When I was involved with various forms of internet freedom activism, as well as various protests around government misspending in Germany, I do not remember a run-up of many months of small protests before the big ones. It seemed that people basically directly organized some quite big ones, and then they grew a bit bigger over the course of a month, and then became smaller again. I do not remember anything like the small PauseAI protests on those issues.
(This isn’t to say it isn’t a good thing in the case of AGI, I am just disputing that “small protests are the only way to get big protests”)
The specific ones I was involved in? Pretty sure they didn’t. They were SOPA related and related to what people thought was a corrupt construction of a train station in my hometown. I don’t think there was much organizing for either of these before they took off. I knew some of the core organizers, they did not create many small protests before this.
I think both of these examples might have been for novel concerns in their specifics (e.g. a specific new train station project), but there is a lot of precedent for this kind of process as well as a strong existing civil society doing this kind of protest (e.g. a long history of environmentalist and mass protests against large new infrastructure projects).
Maybe this is also true for AI risk (e.g. maybe it fits neatly into other forms of anti-tech sentiment and could “spontaneously” generate mass protests), but I don’t think these examples seem well-described as not having precedents / lots of societal and cultural preconditions (e.g. you probably would not have seen mass protests against the train station without a long history of environmental protests in Southern Germany).
but I don’t think these examples seem well-described as not having precedents / lots of societal and cultural preconditions
I totally think there are lots of cultural preconditions and precedents, I just think they mostly don’t look like “small protests for many years that gradually or even suddenly grew into larger ones”. My best guess is if you see a protest movement not have substantial growth for many months, it’s unlikely to start growing, and it’s not that valuable to have started it earlier (and somewhat likely to have a bit of an inoculation effect, though I also don’t think that effect is that big).
I think my model is more “if there’s an incident that increases the salience of AI x risk concerns, then an existing social movement structure that can catalyze this will be very valuable” which is different from assuming that Pause AI by itself will drive that.
In a similar way then, say, after Fukushima in Germany the existence of a strong environmental movement facilitated mass protests whereas in other countries ~nothing happened despite objectively the same external shock.
I don’t understand, I don’t think there was any ambiguity in what you said. Even not taking things literally, you implied that having big protests without having small protests is at least highly unusual. That also doesn’t match my model. I think it’s pretty normal. The thing that I think happens before big protests is big media coverage and social media discussion, not many months and years of small protests. I am not sure of this, but that’s my current model.
Yeah I suspect that these one-shot big protests are drawing on a history of organizing in those or preceding fields. The Women’s March coalition comes together all for one big event but draws on a far on deeper history involving small demonstrations and deliberate organizing to make it to that point, is my point. Idk about Free Internet but I would bet it leaned on Free Speech organizing and advocacy.
I sure wish someone would put on a large AI Safety protest if they know a way to do this in one leap. If I got a sponsor for a concert or some other draw then perhaps I could see a larger thing happening quickly in the family of AI Safety protest, but I’d like the keep the brand pretty earnest and message-focused.
I have to note, based on our history, I interpret your posts as attacking, like the subtext is that I’m just not a good organizer and, if you wanted to, you could organize a way bigger movement way faster. If that’s true, I wish you would! I’m trying my best with my understanding of how this can work for me and I wish more people like you were embracing broad messaging like protests.
When I was involved with various forms of internet freedom activism, as well as various protests around government misspending in Germany, I do not remember a run-up of many months of small protests before the big ones. It seemed that people basically directly organized some quite big ones, and then they grew a bit bigger over the course of a month, and then became smaller again. I do not remember anything like the small PauseAI protests on those issues.
(This isn’t to say it isn’t a good thing in the case of AGI, I am just disputing that “small protests are the only way to get big protests”)
Do you think those causes never had organizing before the big protest?
The specific ones I was involved in? Pretty sure they didn’t. They were SOPA related and related to what people thought was a corrupt construction of a train station in my hometown. I don’t think there was much organizing for either of these before they took off. I knew some of the core organizers, they did not create many small protests before this.
Assuming the second refers to “Stuttgart 21”?
I think both of these examples might have been for novel concerns in their specifics (e.g. a specific new train station project), but there is a lot of precedent for this kind of process as well as a strong existing civil society doing this kind of protest (e.g. a long history of environmentalist and mass protests against large new infrastructure projects).
Maybe this is also true for AI risk (e.g. maybe it fits neatly into other forms of anti-tech sentiment and could “spontaneously” generate mass protests), but I don’t think these examples seem well-described as not having precedents / lots of societal and cultural preconditions (e.g. you probably would not have seen mass protests against the train station without a long history of environmental protests in Southern Germany).
Yep!
I totally think there are lots of cultural preconditions and precedents, I just think they mostly don’t look like “small protests for many years that gradually or even suddenly grew into larger ones”. My best guess is if you see a protest movement not have substantial growth for many months, it’s unlikely to start growing, and it’s not that valuable to have started it earlier (and somewhat likely to have a bit of an inoculation effect, though I also don’t think that effect is that big).
Thanks for clarifying, I can see that.
I think my model is more “if there’s an incident that increases the salience of AI x risk concerns, then an existing social movement structure that can catalyze this will be very valuable” which is different from assuming that Pause AI by itself will drive that.
In a similar way then, say, after Fukushima in Germany the existence of a strong environmental movement facilitated mass protests whereas in other countries ~nothing happened despite objectively the same external shock.
Yeah I unintentionally baited the “not always” rationalist reflex by talking normally
I don’t understand, I don’t think there was any ambiguity in what you said. Even not taking things literally, you implied that having big protests without having small protests is at least highly unusual. That also doesn’t match my model. I think it’s pretty normal. The thing that I think happens before big protests is big media coverage and social media discussion, not many months and years of small protests. I am not sure of this, but that’s my current model.
Yeah I suspect that these one-shot big protests are drawing on a history of organizing in those or preceding fields. The Women’s March coalition comes together all for one big event but draws on a far on deeper history involving small demonstrations and deliberate organizing to make it to that point, is my point. Idk about Free Internet but I would bet it leaned on Free Speech organizing and advocacy.
I sure wish someone would put on a large AI Safety protest if they know a way to do this in one leap. If I got a sponsor for a concert or some other draw then perhaps I could see a larger thing happening quickly in the family of AI Safety protest, but I’d like the keep the brand pretty earnest and message-focused.
I have to note, based on our history, I interpret your posts as attacking, like the subtext is that I’m just not a good organizer and, if you wanted to, you could organize a way bigger movement way faster. If that’s true, I wish you would! I’m trying my best with my understanding of how this can work for me and I wish more people like you were embracing broad messaging like protests.
yup.