Hunger Strikes Target AI Labs Amid Rising Worries About “Superhuman” Intelligence

Two activists have started hunger strikes in front of Anthropic and DeepMind offices, demanding the companies to halt their development of advanced AI systems.

Guido Reichstadter spent seven days without food outside Anthropic’s San Francisco office building as he continued his protest. The activist told Business Insider he will maintain his hunger strike until Anthropic responds to his requests.

“DeepMind, Anthropic and other AI companies are racing to create ever more powerful AI systems. Experts are warning us that this race to ever more powerful artificial general intelligence puts our lives and well being at risk, as well as the lives and well being of our loved ones.,” he wrote on X.

Indeed, recent research warned how AI firms are racing toward human-level systems without proper safety plans. A new Future of Life Institute report gave no company higher than a C+ in existential risk preparedness.

Experts fear artificial general intelligence could emerge within a decade, yet safety strategies remain “unacceptable,” leaving society vulnerable as AI models become harder to understand.

Reichstadter, founder of Stop AI, argues that pushing toward “superhuman” AI poses existential risks. “In the concrete world in which we’re living right now, all of the frontier labs are racing as quickly as they can to fully general superhuman systems. That’s what needs to stop,” he said to Business Insider.

On his first day of protest, he handed a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei requesting him to stop frontier model development.

Amodei himself has warned about AI’s economic impact, saying in May: “AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years.”

Reichstadter is surviving on water, electrolytes, and vitamins. He previously staged a 15-day climate hunger strike in Miami and said he is “feeling good” so far. He has also been arrested for chaining shut the doors of OpenAI’s San Francisco office and faces trial this month.

He noted to Business Insider that he previously conducted a  15-day hunger strike in Miami over the climate crisis that did not harm his health. He was also arrested for chaining shut the doors of OpenAI’s San Francisco office and is set to face trial this month.

His protest has inspired Michael Trazzi, a 29-year-old former AI safety researcher, who has been fasting outside DeepMind’s London headquarters for three days. Business Insider reports that Trazzi said his demand is simple: “My only ask is, concretely, I want Demis to say that he would not release any more frontier models if the other frontier AI labs were to also stop doing so.”