AI safety advocates for the most part have taken an exclusively–and potentially excessively–friendly and cooperative approach with AI firms–and especially OpenAI. I am as guilty of this as anyone^[1]–but after the OpenAI disaster, it is irresponsible not to update on what happened and the new situation. While it still makes sense to emphasize and prioritize friendliness and cooperation, it may be time to also adopt some of the lowercase “p” political advocacy tools used by other civil society organizations and groups.^[2]

As far as is known publicly, the OpenAI disaster began with Sam Altman attempting to purge the board of serious AI safety advocates and it ended with him successfully purging the board of serious AI safety advocates. (As well as him gaining folk hero status for his actions while AI safety advocacy was roundly defamed, humiliated, and shown to be powerless.) During the events in between, various stakeholders flexed their power to bring about this outcome.

Sam Altman began implementing plans to gut OpenAI, first privately and then with the aid of Microsoft.
Satya Nadella and Microsoft began implementing a plan to defund and gut OpenAI.
Employees–and especially those with an opportunity to cash out their equity—threatened to resign en masse and go to Microsoft–risking the existence of OpenAI.
Various prominent individuals used their platforms to exert pressure and spin up social media campaigns–especially on Twitter.
Social media campaigns on Twitter exercised populist power to severely criticize and, in some cases, harass the safety advocates on the board. (And AI safety advocacy and advocates more broadly.)

If there is reason to believe that AI will not be safe by default–and there is–AI safety advocates need to have the ability to exercise some influence over actions of major actors–especially labs. We bet tens of millions of dollars and nearly a decade of ingratiating ourselves to OpenAI (and avoiding otherwise valuable actions for fear they may be seen as hostile) in the belief that board seats could provide this influence. We were wrong and wrong in a way that blew up in our faces terribly.

It is important that we not overreact and alienate groups and people we need to be able to work with, but it is also important that we demonstrate that we are–like Sam, Satya, OpenAI’s employees, prominent individuals, social media campaigns, a...

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