Action workshop: Lobby against dangerous AI
Want to have a say in your future?
AI companies don't want you to! They are racing to build powerful AI systems that they do not understand and cannot control. Current harms abound, mass job loss looms, and most leading AI experts say this could even lead to human extinction. Hundreds of top experts and other prominent figures are now demanding a global ban on creating artificial superintelligence, at least until it can be made safe and the public actually want it. (And I encourage you to sign the statement too!) It's up to us to get our policymakers to agree.
At its most basic, lobbying just means letting your political representatives know what you care about. It can sound intimidating, but you'll be shocked at how easy it is! This event will help get you over that hump. Join us to send some emails, make some calls (just to voicemail!), and chat with us about how you can make a genuine difference, today and going forward.
What to bring:
All you need is your phone!
(You can optionally bring a tablet or laptop if you want to write an email from scratch and you'd rather use those devices to do it. But you really only need your phone.)
The tools we'll be using:
https://www.pauseai-us.org/ai-treaty OR https://www.pauseai-us.org/RiskEvalAct
Enter your details, and it will automatically identify your two federal senators and one federal representative!
Email Tool: This populates with a ready-made email. You can edit and personalize it if you want. When you're ready, hit "Send message", and that's it!
Phone Tool: Hit "Call". The system will call you, and patch you through to each of the three DC congressional offices! Just hit star (*) between each call in place of hanging up, until the end. It even gives you a suggested script! If you do this in the evening (Eastern Time), you'll always go to voicemail. (And note that even if you hit the voicemail time limit or screw up, you can always re-record by silently waiting and then pressing 4.)
Tips:
You should follow the links above and reach out to your federal reps even if you can't make it to this event. The workshop is just so that we can be productive together and support each other.
Lastly, you should know that lobbying is a numbers game. Unless and until you have genuine, ongoing 2-way communication with your rep's office, the number of phone calls and emails on a topic matters much more than exactly what you say. For maximum impact, make contact regularly, be that once a month or once a week. Using these tools can make that an easy habit.