PauseAI gathers at Capitol to call for AI safety rules

PauseAI Boise organized a rally at Cecil D. Andrus Park in front of the Idaho State Capitol on Saturday, Oct. 24, calling for limits on artificial intelligence development. The event drew volunteers who gave speeches, carried signs and distributed fliers about AI regulation. Organizers described the gathering as nonviolent and nonpartisan.

Jack Gardner, co-leader of PauseAI Boise, said the group wants to stop the race to build superintelligence until safety measures are in place. "We're not anti AI, we're pro human," Gardner said. He called the current push by frontier AI companies to build superintelligence a reckless race with unacceptable risk.

The movement's proposal asks for an international agreement to pause development of these systems until they can be safely expanded and controlled. PauseAI's proposal also calls for an international AI safety agent to oversee training of the systems. The group also supports the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would pause advanced AI development until federal safety regulations are established and permanently bar development of superintelligent AI.

Jack Gardner and Cathryn Gardner started the Boise chapter after finding PauseAI while looking for ways to get involved in AI regulation. The two appeared at Boise State's "AI Hesitancy" panel during the social impacts of Computing Workshop on Sept. 18, where they argued for pausing AI development until stronger safeguards are in place. "We needed to get involved because this was having a really powerful effect on us, especially considering we wanted to start a family," Jack Gardner said.

Cathryn Gardner said holding a protest was the next step for the Boise group after working with other organizers and joining other demonstrations. "We were looking at some goals for the fall," Cathryn Gardner said. "One of the ideas was to host a protest like this before the elections, that would get kind of a lot of traffic and a lot of eyes on us and ears on us, so we can better spread the message of what we're aiming for."

Sarah Mullen, a freshman at Boise State, attended the protest and said AI needs rules. "Generative AI can do a lot of good in society," Mullen said. "We need to have rules on it. We need to slow it down. We need to think of the repercussions of having such an advanced technology with so much power."

PauseAI has organized events in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Jack Gardner said the group wants politicians to see that AI regulation affects everyone. "We want to show our politicians, despite lobbying with them a lot, that it's not just a few of us, that this is something that affects everyone," Gardner said.