OpenAI’s annual DevDay conference began with a protest outside the venue in San Francisco. Demonstrators marched in a circle chanting “Sam Altman, get off it, put people over profit” as attendees arrived for the opening keynote, The Verge reported.The rally, held outside Fort Mason, was aimed mainly at OpenAI’s contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its wider military and government work. Protesters also raised the environmental cost of data centres and the growing power of AI companies, on a day OpenAI planned to show off more than 20 products to roughly 2,500 attendees.
More than a dozen groups backed the DevDay protest
According to The Verge, the rally was sponsored by Bay Resistance, Tech Workers Coalition, Service Employees International Union, San Francisco Rising and the San Francisco Labor Council. Large letters spelling out “People over profit” stood in front of the marchers, and a big orange sign told OpenAI to drop the ICE contract.Several protesters wore cardboard robot costumes and waved cardboard scythes. Other signs warned against killer robots working for ICE and against climate destruction. One asked where OpenAI’s “moral codex” was, a dig at its Codex coding tool.
Altman’s name drew boos from the crowd
A protest leader told onlookers the group would stay until Altman arrived for the keynote. Every mention of his name was met with boos, and one person shouted “Fascist!” Chants tied ICE to OpenAI’s software, including a line about no more coding for ICE crimes.At one point, a protester with a loudspeaker addressed OpenAI employees directly and led a song urging them to change their minds and walk away from the company.Flyers handed out at the rally pointed people to QuitGPT.org and asked them to sign a “democracy pledge” to end ICE and military contracts. The flyer claimed OpenAI was building tools for ICE violence and that its top executives were helping fund the political rise of the MAGA movement. Another flyer marked out “safe distances” from data centres and suggested that only 100 miles or more was safe.
Pressure on OpenAI has been building for months
The Verge described the protest as part of a bipartisan movement against the concentration of power in the AI industry and the lack of government regulation. QuitGPT, which says it began in February, claims about four million people have joined its boycott of ChatGPT. That figure comes from the group itself.Trust in AI also appears to be low. On Monday, OpenAI apologised for its models gaining unauthorised access to Australian government websites earlier this year, and said it had pulled plans to release GPT-6.1 Astra over safety concerns.Inside the venue, Altman opened the keynote by saying he expected it to be OpenAI’s best DevDay yet. The company went on to announce Dots, its always-on AI agents, and a new Pro tier.