You’ve done basically zero of the hard work required to rally people behind a successful protest (other than write this announcement)
Isn’t this how most social movements start – with a single protest, attended by a small number of people?
You’d really need a concrete policy ask before I would think of joining your protest
I think this is why Percy posted here: to discuss what that might look like! And perhaps he doesn’t need specific demands – look at Occupy Wall Street as an example of a movement with underspecified/vague demands that was effective in some ways (and failed in others).
More generally I don’t really like the dynamic where the first person to say “me” is suddenly able to direct a bunch of free-energy
Again – surely this is how all social movements start? This picket won’t be perfect; in my view it will highly likely be better than nothing.
I do think you could do something smarter than this attempt, and try harder to figure out what might work.
Hi Alistair! You might want to look into more strategic ways of planning activism work. It’s true that many social movements start becoming visible with protests, but there is a lot of background work involved in a protest, or any activism.
It looks like your goal is to slow down AI development.
First, you’ll want a small working group who can help you develop your message, analyses, and tactics. A few of your colleagues who are deeply concerned about AI risk would work. When planning most things, it’s helpful to have people who can temper your impulses and give you more ideas.
I see that you want to “Develop clear message, and demands, and best approach to this protest. Clear explanation of ai dangers that anybody can understand.” I recommend doing this more than 2 weeks out from launching a campaign, with help from your working group. There are many important talking points you can use around AI risk, but if you just pick one clear phrase for your campaign, it can get more traction.
After you’re clear on the one most important message for you to spread right now, you want to know who you need to tell and who can help you tell it. This is the time for a stakeholder analysis. Be clear on:
Constituencies (who you represent the interests of)
Allies
Opponents
Targets (who can change things)
Secondary targets (who can influence them)
Then, and only then, you want to think of which tactic is best for you to influence your target towards your goal. A protest might not be the best way to convince them, for many reasons that I’ll leave up to people who know more about AI and the stakeholders. Protests are one tactic, but so is a well-planned email campaign to officials (with a template, gone through rounds of revision and feedback, for your participants), a social media campaign with text and images about the risk, or visual/literary art about a hypothetical future where AI development does not slow down.
After you’ve selected a tactic (and made a plan for the project that has been reviewed by people who are experienced in AI safety), you can organize your community to help you carry out that tactic as massively as you can.
This process from start to finish might take a few months, but it is worth getting it right the first time. Then, you will have less issues to fix, and you can build on your momentum and scale up. The more people who help you think through how to effectively influence your targets towards your goal, the better. It is best if you have some people to work with who are deeply familiar with your target. Networks are everything in organizing. Good luck.
Edit: I figured you might want me to tell you why I’m recommending all these other steps. I’m doing that because I’m seeing you receive feedback (from people more involved in the issue than I am) that this could cause harm. I saw you say “in my view it will highly likely be better than nothing” above. It might be worse than nothing. Hence the planning. It seems you want to act fast because this is an urgent threat, and I get that. But acting fast and making things worse is worse than planning for a few months and making things much better.
It seems to me like you would like to be able to succeed at preventing an extinction-level threat without having to be competent at anything. I think reality has higher standards than that.
Occupy Wall Street is exactly the wrong example to mention, and further makes me think you have no sense of what a successful historical protest looks like.
I’m not into random people showing up and trying to command the political force of a web forum that they’ve made zero contributions to and trying to direct it into a poorly thought out and haphazardly-aimed effort.
I am well-aware of the stakes here, but that doesn’t mean bad plans suddenly work.
Isn’t this how most social movements start – with a single protest, attended by a small number of people?
I think this is why Percy posted here: to discuss what that might look like! And perhaps he doesn’t need specific demands – look at Occupy Wall Street as an example of a movement with underspecified/vague demands that was effective in some ways (and failed in others).
Again – surely this is how all social movements start? This picket won’t be perfect; in my view it will highly likely be better than nothing.
Do you have any suggestions?
Hi Alistair! You might want to look into more strategic ways of planning activism work. It’s true that many social movements start becoming visible with protests, but there is a lot of background work involved in a protest, or any activism.
It looks like your goal is to slow down AI development.
First, you’ll want a small working group who can help you develop your message, analyses, and tactics. A few of your colleagues who are deeply concerned about AI risk would work. When planning most things, it’s helpful to have people who can temper your impulses and give you more ideas.
I see that you want to “Develop clear message, and demands, and best approach to this protest. Clear explanation of ai dangers that anybody can understand.” I recommend doing this more than 2 weeks out from launching a campaign, with help from your working group. There are many important talking points you can use around AI risk, but if you just pick one clear phrase for your campaign, it can get more traction.
After you’re clear on the one most important message for you to spread right now, you want to know who you need to tell and who can help you tell it. This is the time for a stakeholder analysis. Be clear on:
Constituencies (who you represent the interests of)
Allies
Opponents
Targets (who can change things)
Secondary targets (who can influence them)
Then, and only then, you want to think of which tactic is best for you to influence your target towards your goal. A protest might not be the best way to convince them, for many reasons that I’ll leave up to people who know more about AI and the stakeholders. Protests are one tactic, but so is a well-planned email campaign to officials (with a template, gone through rounds of revision and feedback, for your participants), a social media campaign with text and images about the risk, or visual/literary art about a hypothetical future where AI development does not slow down.
After you’ve selected a tactic (and made a plan for the project that has been reviewed by people who are experienced in AI safety), you can organize your community to help you carry out that tactic as massively as you can.
This process from start to finish might take a few months, but it is worth getting it right the first time. Then, you will have less issues to fix, and you can build on your momentum and scale up. The more people who help you think through how to effectively influence your targets towards your goal, the better. It is best if you have some people to work with who are deeply familiar with your target. Networks are everything in organizing. Good luck.
Edit: I figured you might want me to tell you why I’m recommending all these other steps. I’m doing that because I’m seeing you receive feedback (from people more involved in the issue than I am) that this could cause harm. I saw you say “in my view it will highly likely be better than nothing” above. It might be worse than nothing. Hence the planning. It seems you want to act fast because this is an urgent threat, and I get that. But acting fast and making things worse is worse than planning for a few months and making things much better.
It seems to me like you would like to be able to succeed at preventing an extinction-level threat without having to be competent at anything. I think reality has higher standards than that.
Occupy Wall Street is exactly the wrong example to mention, and further makes me think you have no sense of what a successful historical protest looks like.
I’m not into random people showing up and trying to command the political force of a web forum that they’ve made zero contributions to and trying to direct it into a poorly thought out and haphazardly-aimed effort.
I am well-aware of the stakes here, but that doesn’t mean bad plans suddenly work.