The AI backlash came to OpenAI’s developer conference in San Francisco this morning, with a few dozen people protesting the company outside its DevDay event.
“Sam Altman, get off it. Put people over profit,” the group chanted, referring to OpenAI’s CEO. The protestors carried signs including “No Killer Robots,” “No Climate Destruction,” and “People Over AI,” reflecting various fears about the technology. A few protestors even dressed up as killer robots, swinging a cardboard axe.
Activist group Bay Resistance helped organize this “CloseAI rally,” with support from about 15 different organizations that say OpenAI is failing to rein in AI. Earlier this month, as some of OpenAI’s models repeatedly went rogue, Altman said the industry should “pace the frontier” amid concerns that AI development was moving too quickly and risked spiraling out of control.
“OpenAI suddenly now claiming that they support regulation is completely untrue and a complete distraction,” Jane Martin, Organizing Director at Bay Resistance, said in a statement. The group also took aim at OpenAI President Greg Brockman, one of the tech executives who met with President Trump today at the White House and donated millions to a Trump-affiliated political action committee.
“They are supporting Trump because they don’t want real regulation, the kind that would ensure AI technology actually benefits working people and doesn’t destroy the climate and future generations,” Martin added.
(Credit: PCMag/Michael Kan)
The protest also called out OpenAI’s $200 million contract with the US Defense Department. Although the agreement bars using the AI model for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons, the groups still fear the technology is being used to select targets in the US’s ongoing conflict with Iran. According to The Wall Street Journal, the US military used rival AI company Anthropic’s Claude tool to help plan the bombing campaigns, which is considered a lawful use.
“This whole system is being used to help the war machine, and we’re sick of it,” said a retired tech worker, Jim Ausman. “We’re also concerned about the fact that we have trillionaires now; these people are completely unaccountable. They are giving money to the Trump administration.”
Ausman, 61, also noted that he was recently laid off at Chime, a financial tech provider, and his company’s adoption of AI played a role in the job cuts. “I really feel sorry for these younger employees,” he said, fearing that the rise of AI will lead to more layoffs in the tech industry or force people to work even harder to keep their jobs.
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Another protester, named Mohamed Shehk with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, called out the “AI and tech takeover of our government and our democracy.”
“We have AI executives being some of the largest Trump supporters,” Shehk said, pointing to Brockman. “We’re here to demand that we want an end to the unregulated AI influence over contracts that are used for military purposes, for mass surveillance, we want people over profit.”
In a Q&A with journalists this afternoon, Altman said he, too, is concerned about the uncontrolled development of AI and wants to avoid repeating the dark side of the Industrial Revolution. “We really want people to stay at the center of the story,” he said, noting that a key goal is to ensure everyone has access to the latest AI tools. The company has also scrapped the release of GPT-6.1 Astra due to safety concerns and has paused training of its most advanced models.
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Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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