Pull the Plug/Pause AI Protest in London Thoughts

Originally just a LinkedIn post but copied here for the curious...

I attended the 'Pull the Plug' march earlier. aligned with Pause AI it was a mini march to chant and hear speeches outside of London's tech offices.

It was an interesting one. A few hundred people out for it, wide range of positions I suspect, but the 'formal' aspect of the march was... not my thing, really.

I'm wary of sniping at other peoples efforts but at the same time there was a lot I wasn't particularly good with...

- Seemed like a lot of AI hype from speakers and organisers. Doomer anti AGI rhetoric, lauding it as transformative tech, suggesting how great it could be with moderation etc. Which I think is the worst possible popular front. Doomer stuff is often nonsensical and always detached from where people are most likely to experience 'AI' in real life.

- Didn't hear much breakdown of what AI actually is - a marketing term for myriad underlying technologies with massively varied (and frequently bad) applications. Also a political construct designed to perpetuate very old forms of power and oppression.

- A loud, if at least a little critical, call for regulation and for tech companies to show their morality by embracing that. A completely futile hope imo. These companies are what they are because they exist and thrive in a system which would have them be nothing else.

- Decent turnout (relative to what I expected) which was sent on an A-B march in central London on a Saturday when the offices were closed and nobody was about. May not really matter, take it as solidarity building for those already enthused, but still felt a bit daft.

- Pause AI seem to be equal partners with Pull the Plug, at least on the presentation. I don't have much time for them for a few reasons.

All that said though - the crowd was mixed and I don't think the figureheads were necessarily the representative voices. So seeing various strands drawn together showed the potentials there. This may not be the front to back but there's definitely a desire for resistance out there.