from the stay-connected-to-reality dept
A cofounder of a Bay Area “Stop AI” activist group abandoned its commitment to nonviolence, assaulted another member, and made statements that left the group worried he might obtain a weapon to use against AI researchers. The threats prompted OpenAI to lock down its San Francisco offices a few weeks ago. In researching this movement, I came across statements that he made about how almost any actions he took were justifiable, since he believed OpenAI was going to “kill everyone and every living thing on earth.” Those are detailed below.
I think it’s worth exploring the radicalization process and the broader context of AI Doomerism. We need to confront the social dynamics that turn abstract fears of technology into real-world threats against the people building it.
OpenAI’s San Francisco Offices Lockdown
On November 21, 2025, Wired reported that OpenAI’s San Francisco offices went into lockdown after an internal alert about a “Stop AI” activist. The activist allegedly expressed interest in “causing physical harm to OpenAI employees” and may have tried to acquire weapons.
The article did not mention his name but hinted that, before his disappearance, he had stated he was “no longer part of Stop AI.”1 On November 22, 2025, the activist group’s Twitter account posted that it was Sam Kirchner, the cofounder of “Stop AI.”
According to Wired’s reporting
A high-ranking member of the global security team said [in OpenAI Slack] “At this time, there is no indication of active threat activity, the situation remains ongoing and we’re taking measured precautions as the assessment continues.” Employees were told to remove their badges when exiting the building and to avoid wearing clothing items with the OpenAI logo.
“Stop AI” provided more details on the events leading to OpenAI’s lockdown:
Earlier this week, one of our members, Sam Kirchner, betrayed our core values by assaulting another member who refused to give him access to funds. His volatile, erratic behavior and statements he made renouncing nonviolence caused the victim of his assault to fear that he might procure a weapon that he could use against employees of companies pursuing artificial superintelligence.
We prevented him from accessing the funds, informed the police about our concerns regarding the potential danger to AI developers, and expelled him from Stop AI. We disavow his actions in the strongest possible terms.
Later in the day of the assault, we met with Sam; he accepted responsibility and agreed to publicly acknowledge his actions. We were in contact with him as recently as the evening of Thursday Nov 20th. We did not believe he posed an immediate threat, or that he possessed a weapon or the means to acquire one.
However, on the morning of Friday Nov 21st, we found his residence in West Oakland unlocked and no sign of him. His current whereabouts and intentions are unknown to us; however, we are concerned Sam Kirchner may be a danger to himself or others. We are unaware of any specific threat that has been issued.
We have taken steps to notify security at the major US corporations developing artificial superintelligence. We are issuing this public statement to inform any other potentially affected parties.”
A “Stop AI” activist named Remmelt Ellen wrote that Sam Kirchner “left both his laptop and phone behind and the door unlocked.” “I hope he’s alive,” he added.
Early December, the SF Standard reported that the “cops [are] still searching for ‘volatile’ activist whose death threats shut down OpenAI office.” Per this coverage, the San Francisco police are warning that he could be armed and dangerous. “He threatened to go to several OpenAI offices in San Francisco to ‘murder people,’ according to callers who notified police that day.”
A Bench Warrant for Kirchner’s Arrest
When I searched for any information that had not been reported before, I found a revealing press release. It invited the press to a press conference on the morning of Kirchner’s disappearance:
“Stop AI Defendants Speak Out Prior to Their Trial for Blocking Doors of Open AI.”
When: November 21, 2025, 8:00 AM.
Where: Steps in front of the courthouse (San Francisco Superior Court).
Who: Stop AI defendants (Sam Kirchner, Wynd Kaufmyn, and Guido Reichstadter), their lawyers, and AI experts.
Sam Kirchner is quoted as saying, “We are acting on our legal and moral obligation to stop OpenAI from developing Artificial Superintelligence, which is equivalent to allowing the murder [of] people I love as well as everyone else on earth.”
Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned. That Friday morning, Sam Kirchner went missing, triggering the OpenAI lockdown.
Later, the SF Standard confirmed the trial angle of this story: “Kirchner was not present for a Nov. 21 court hearing, and a judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.”
“Stop AI” – a Bay Area-Centered “Civil Resistance” Group
“Stop AI” calls itself a “non-violent civil resistance group” or a “non-violent activist organization.” The group’s focus is on stopping AI development, especially the race to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and “Superintelligence.” Their worldview is extremely doom-heavy, and their slogans include: “AI Will Kill Us All,” “Stop AI or We’re All Gonna Die,” and “Close OpenAI or We’re All Gonna Die!”
According to a “Why Stop AI is barricading OpenAI” post on the LessWrong forum from October 2024, the group is inspired by climate groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, but focused on “AI extinction risk,” or in their words, “risk of extinction.” Sam Kirchner explained in an interview: “Our primary concern is extinction. It’s the primary emotional thing driving us: preventing our loved ones, and all of humanity, from dying.”
Unlike the rest of the “AI existential risk” ecosystem, which is often well-funded by effective altruism billionaires such as Dustin Moskovitz (Coefficient Giving, formerly Open Philanthropy) and Jaan Tallinn (Survival and Flourishing Fund), this specific group is not a formal nonprofit or funded NGO, but rather a loosely organized grassroots group of volunteer-run activism. They made their financial situation pretty clear when the “Stop AI” Twitter account replied to a question with: “We are fucking poor, you dumb bitch.”2
According to The Register, “STOP AI has four full-time members at the moment (in Oakland) and about 15 or so volunteers in the San Francisco Bay Area who help out part-time.”
Since its inception, “Stop AI” has had two central organizers: Guido Reichstadter and Sam Kirchner (the current fugitive). According to The Register and the Bay Area Current, Guido Reichstadter has worked as a jeweler for 20 years. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and math. Reichstadter’s prior actions include climate change and abortion-rights activism.
In June 2022, Reichstadter climbed the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., to protest the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Per the news coverage, he said, “It’s time to stop the machine.” “Reichstadter hopes the stunt will inspire civil disobedience nationwide in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling.”
Reichstadter moved to the Bay Area from Florida around 2024 explicitly to organize civil disobedience against AGI development via “Stop AI.” Recently, he undertook a hunger strike outside Anthropic’s San Francisco office for 30 days.
Sam Kirchner worked as a DoorDash driver and, before that, as an electrical technician. He has a background in mechanical and electrical engineering. He moved to San Francisco from Seattle, cofounded “Stop AI,” and “stayed in a homeless shelter for four months.”
AI Doomerism’s Rhetoric
The group’s rationale included this claim (published on their account on August 29, 2025): “Humanity is walking off a cliff,” with AGI leading to “ASI covering the earth in datacenters.”
As 1a3orn pointed out, the original “Stop AI” website said we risked “recursive self-improvement” and doom from any AI models trained with more than 10^23 FLOPs. (The group dropped this prediction at some point) Later, in a (now deleted) “Stop AI Proposal,” the group asked to “Permanently ban ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks) on any computer above 10^25 FLOPS. Violations of the immediate 10^25 ANN FLOPS cap will be punishable by life in prison.”
To be clear, tens of current AI models were trained with over 10^25 FLOPs.
In a “For Humanity” podcast episode with Sam Kirchner, “Go to Jail to Stop AI” (episode #49, October 14, 2024), he said: “We don’t really care about our criminal records because if we’re going to be dead here pretty soon or if we hand over control which will ensure our future extinction here in a few years, your criminal record doesn’t matter.”
The podcast promoted this episode in a (now deleted) tweet, quoting Kirchner: “I’m willing to DIE for this.” “I want to find an aggressive prosecutor out there who wants to charge OpenAI executives with attempted murder of eight billion people. Yes. Literally, why not? Yeah, straight up. Straight up. What I want to do is get on the news.”
After Kirchner’s disappearance, the podcast host and founder of “GuardRailNow” and the “AI Risk Network,” John Sherman, deleted this episode from podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify) and YouTube. Prior to its removal, I downloaded the video (length 01:14:14).
Sherman also produced an emotional documentary with “Stop AI” titled “Near Midnight in Suicide City” (December 5, 2024, episode #55. See its trailer and promotion on the Effective Altruism Forum). It’s now removed from podcast platforms and YouTube, though I have a copy in my archive (length 1:29:51). It gathered 60k views before its removal.
The group’s radical rhetoric was out in the open. “If AGI developers were treated with reasonable precaution proportional to the danger they are cognizantly placing humanity in by their venal and reckless actions, many would have a bullet put through their head,” wrote Guido Reichstadter in September 2024.
The above screenshot appeared in a Techdirt piece, “2024: AI Panic Flooded the Zone Leading to a Backlash.” The warning signs were there:
Also, like in other doomsday cults, the stress of believing an apocalypse is imminent wears down the ability to cope with anything else. Some are getting radicalized to a dangerous level, playing with the idea of killing AI developers (if that’s what it takes to “save humanity” from extinction).
Both PauseAI and StopAI stated that they are non-violent movements that do not permit “even joking about violence.” That’s a necessary clarification for their various followers. There is, however, a need for stronger condemnation. The murder of the UHC CEO showed us that it only takes one brainwashed individual to cross the line.
In early December 2024, I expressed my concern on Twitter: “Is the StopAI movement creating the next Unabomber?” The screenshot of “Getting arrested is nothing if we’re all gonna die” was taken from Sam Kirchner.
Targeting OpenAI
The main target of their civil-disobedience-style actions was OpenAI. The group explained that their “actions against OpenAI were an attempt to slow OpenAI down in their attempted murder of everyone and every living thing on earth.” In a tweet promoting the October blockade, Guido Reichstadter claimed about OpenAI: “These people want to see you dead.”
“My co-organizers Sam and Guido are willing to put their body on the line by getting arrested repeatedly,” said Remmelt Ellen. “We are that serious about stopping AI development.”
On January 6, 2025, Kirchner and Reichstadter went on trial for blocking the entrance to OpenAI on October 21, 2024, to “stop AI before AI stop us” and on September 24, 2024 (“criminal record doesn’t matter if we’re all dead”), as well as blocking the road in front of OpenAI on September 12, 2024.
The “Stop AI” event page on Luma list further protests in front of OpenAI: on January 10, 2025; April 18, 2025; May 23, 2025 (coverage); July 25, 2025; and October 24, 2025. On March 2, 2025, they had a protest against Waymo.
On February 22, 2025, three “Stop AI” protesters were arrested for trespassing after barricading the doors to the OpenAI offices and allegedly refusing to leave the company’s property. It was covered by a local TV station. Golden Gate Xpress documented the activists detained in the police van: Jacob Freeman, Derek Allen, and Guido Reichstadter. Officers pulled out bolt cutters and cut the lock and chains on the front doors. In a Bay Area Current article, “Why Bay Area Group Stop AI Thinks Artificial Intelligence Will Kill Us All,” Kirchner is quoted as saying, “The work of the scientists present” is “putting my family at risk.”
October 20, 2025 was the first day of the jury trial of Sam Kirchner, Guido Reichstadter, Derek Allen, and Wynd Kaufmyn.
On November 3, 2025, “Stop AI”’s public defender served OpenAI CEO Sam Altman with a subpoena at a speaking event at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. The group claimed responsibility for the onstage interruption, saying the goal was to prompt the jury to ask Altman “about the extinction threat that AI poses to humanity.”
Public Messages to Sam Kirchner
“Stop AI” stated it is “deeply committed to nonviolence“ and “We wish no harm on anyone, including the people developing artificial superintelligence.” In a separate tweet, “Stop AI” wrote to Sam: “Please let us know you’re okay. As far as we know, you haven’t yet crossed a line you can’t come back from.”
John Sherman, the “AI Risk Network” CEO, pleaded, “Sam, do not do anything violent. Please. You know this is not the way […] Please do not, for any reason, try to use violence to try to make the world safer from AI risk. It would fail miserably, with terrible consequences for the movement.”
Rhetoric’s Ramifications
Taken together, the “imminent doom” rhetoric fosters conditions in which vulnerable individuals could be dangerously radicalized, echoing the dynamics seen in past apocalyptic movements.
In “A Cofounder’s Disappearance—and the Warning Signs of Radicalization”, City Journal summarized: “We should stay alert to the warning signs of radicalization: a disaffected young person, consumed by abstract risks, convinced of his own righteousness, and embedded in a community that keeps ratcheting up the moral stakes.”
“The Rationality Trap – Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults?” described this exact radicalization process, noting how the more extreme figures (e.g., Eliezer Yudkowsky)3 set the stakes and tone: “Apocalyptic consequentialism, pushing the community to adopt AI Doomerism as the baseline, and perceived urgency as the lever. The world-ending stakes accelerated the ‘ends-justify-the-means’ reasoning.”
We already have a Doomers “murder cult” called the Zizians and their story is way more bizarre than anything you’ve read here. Like, awfully more extreme. And, hopefully, such things should remain rare.
What we should discuss is the dangers of such an extreme (and misleading) AI discourse. If human extinction from AI is just around the corner, based on the Doomers’ logic, all their suggestions are “extremely small sacrifices to make.” Unfortunately, the situation we’re in is: “Imagined dystopian fears have turned into real dystopian ‘solutions.’”
This is still an evolving situation. As of this writing, Kirchner’s whereabouts remain unknown.
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Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt, Ph.D. (@DrTechlash), is a communication researcher and author of “The TECHLASH and Tech Crisis Communication” book and the “AI Panic” newsletter.
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Endnotes
Filed Under: activism, ai, ai doomerism, doomers, generative ai, guido reichstadter, remmelt ellen, sam kirchner, threats
Companies: openai, stopai
