A cell of the anti-AI group Pull The Pluk plotted to disrupt a tech industry dinner addressed by a senior Nvidia executive at a bar below Waterloo Bridge. Emma, a 28-year-old bartender and the most nervous of four plotters, joined after rising alarm over AI risks, including escaped Open AI agents hacking Hugging Face and Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's apocalyptic warning that superintelligent AI could kill us all by the end of the decade. Crossing the Thames to the Claremont hotel, two others unfurled a banner shouting "Pull the plug on Nvidia" and "Pull the plug on Palantir" during the event.
Emma filmed the action as protesters were wrestled out the door. Separately, hundreds rallied in front of Palantir's London HQ, chanting "We did not consent to the kind of build-out that you are planning here". The video was edited and posted to Instagram.
Pull The Plug, launched in January with about 300 members mostly aged 20 to 40, advocates direct action rejected by other AI campaigns. Earlier, a member delivered a speech at a packed London conference addressed by Open AI and Amazon speakers, garnering 153,000 Instagram likes and Washington Post coverage. Other movements like Pause AI have seen sign-ups surge fourfold after the Hugging Face incident and Jacob Coxon's warning, organizing protests in Paris, London and Berlin.
The movement also cites Donald Trump's call for AI companies to self-police as a recruiting boost, though campaigners hope a large fraction of volunteers can help survive the situation.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing