In a striking demonstration of concern over the rapid development of artificial intelligence, two activists have gone on hunger strike outside the offices of Google DeepMind in London and Anthropic in the United States. Their protest calls for an immediate pause in the race to build more powerful AI systems, which they warn could have dangerous consequences for society.
One of the protestors, Guido Reichstadter, a 45-year-old activist, has already abstained from food for more than a week. Speaking to Business Insider, he vowed to continue his strike until Anthropic directly addresses his concerns. On the online forum LessWrong, Reichstadter urged the company’s leadership and staff to “immediately stop their reckless actions, which are harming our society and to work to remediate the harm that has already been caused.”
Reichstadter has made it clear that his primary demand is directed at Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, urging him to halt frontier AI development altogether. On the first day of his protest, he hand-delivered a letter to Amodei, asking the company to stop advancing the technology. Until he receives a reply, Reichstadter has committed to surviving only on water, electrolytes, and multivitamins.
This protest comes amid growing unease about the unchecked pace of AI progress. Globally, experts are voicing caution, with renowned AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton warning that tech companies are not fully transparent about the risks. Even Amodei himself has raised alarms, predicting earlier this year that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years.
Reichstadter is no stranger to high-profile activism. In 2022, he conducted a 15-day hunger strike in Miami to highlight the climate crisis. He also founded “Stop AI,” a campaign aimed at permanently banning the creation of Artificial Superintelligence. His activism has even led to arrests, including an incident where he chained shut the doors of OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters. He is currently awaiting trial in that case.
Inspired by Reichstadter’s action, Michael Trazzi, a 29-year-old former AI safety researcher from France, has joined the hunger strike outside DeepMind’s London office. Trazzi, who studied computer science and AI in Paris and worked at Oxford’s now-defunct Future of Humanity Institute, said his demand is for DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis to make a public commitment: the company should not release new frontier models if other leading AI firms agree to a pause.
“If enough of those leaders say it publicly, then you get global coordination around a pause,” Trazzi told Business Insider. Now a creator of online content on AI policy, Trazzi believes mounting public pressure could push executives toward meaningful change.
The hunger strike underscores the growing movement of activists urging accountability from AI giants. While the tech world celebrates breakthroughs like DeepMind’s newly launched AlphaEvolve, critics argue that unchecked advancements could come at an enormous societal cost.