If You Are Ready to Hold Events
The 4 main types of events Stop AI holds are:
1)Intro meetings
2)Organizer meetings
3)Protest prep events
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.
Good Places for Meetings
A good meeting space is
1)Clean.
2)Containing enough empty space.
3)Quiet enough.
Generally, we've had our meetings in bars and restaurants, but some of our 1st meetings were at the library. If the weather is good, feel free to hold a meeting at a public park or backyard, if you have enough chairs.
To start with, try to have enough space for 12 people.
After you've reached 10 people, try to have enough space for 25 people.
After you've reached past 22 people regularly coming to a meeting, split into 2 simultaneous meetings of 11. Keep the first place with enough space for 25 people, and find a second place with a similar amount of space. Make sure to change your posters and flyers to have both locations listed.
Every time 22+ people come to a meeting 3 times in a row, split the meeting into 2 simultaneous meetings.
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. However, you should feel free to choose a different time of day, since plenty of people will start their shifts in the evening.
In the bay area, we schedule our meetings for Wednesdays in one city & Sundays in another. We're unsure if these are the right days of the week to use, feel free to come up with your own day(s) of the week.
Intro Meetings 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 Meetings
Intro Meeting: 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.
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.
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 develop, 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, as a time to wind down at the end of the day. However, you should feel free to choose a different time of day, since plenty of people will start their shifts in the evening.
We schedule our protests for every 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.
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 2 months 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 people and use the same script the morning of the protest. You are not annoying, you need to get their attention.
Events Right Before the Protest
Consider having a signmaking 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.
Make an Email Address
We recommend that you make a new email address for your local region. At first, it will service 1 Stop AI chapter, but may eventually be used by multiple Stop AI chapters as Stop AI expands.
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, depending on how populated your local region is.
If You're Not Ready to Hold Events
We hope you can eventually hold meetings & protests. People are more willing to engage in and join a movement when they can participate in events of that movement. Furthermore, it's easier to provide people with an in depth understanding of the risks & harms of AI, present & future, when they are seated in a private setting, as opposed to standing in a public place.
START A STOP AI CHAPTER
Ready to start a Stop AI chaper? First, ensure that you agree with our demands. If you agree with them, then you can follow these steps to educate and mobilize your local community.
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, and that consistently using nonviolence allows for the most participation. A nonviolent movement can include participation from the elderly, the disabled, children, and people of all walks of life, while a violent movement requires an equal number of physically fit, combat trained individuals. This is the primary reason that nonviolence is more effective than violence, and the primary reason that Stop AI will never become violent, never to taint its reputation with violence.
If you have any shirts, now is the perfect time to distribute them.
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.
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:
Stop AI or we're all gonna die
AI steals your work
AI steals your job
Human thoughts
Not robots
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. Try to keep each person's speech to less than 4 minutes.
Consider having costumes and props.
We have had protests of 2 types. The first type is perfectly legal, the second type invovles nonviolent civil disobedience.
Create a Flyer & Poster for Your Local Area
Click on the flyer picture that you prefer.
We've created versions you can customize in Microsoft Word, Google Docs & LibreOffice.
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.
We've created versions you can customize in Microsoft Word, Google Docs & LibreOffice.
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.
We've created versions you can customize in Microsoft Word, Google Docs & LibreOffice.
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.
We've created versions you can customize in Microsoft Word, Google Docs & LibreOffice.
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 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 downloaded.
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 accidentally skipped this step, that's ok, step 7) will take care of 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.
7)If you made a mistake in step 4) or step 5), change your profile name and profile picture here.
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 & TikTok.
10)Enter https://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.
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.
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.
Customizing the Flyer & Poster
1)If you're using Google Docs, wait 10 seconds after you open the file.
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 Word & LibreOffice, save a file copy. In Google Docs, Google autosaved, otherwise consider saving a Docx file copy.
9)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).
10)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).