational person can see from miles away,” he wrote in November, adding, “Are we really just going to lie down and let AI take everything from us?”
Reddit
reddit.com › r/artificialinteligence › anti ai movement
r/ArtificialInteligence on Reddit: Anti AI Movement
March 24, 2024 -
What is everyone's thoughts here on an anti AI Movement? Specifically I am referring to society pushing back on AI generated content including but not limited to Open Source licensing that prohibits training LLMs, requiring disclosure of the use of AI in products and services, and made by human labor labels on products to allow consumers to make informed choices.
I think AI is cool and exciting but it also has the real potential of completely destroying the economy by causing massive unemployment. Should society push back against this and if so what would that look like?
Top answer 1 of 5
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I'm going to take a little detour... But society needs to decide whether we should be a worker-focused economy, where our labour is central. This is how it works, but our labour has been capitalised, so labour doesn't have its power like it used to (for a brief time, at least). Or... We have a capital-focused economy where labour is completely eliminated. This is the direction we are going in. Nobody is aware of this transition or the distinction between these two systems. We are vaguely aware, but we're one-sided about it—we don't see the long-term consequences. The decision is being made without the public's consent. A capital-focused economy can be a good thing if everyone can access capital for themselves. Unfortunately, it's not economically feasible, and only corporations can afford it. AI changes this, and nobody really thinks about it. Thus, the Anti-AI movement is really a labour movement to keep the jobs that they lose economic autonomy over as ordinary families, including them, increasingly become slaves to powerful and wealthy families. This is simply because if you work for someone, you don't own the result. And results are wealth. That's my take, anyway. If we want to survive, defending AI is the best path. But, even then, what are the consequences of that?
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AI is here to stay....better adapt..... there's no way humans are letting this slow down.... especially generative AI , a guy from California and a guy from Somalia are getting same information if they put same prompt. This is the impact it has created... democracy of information and guidance
Stop Killer Robots
stopkillerrobots.org
Stop Killer Robots – Less Autonomy, More humanity.
The role of the tech community in resisting the weaponisation of AI.
Sean Goedecke
seangoedecke.com › is-ai-wrong
Is using AI wrong? A review of six popular anti-AI arguments
Some people really, really don’t like AI. Broadly speaking, being anti-AI is a popular left-wing position: AI1 is cringe, it’s plagiarism, it’s stunting real growth, it’s killing the environment, it’s destroying the careers of artists and creatives, and so on.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › PauseAI
PauseAI - Wikipedia
3 weeks ago - PauseAI is a global political movement founded in the Netherlands with the stated aim of achieving global coordination to stop the development of more powerful general artificial intelligence systems, at least until it is known how to build them safely, and keep them under democratic control.
The Guardian
theguardian.com › commentisfree › article › 2024 › jul › 27 › harm-ai-artificial-intelligence-backlash-human-labour
Robots sacked, screenings shut down: a new movement of luddites is rising up against AI | Ed Newton-Rex | The Guardian
April 2, 2025 - Some members of the anti-AI movement have reclaimed the name “luddites”. I come from tech circles, where luddite is considered an insult – but this new movement is proud of the designation. As Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, points out, the original luddites did not ...
Jens Oliver Meiert
meiert.com › blog › the-anti-ai-movement
How the Anti-AI Movement Hurts Itself (and What It Could Do Instead) · Jens Oliver Meiert
Strong “yes” to AI criticism, strong “no” to anti-AI fanaticism.
Pro-human
pro-human.co › p › rise-of-the-anti-ai-movement
Rise of The 'Anti-AI' Movement - Neal Moore | Pro-Human
July 28, 2024 - It tells us that, like with food for our bodies, we distrust artificial ingredients and have a right to know what goes into the food for our minds. That's why I have donated to the Not By AI movement and downloaded one of their badges for my ...
POLITICO
politico.com › news › magazine › 2025 › 12 › 28 › ai-job-losses-populism-democrats-bernie-sanders-00706680
Americans Hate AI. Which Party Will Benefit? - POLITICO
20 hours ago - It’s an argument that began in the progressive wing but is increasingly finding purchase across the party: Be proudly, loudly, without reservations, anti-AI. It’s not enough, these pollsters, consultants and elected officials say, to caution, minimally regulate and signal a friendly stance toward tech companies building AI. There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party.
Mattrickard
mattrickard.com › the-anti-ai-movement
The Anti-AI Movement
A Texas judge banned legal filings that are drafted primarily by AI (article) ... A challenge to the system — shifting responsibility, automation of a job, or disrupting supply and demand. Some of these anti-AI decisions might be long-term directionally right, but some of them might be short-term reactions to future disruptions.
Lioba
lioba.info › painting-blog › 2023 › 7 › 2 › my-disagreement-with-the-anti-ai-movement
My Disagreement with the Anti-AI Movement — Lioba
July 3, 2023 - Unfortunately, there is a lot of negativity toward AI from the Art Community. This is due to many misconceptions about how art is created in the first place. Most people think that art starts with a pencil and a piece of paper; the artist then ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r › antiai
Anti AI
April 11, 2015 - So we are entering a new age of racism. Instead of humans dehumanizing other humans, we’re at the point where non-human entities are doing the dehumanization. AI is influencing the status quo of who gets to be human.
The Atlantic
theatlantic.com › technology › archive › 2024 › 06 › llm-free-all-organic › 678670
Excuse Me, Is There AI in That? - The Atlantic
June 13, 2024 - Meanwhile, OpenAI has been mired in scandal, incensing former employees with a controversial nondisclosure agreement and allegedly ripping off one of the world’s most famous actors for a voice-assistant product. Thus far, much of the resistance to the spread of AI has come from watchdog groups, concerned citizens, and creators worried about their livelihood.
Bristol University Press
bristoluniversitypressdigital.com › view › journals › gpe › aop › article-10.1332-26352257Y2025D000000030 › article-10.1332-26352257Y2025D000000030.xml
How to be ‘anti-AI’ in the 21st century: overcoming the inevitability narrative in: Global Political Economy - Ahead of print
March 31, 2025 - This requires collective efforts to organise and protest against the harmful effects of AI and/or to directly prevent its implementation. This might take the form of social movements staging protests against the use of AI in new sectors, such ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/artisthate › how do we build an anti-ai movement? 🤔
r/ArtistHate on Reddit: How do we build an Anti-AI movement? 🤔
November 6, 2024 -
Judging from the public's universal hatred for things like the AI-generated Coca Cola Christmas ad, my feeling is that there is a "silent majority" out there who hate AI (particularly AI art).
The problem is outside of small internet communities like this and prominent figures speaking out, there doesn't really seem to be an organized movement pushing against the proliferation of harmful AI.
Just throwing this out there. How do we bring more people to our side? Are there specific ideas anyone has to grow the movement?
I think, ethical issues aside, a world where everything is AI is just f***ing boring. I think a lot of people would agree with that sentiment. But how do we create a world that values humanity and creativity?
This really intersects with every aspect of life you can think of; being anti-AI is essentially being anti- technocratic monopolies destroying all aspects of our life. (generally speaking; I think AI could be useful in medicine and some other areas)
Top answer 1 of 17
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I have no idea but I truly believe like 80% of people (if not more) really hate AI - at least the images and text that are obvious to them. We are so used to being frustrated by technology these days because so much of the internet is scammy and untrustworthy and AI makes that problem worse and people don't like it.
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There needs to be a non algorithm controlled area if the web again. As much as I love social media....the trough has gone stagnant. Sharing art in the giant crapstorm has become not fun anymore. It feels like "nobody's home" I've been enjoying reading blogs on glitch because its like I have to fish around and people there tend to list a few people they like there. Reminds me of when the internet was kind of "word of mouth." I have no idea if any of the current technocrats are capable of understanding that....but it feels overdue. The internet needs a offramp where stuff is still human curated...and created. The demand is there...the problem is tech doesn't serve customers anymore...just investors...and the monopolies are so powerful its like a "where else you gonna go?" situation. I kind of feel the social network era ending and maybe that's not a horrible thing. It's going to take a powerful mass shift to send the signal though...because chronically online people drive the algorithms and muddy the water for the rest of us. I don't think for a second that the "defending AI" subreddit is representative of the general public.. it's just that they are pinging the algorithms enough to make it seem like they have more influence than they do. I think eventually they'll go touch grass and the tech moguls will finally notice the dip. I think in the meantime we gotta outwait the idiocy, and that sucks. Best thing I can think of right now us to curate your feeds, glaze your work, and connect with human artists?
Medium
medium.com › @daisygarciathomas › ableism-in-the-anti-ai-movement-the-overlooked-neurodivergent-perspective-c91df428720e
Ableism in the Anti-AI Movement: The Overlooked Neurodivergent Perspective | by Daisy Thomas | Medium
June 22, 2024 - The discourse surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) is multifaceted and polarizing, with opinions spanning from enthusiastic endorsement to vehement opposition. However, a concerning trend within the anti-AI rhetoric is the subtle, and sometimes overt, ableism directed towards neurodivergent individuals who have found more robust ways to communicate and interact through AI technologies.
Business Insider
businessinsider.com › business insider › tech › advertising › the hot new trend in marketing: hating on ai
Big Brands Going Anti-AI As a Marketing Tool, Appealing to the Haters - Business Insider
November 14, 2025 - In India, the candy brand Cadbury 5 Star ran a campaign entitled "Make AI Mediocre Again," a fictional movement to flood the internet with nonsensical websites to trick content-scrapers.
WIRED
wired.com › business › artificial intelligence › protesters are fighting to stop ai, but they’re split on how to do it
Protesters Are Fighting to Stop AI, but They’re Split on How to Do It | WIRED
May 13, 2024 - PauseAI protests are underway in London, New York, San Francisco, and across the globe. Its members have wildly different opinions on what the group should do next.