Report from the march to Stop the AI Race

This whole thing was better than I expected: a big crowd, num­bering in the low hundreds; a great vibe, goofy and polite; per­fect weather, never assured in San Fran­cisco in July; and a marching band! We love a marching band. (Who paid for the marching band … ?)

And, of course, it’s worth appreciating, here and now in this country’s 250th summer, that we can still do things like this. Raise a mild ruckus, take up a bit of space, walk in the middle of the street. As we marched past Oracle Park, there was a Giants game underway, and it occurred to me that the great majority of the fans inside agree with the argu­ment of this protest much more than they agree with the objec­tives of the AI companies. Democ­racy stirs — a leviathan to match the machine.