StopAI

What it does

Grassroots direct-action movement. Calls for a permanent global ban on frontier AI development and proposes citizen oversight bodies empowered to regulate or dismantle threatening technologies. Operates on three fronts: public awareness, influencing decision-makers and legislation, and non-violent direct action — including blockades and civil disobedience at AI company offices, with members having been arrested.

What they ask for — in their own terms

A permanent, enforceable global ban on all further development of frontier AI, plus citizen oversight bodies empowered to regulate or dismantle dangerous technologies.

What they do

Three fronts: public awareness, legislative influence, and non-violent direct action. Its own history page documents sit-ins inside OpenAI offices, a road blockade in front of OpenAI, banner drops and repeated protests at OpenAI and Microsoft since 2024.

Honest assessment

Tiny and entirely open — anyone can turn up. Will certainly read your email. Has zero institutional access and association with it may actively reduce your credibility with policy bodies. Route here only if direct action is what you want.

What a newcomer can do

Attend an event from its Luma calendar, or attend the court proceedings of member Wynd Kaufmyn in San Francisco (it asks local supporters to show up in red shirts); donate.

Worth knowing

This is a civil-disobedience group and you should join only knowing that. Members have blockaded OpenAI's doors and been prosecuted: member Wynd Kaufmyn faced four misdemeanour charges (case CRI-25404422, San Francisco Superior Court), was denied the necessity defence, and the site states she was due to surrender to serve a sentence on 14 Aug 2026. It also subpoenaed Sam Altman (quashed). Its platform is broader than AI risk — it includes rejecting transhumanism and AI personhood, calls for a smaller economy, and bans on AI weapons. Not all actions are legal; attending a protest can carry arrest risk.

Concerns it covers

Extinction and human-dignity framing, combined — AI and Big Tech as threats to 'human dignity, freedom, democracy, and nature'. The most maximalist position in this list.

Government channel

None. It is explicitly an outside-game actor.

Tips

unclear — contactstopai@gmail.com

Where they work

Primarily San Francisco Bay Area; one protest documented in Kinshasa, DRC.

Size

Very small — a core of activists, not a staffed organisation. No published budget or headcount.

Spending

Not disclosed; donations via Donorbox.