If, and only if, you agree with our demands, then you can use the Stop AI name and make a local Stop AI chapter near you to educate and mobilize your local community by following these steps below:

Make an Email Address

We recommend that you make a new email address for your local region.

We would prefer that you use Proton Mail and the domain @proton.me. You can use the free plan.

Create an email address in the form stopai#####@emailservice.com where ##### is the name of your general location. We recommend using the name of your state, province, or multi-city region.

Hold Events

The 4 main types of events Stop AI holds are:

1)Intro meetings

2)Organizer meetings

3)Protest prep meetings

4)Protests

In the following sections, you will learn how to set up a meeting, guidelines for holding a meeting, things to do before a protest, guidelines for holding a protest, and much more.

Intro Meetings

Good Places For Meetings

A good meeting space is:

1)Clean

2)Contains enough empty space

3)Quiet enough, not too much music because you have to hear eachother speak

Generally, we've had our meetings in bars and restaurants, but some of our first meetings were at the library and in outdoor parks.

To start with, try to have enough space for 12 people. Look for restaurants that always have seating for 50-100 and are never at full capacity. This way you can have a meeting there at anytime they are open and you will likely be able to have enough seating.

After you've reached 10 people, try to have enough space for 25 people. After you’ve reached 25 people coming to weekly meetings contact us and we will work something out for a larger meeting space.

It’s also nice if you can find a restaurant or bar with a back area where they are ok with you playing a speaker for a few minutes to do a presentation of AI expert quotes on a laptop.

Good Schedules For Meetings

We recommend having your meetings begin at 6:00 PM and end at 8:00 PM, as a time to wind down at the end of the day.

In the bay area, we schedule our meetings for Wednesdays in San Francisco & Sundays in Berkeley.

Guide For Holding Intro Meetings

The topic is how AI is a risk and harm in the present and future, as well as how we can stop it with nonviolent civil disobedience. Try to present a longer and more detail version of the pitch you give while flyering. Answer relevant questions. Encourage newcomers to share their concerns about AI.

Intro Meeting Presentations

The number one thing that gets new people to take human extinction from Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) seriously is seeing AI experts saying we could all be dead soon because of ASI. When we give presentations to the public we always have video quotes from experts saying ASI could cause extinction soon. Below is a slide deck that was used by AI Professor David Krueger and Stop AI protester Sam Kirchner. There is also a link below to a youtube recording of the presentation so you can follow along with how the slide deck is used.

The slide deck linked below is a bit more formal than something you will be able to use in a 5 minute presentation in the back of a restaurant or bar on a laptop with a small speaker. If you can find a cheap meeting space with a projector and lots of seating then feel free to use this slide deck for an Intro Meeting.

However, if you want to hold you Intro Meeting in a meeting space that is both free and has lots of seating, such as in a retaurant or bar, then you should expect that you will not be allowed to do a 1 hour presentation using this slide deck and a projector. If you want to do you Intro Meetings in a free space like the back of a bar or restaurant, then you need to bring a laptop with a 5 minute video loaded on it that shows the most important AI expert quotes. We have created this 5 min video and it is linked below. Most bars and restaurants we meet at allow us to play this 5 min video on a laptop with a small speaker at our weekly Intro Meetings.

also watch Sam’s full explination video and read the proposal to learn how to talk about this stuff at an Intro Meeting

Intro Meeting Powerpoint Link

Full Prof David Krueger Presentation Vidoe Link

5 Minute AI Expert Quotes Video

The Seven Things You Should Always Explain At An Intro Meeting

1) What is Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)?

• ASI is an AI system that AI experts say would be smarter than all of humanity.

2) How could ASI cause human extinction?

• ASI would be the new most intelligent species on earth, and it could cause our extinction just like we have caused the extinction of many dumber species

• See 5 min AI experts quotes video

• Expert quotes on the back of the flyer. See the flyer design below in the, “Create a Flyer and Poster” section

3) How soon could ASI be here?

• See 5 min AI experts quotes video

4) How we can stop ASI from causing human extinction and mass job loss in 1 year with non-violent civil resistance.

• See Sam Kirchner explain this at min 33:18 in the video link above that says, “Full Prof David Krueger Presentation Video Link.”

5) What are Stop AI’s demands?

• See the demands at the top of this page.

• We have to permanently ban ASI because we will never have evidence before building it that shows it will stay safe forever and will never go rogue. If it goes rogue, then we will not be able to turn it off because once AI is superintelligent it will be almost infinitly smarter than us and it will be able to think faster than us and strategize better than we can.

  • What this means technically is ban any AI above a cetian FLOP size, see Sam’s full explainer video.

• We are not against all AI. There is a type of AI called Narrow AI, which is an AI that is mostly just good at one specific task (think photoshop, radiology AI tools, navigation tools) that we are sometimes fine with. We want a Citizens Assembly (a random sortition of citizens, not termed representatives that are more suseptable to corruption) to be created in the federal governments of the world to allow the people to vote on which narrow AI tools they do want and which narrow AI tools they do not want to exist.

6) What can a new person at the Intro Meeting do right now to help stop ASI?

• Come to the next protest

• Hand out flyers / put up posters, coordinate a time to do this with them before the meeting ends.

• Tell their friends to get involved

Once you have your first intro meeting EMAIL / CALL US at the email or phone number at the bottom of the web page and we will add the location of your Stop AI chapter to the events page. The Events page will list all Stop AI chapter locations with their respective list of Luma events (Luma is explained in the “Create a Flyer and Poster” section).

Organizer Meetings

Intro Meeting vs Organizer Meetings

In the beginning of your chapter, the only kind of meetings you'll have are intro meetings. People who came to previous meetings will return, but new people who had just seen a flyer, poster or internet post will continue to come in every week. Recurring members will benefit by learning more about the mission of Stop AI, and gaining secondhand experience in watching the education of others in the mission of Stop AI.

Of course, eventually, you will yearn to have more time with your recurring members and less time with new members. Whenever a new person, who may or may not return ever again, arrives, it's time to cease organizing and start preaching. Organizing must take place eventually. Once you've gone past 14 recurring members in 3 consecutive weeks, you should schedule your first organizer meeting.

Organizer meetings should be held once every 2 weeks and have a rotating schedule. Only invite people to organizer meetings if you believe they make great organizers, ie are personable and competent enough to bring more people to the movement.

Guide For Holding Organizer Meetings

The topic is how to help build a mass movement to achieve a permanent global ban on Artificial Super Intelligence. Discuss opportunities like coalition building with other groups, places to protest, and potential debates, podcasts, or interviews you could be a part of. Discuss modes of outreach, fine tuning flyer designs and practice explaining the topic in a short and concise way. Discuss online actions. Discuss unusual tactics like wearing a costume on the street or non-violent disruption of events opposed to our goals. The core organizers should have a list of things to discuss before the meeting, and do their best to facilitate productive discussions where everyone feels their input is being considered fairly.

Regardless of the meeting type, facilitators should try to ensure the discussion stay on topic, and that the people attending leave feeling that it was a positive experience. People should want to return every week.

If a member is getting aggressive and obnoxious towards everyone, raising their voice and presenting a demanding tone, try to de-escalate or pull the person aside to discuss how their behavior is not productive.

Protests Prep Meetings

What To Do Before A Protest

Try to find websites where local activists, in your area, post events. Post the details of your protest on there as soon as possible, including a Luma link, which we'll get into in Section #####.

Give yourself at least 1 month before your first protest. Try to get your chapter on a schedule of having one protest a month.

Call or leave a voicemail for every person you know about the protest 2 weeks beforehand and 1 week beforehand, reminding them they get a free shirt and how this is their responsibility as a citizen. Text or dm them 3 days beforehand.

If you know someone IRL but don't have their phone number, then email or dm them 2 weeks beforehand and 1 week beforehand.

Compile a list of local radio stations, TV stations, newspapers & magazines. Call them 2 days before the protest. Here is the script:

"Hi, I'm an organizer with Stop AI, we are having a protest at the <name of building> at <Street address> in <City> at <start time> to <end time> on <date>, can you send in a news team?"

Before the call is over, make sure to tell them

"Please put it on your calendar."

Call that same list of press people and use the same script the morning of the protest. You are not annoying, you need to get their attention.

before you call anyone from the press be sure to send them a copy of the press release for the protest. That is the first thing they will ask for after the time and place of the protest.

Events Right Before The Protest

Consider having a sign making event a few days before the protest. Have paintbrushes, paint, markers & posterboards for people to create protest signs with.

When you get large enough, consider having a shirtmaking event a few days before the protest. At some point, we will put a guide here for how to screen print shirts.

For now, if you are leading a Stop AI chapter, then we would like for you to have a video call with us after which we'll deliver some Stop AI shirts to you. Please have at least 30 Stop AI shirts before your next protest. Make sure to have shirts of XXL, XL, L, M, and S sizes.

You can also make flags before a protest. Here is a picture of the flags we use:

Protests

Good Places To Protest

The best places to protest are anything in the AI supply chain. Ideally a company that is actively pursuing the development of AGI/ASI. Also consider: other forms of AI development, data centers, GPU/CPU manufacturers supporting AGI development.

If you can't find an obvious link in the AI supply chain in your area to protest, consider protesting in front of your local or state/provincial government buildings.

Good Schedules For Protests

We recommend having your protests start at 4:30 PM and end at 6:30 PM. This time window is early enough that it will catch AI employees leaving work and late enough to allow protesters to get to the protest after work.

We schedule our protests for every fourth Friday. This is because we have Berkeley meetings on Sundays & because there are often plenty of protests for other groups on Saturdays. Where you live may not have so many protests on Saturdays, and may not even have many protests at all. Feel free to choose your own day of the week for your protest. It could be valuable to have the protests occur on a certain day of the month every month, for example, every 4th Friday. This would allow you to write "& every 4th Friday on flyers & posters.

How to Hold a Protest

The number one rule of protests is to avoid violence. At the protest, make sure that everyone you speak to understands that using violence makes your rivals look better. Research shows that non-violent socio-political movements succeed more often than violent ones. A nonviolent movement encourages participation from the elderly, the disabled, children, and people of all walks of life. This helps to build mass participation in direct acts of civil disobedience, and maintain a favorable reputation with the broader public who are not directly participating; both are required for a movement to succeed. This is the primary reason that nonviolence is more effective than violence, and the reason that Stop AI will never become violent.

If you have any shirts, now is the perfect time to distribute them.

How To Start Organizing If You Are Alone

It is always easier to organize your local community if you have a friend to help. If you don’t know anyone right now who is willing to help you mobilize your locl community, then you have four options:

1) Contact us at the email or phone number at the bottom of the webpage and we will look through our email contacts to see if someone who lives near you has filled out a join form.

2) Look on the Stop AI Discord to see if there is anyone near you in the #location channels

3) One week before your first meeting pick a meeting location and time near you to hold an Intro Meeting. A list of meeting space ideas is described in the “Intro Meeting” section below. This Intro Meeting will go on a flyer as mentioned in a moment. Also pick a protest spot for your first protest. A list of protest spot ideas is described in the “Protests” section below. Pick a protst time that is 1 month away so you have time to collect RSVPs for a protest and order shirts 2 weeks in advance. Print out 1000 flyers with the first Intro meeting time and place, as well as the first Protest time and place, on the flyer. Designs for flyers are linked in the “Create A Flyer And Poster” section below. Put 1000 flyers on car windshields, hang them on doors, or hand them out in busy areas. Putting 1000 flyers on cars takes about 4 hours by yourself. You can also print out 200 posters. Designs for posters are linked in the “Creater a Flyer and Poster” section below. Putting up 200 posters on light polls with clear packing tape takes about 5 hours. After handing out 1000 flyers and 200 posters you will very likely get at least one person to come to your first Intro meeting. If nobody shows up or if the people that show up don’t want to come back, then repeat this process until you find someone willing to work together with you to mobilize your local community.

4) Call Us at the number at the bottom of the page and we might have some other ideas for how to find a friend to mobilize with.

You can also have people from your group standing a block or two away, wearing a Stop AI shirt, handing out flyers & telling people to visit the nearby protest to get a free Stop AI shirt.

Try to have someone record videos and photos of your event, for you to later post to social media and show to people at your meetings. You can also send these to our official email or social media accounts and we can promote them for you.

Here is a list of chants that we regularly use:

1. Stop AI or we're all gonna die

2. AI steals your work, AI steals your job

3. Human thoughts, Not robots

4. When our lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!

You should have core organizers, and at least a few participants, yell a short speech into the megaphone at the protest. Core organizers should prepare a rough outline of what they will say into the megaphone.

Consider having costumes and props, shown below are some examples.

Download the PDF for the registration form.

People may stop and ask questions or show support for the protest. It can be helpful to use this opportunity to get their contact information. Here is an example of registration form you can use. Consider printing some out ahead of time and bringing them with you along with clipboards and pens.

Above, a depiction of how a UBI system enforced by AI would consolidate power in the hands of the tech companies

Below, a parody depiction of how AI companies seek to endanger our lives

We have had protests of 2 types. The first type is perfectly legal, the second type invovles nonviolent civil disobedience. For example, many of our members have locked themselves to the doors of AI companies or blocked streets, shown below.

Banner File Link

Banner dimensions: 6 feet wide x 2.5 feet high

Create A Flyer And Poster

Flyer with Drawing

We've created versions of the flyer you can customize in Microsoft Word, Google Docs & LibreOffice. In the box below with the dashed outline click Flyer with Drawing, Flyer with Photoshop, or Poster, then click the file type link you prefer: Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice.

NOTE: The Proton Drive previews do not accurately reflect how the files look when you use it in the correct application. The actual files will resemble the preview images provided above.

Our standard program for graphic design is Gimp. Download this XCF file if you want to be able to completely customize your flyer. If you don't already use Gimp, then we recommend you download one of the other flyer templates.

If You Want to Use QR Codes and Event Registration

First, you'll need an event manager to link to. Our event manager of choice is Luma.

1)Go to lu.ma and click sign in at the top right corner.

2)Enter the email you created earlier.

3)We recommend that you also enter your phone number.

4)Use this low quality Stop AI logo as your profile picture.

If You Don’t Want To Use QR Codes And Event Registration

In our experience, having QR codes and event registration pages has been helpful in getting pedestrians to come to our events after seeing a poster or flyer. They are more likely to remember an event if they see its webpage, and especially if they RSVP for it.

If you don't want to use QR codes, feel free to right click and delete the placeholder QR codes in the flyer template file once you’ve downloaded it.

5)Name your profile "Stop AI *Your General Location*" the same location that you used in the email you created earlier.

It's alright for this lu.ma account to service multiple chapters, just as the Stop AI Bay Area lu.ma services San Francisco, Oakland & Berkeley. Keep in mind that, while Stop AI expands, you can always change your Luma username & account name later.

6)Once you've made your account, click on your profile picture icon in the top right, click Settings in the drop down menu, and go to Account.

8)Make your description "Aspiring non-profit dedicated to connecting communities against the threat of harmful Artificial Intelligence."

9)Enter @stopai_info as the social link for YouTube, X, Instagram, and TikTok.

10)Enter https://www.stopai.info as the social link for a website.

Create Meeting QR Codes

1)Create Event in the top right corner.

2)Name it "Stop AI Meeting ####" Where #### is more specific

than your general region, like a city name.

3)For now, upload this high quality Stop AI logo as the event picture.

Once you have a group of 7+ people at a meeting, take a photo and use that as your picture for meetings from now on. Feel free to update the meeting photo again once you have 12+ people at a meeting, and again when you have 16+ people at a meeting.

4)When you want to make another meeting, go to the previous events tab and click on the same picture.

5)Add your event location, date & time.

6)The meeting descriptions we use are always a variant of "Lets figure out how to stop AI from taking our jobs and/or killing us all." Feel free to come up with your own description. If your meeting is in the patio, please write that down in your description.

7)Try to have at least 3 meetings before your first protest. Repeat the steps 1-6 to make multiple meetings. Later, try to have at least 2 meetings before subsequent protests. We would prefer that you have at least one meeting every week, but, if you're too busy, we understand having a meeting only once every 2 weeks.

8)Visit this site to make your QR codes. It's free and doesn't require an account.

https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#text

9)Make sure the text tab is selected.

10)Type lu.ma/##### where ##### is your Luma username after the @. This is a link to your Luma profile page, where people can see every event that you currently have scheduled, including the meetings. Doing it like this means that you won't have to change the flyer QR code after every meeting.

NOTE: After your 1st successful Stop AI intro meeting, you should have a video call with us and we will link your Luma profile page in a list of Stop AI chapters on our events page.

11)Set the size for 1000 x 1000 Px.

12)Create the meeting QR Code.

13)Download the PNG.

14)Give the meeting QR code PNG a good name.

Create Protest QR Codes

1)Create Event in the top right corner.

2)Name it "Stop AI Protest at ####" Where #### is the entity or building you'll be protesting.

3)For now, upload this high quality Stop AI logo as the event picture.

(Insert File)

After your first protest, try to get a selfie with as many attendants as possible and use that as your picture for protests from now on. Feel free to update the meeting photo again once you have 12+ people at a meeting, and again when you have 16+ people at a meeting.

4)When you want to make another protest, go to the previous events tab and click on the same picture.

5)Add your event location, date & time.

6)Here is a passage you can use as part of your description. Feel free to change this to fit your protest, adding things that are more relevant to the building you'll be protesting at.

"2,700 cited AI researchers said in a poll that there is a 19% chance of AGI causing human extinction, and Geoffrey Hinton, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in AI in 2024, says there is a 50% chance of AGI causing human extinction. Some experts, like Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, say the risk of extinction is 99.99%. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, when asked about the worst case for AGI, said it could be, "lights out for all of us." Sam Altman has also said AGI will arrive in 2025.​

​​It is impossible to have experimental evidence that the behavior of an AGI will stay safe indefinitely and that AGI will never want something that will lead to our extinction similar to how we as Homo Sapiens often caused the extinction of many less intelligent species.

​​We demand that the US government shut down OpenAI, close any other company building AGI, and permanently ban the development of AGI."

7)Visit this site to make your QR codes. It's free and doesn't require an account.

https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/#text

8)Make sure the text tab is selected.

9)Copy paste the URL of the Luma protest page without https://www. and without everything after the question mark

NOTE: After your 1st successful Stop AI intro meeting, you should have a video call with us and the opportunity to use a stopai.info URL that will redirect the protest page every month.

10)This makes the QR code less complex, with larger dots, which is easier to for a phone to scan at a small size.

11)Set the size for 1000 x 1000 Px.

12)Create the protest QR Code.

13)Download the PNG.

14)Give the protest QR Code PNG file a good name.

Customizing the Flyer & Poster

1)If you're using Google Docs, click “File,” then click “Make a copy” in the resulting menu.

2)Right click the pre-existing meeting QR code.

3)In Word, in the resulting menu, select "Change Picture" then select "This Device". In Google Docs, in the resulting menu, select "Replace Image" then select "Upload from Computer". In LibreOffice, in the resulting menu, click Replace.

4)In the file explorer window, select the meeting QR Code PNG you just saved.

5)The meeting QR code in the document should now be changed.

6)Paste the Luma profile page link under the QR code.

7)Fill out the 2 meeting text boxes.

Use this format if you have plans for a one off meeting:

Meeting *Date*, *Start time*-*End time*, *Name of place (ex. Vern's Tavern, Community Center, Library)*, *Street Address*, *City*.

Use this format if you have plans for recurring meetings at the same place:

Meeting *Date* & Every *Recurring time* of *the Month/Every 2nd Month/Every 4th Month/the Week*, *Start time*-*End time*, *Name of place (ex. Vern's Tavern, Community Center, Library)*, *Street Address*, *City*.

8)In the file explorer window, select the protest QR Code PNG you just saved.

9)The protest QR code in the document should now be changed.

10)Paste the Luma protest page link under the QR code.

11)Fill out the 2 protest text boxes.

Use this format if you have plans for a one off protest:

****

13)In Word & LibreOffice, save a file copy. In Google Docs, Google autosaved, otherwise consider saving a Docx file copy.

14)In Word, Ctrl+A to select all then change the text color from white to black (yes, it's actually white but looks black. This is what happens when it's in front of a background image. When the text is black, it will look white).

15)In Word & LibreOffice, export it as a PDF. In Google Docs, go straight to "Print", then select Save to PDF from the printing interface (using "Save as a PDF" will yield a glitched file).