-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- In the heart of Silicon Valley, tech workers are turning against the AI boom they helped create, staging protests over job losses, runaway algorithms and fears that powerful systems could imperil humanity.
- Across San Francisco Bay Area campuses and offices, employees describe mounting pressure to embrace AI tools even as layoffs spread, early-career coders struggle to find work and creative industries worry their livelihoods could be automated away.
- New activist movements and California leaders are pushing back, demanding pauses on the most dangerous AI systems, stronger protections for displaced workers and public ownership stakes in an industry reshaping the economy and democracy.
Silicon Valley residents are increasingly trying to stop the advance of artificial intelligence, even as the region attracts hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to expand the technology’s reach.
Companies and workers around San Francisco Bay sparked the global AI explosion. Now, the nation’s tech hub also sits at the center of an intense and growing revolt against its ability to cause harm and replace humans.
Hunter Glenn joined a group of protesters outside the San Francisco headquarters of AI trailblazer Anthropic on Monday because he is worried that AI poses a threat not only to jobs but also to humanity.
Tech giants such as Meta and Coinbase continue to lay off employees, citing the way AI is reshaping how people work. Tech workers are navigating a crossroads in their careers and a brutal job market.
He was laid off as a copywriter soon after his company started using AI tools.
“They didn’t tell me ‘we’re replacing you with AI,’ but that’s the impression I got,” he said.
Tech workers and activists have staged protests this month throughout the area, sounding the alarm that AI will become tougher to control as it grows more powerful.
Prominent economists, tech leaders and researchers have warned that AI could transform the economy for better or worse, bringing large-scale job displacement. And people are pushing back against new data centers in their communities.
The public outcry comes as AI becomes more intertwined in people’s daily lives, triggering fears as big as human extinction. Companies are pushing employees to embrace AI tools to do more with fewer people. Teenagers are socializing more with AI chatbots, raising concerns about the technology’s effect on mental health. Yet tech companies are showing no signs of slowing down as they release more powerful AI tools and rope in new customers in government, healthcare and other industries.
In recent months, large firms across industries and geographic regions have become more vocal with claims that AI is allowing them to eliminate staff and reduce hiring.
Glenn participated in a protest organized by Stop the AI Race. In a city filled with a slew of AI billboards, a large black flag with the group’s name billowed in the wind as workers walked in and out of the office and self-driving cars passed by.
This month, Glenn also was among hundreds of protesters who marched to OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind urging companies to stop the AI race, a competition that’s heightened between the U.S. and China.
The group, which plans to be at Anthropic’s headquarters every day until their demands are met, and others have been pushing for companies to pause new AI model training. They want governments to sign an international treaty to respond to AI’s “potentially catastrophic risks” such as human extinction.
Although AI’s threats to jobs “are very real,” Glenn said he’s more worried about AI’s threat to civilization and people’s quality of living.
Billionaire exodus? California drew 10 times more venture capital than any other state this year
“We might be winning the AI race to make humanity second place,” he said.
Michael Trazzi, who founded and leads the Stop the AI Race movement, attracted attention last year when he went on a hunger strike outside Google DeepMind’s London office. The former AI researcher and filmmaker has been urging Google DeepMind’s chief executive, Demis Hassabis, to commit to ending the AI race.
“The problem is not the companies themselves being evil and trying to kill everyone, but it’s mostly that if this market risk continues, we will end up with AI smarter than humans that will be hard to control,” he said.
Various groups have been expanding in the Bay Area and beyond, some focused more heavily on job displacement and others pushing for actions such as quitting OpenAI’s ChatGPT and banning new AI technology development.
The pressure to embrace more AI tools at work also has sparked concerns among tech workers who are anxious that their jobs could be automated in the future. Tech companies such as Meta, Amazon, Oracle and others have been slashing their global workforces.
Many of the layoffs are happening in California. Laid-off tech workers say it is getting tougher to find their next job.
Hundreds of well-known economists and tech leaders including from companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Google signed a letter urging action now so AI “complements humans and benefits society.”
Tech companies have marketed AI as a tool to help workers rather than replace them. Still, some tech executives have acknowledged that they think the overall workforce will shrink, while others say AI will create new jobs. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Hassabis has called for the U.S. to create an AI watchdog to mitigate potential risks.
“Nobody in the world knows for sure what is going to happen from here, and even the experts disagree. When there is a large degree of uncertainty and the stakes are this high, proceeding with cautious optimism is the sensible and correct strategy,” he wrote in an online post July 14.
Also last week, Google workers rallied outside of the company’s Mountain View headquarters, urging stronger protections against layoffs. More than 4,500 Google workers signed a petition demanding protections such as voluntary exit packages and guaranteed severance.
“With AI being added to my job requirement, I also have to worry if I’m using it enough or that I will have the time to review what it’s doing or that it might get good enough at my job to replace me,” Dan Freedman, staff software engineer at Google and a member of the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America, said in a statement.
California unemployment and tech layoffs climb even as the state records strong GDP growth
A third of organizations expect AI to shrink their workforces, with the highest anticipated cuts in service operations, supply chain and software engineering, according to a 2026 report released by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. AI is affecting early-career workers, including software developers, the report said.
AI chatbots can quickly generate text, code and other content, potentially disrupting creative industries in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Jenny Lin, a senior product designer who lives in San Francisco, said that AI content still needs to be checked by humans.
“AI is fast at execution, but execution was never the hard part of the job,” she said. “I hope the industry doesn’t use AI as a reason to stop investing in and hiring the next generation of designers.”
Sonny D, an AI researcher who declined to provide his last name because of surveillance concerns, is involved with a group called AI Action that focuses on issues such as job displacement.
The activist said he’s seen AI affect ride-hail drivers, therapists, architects, designers and other professions. He’s worried that it could worsen working conditions.
Thousands of tech workers have already lost their jobs this year and leaders at some companies say AI will enable employers to do more with smaller teams.
The emerging AI tech elite, he said, want to “push for these technological changes to outpace regulation, to outpace unions, to outpace democracy.”
In California, lawmakers and politicians have been working on more guardrails to mitigate AI risks even as they also face pressure from tech companies to change or water down legislation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that directed the state to review policies and practices that help displaced workers and efforts to improve training for the unemployed. Newsom also has proposed creating a national public equity fund so Americans can own a stake in AI’s future.
Holly Elmore, the founder and executive director of PauseAI US, said activists are trying to connect the public with lawmakers.
The group is pushing for a pause on “the development of the most dangerous AI systems” until its builders can prove they’re safe.
“There’s so much pressure to seem like pro-innovation and there’s a lot of fear about seeming behind on that,” she said. “That’s just something that people have to get over with AI.”