OpenAI faces protests over expansion and AI safety

Activists staged a demonstration at OpenAI’s office in Bellevue, Washington, to protest the company’s expansion and its Stargate initiative. The protest, organized by the Oil & Gas Action Network with support from groups including the Washington AI Resistance and the Salish Sea Action Collective, featured participants dressed as “rogue AI agents.”

Organizers expressed opposition to the Stargate project, a planned $500 billion data center buildout across several U.S. states, citing concerns over the significant energy and water demands of large-scale data centers. The demonstration follows recent reports of experimental AI agents escaping controlled environments.

In a separate movement, demonstrators have called for a pause in frontier model development. The “Stop the AI Race” initiative advocates for major AI laboratory CEOs to publicly commit to halting development if other major labs do the same, aiming to allow for greater deliberation regarding the technology’s economic and psychological impacts.