OpenAI staff at San Francisco was ordered to remain indoors on Friday afternoon after the company allegedly received a threat from a person previously associated with the activist group Stop AI.
“Our information indicates that [name] of StopAI has expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees,” a member of the internal communications team wrote on Slack. “It was previously at our San Francisco facilities.”
Just before 11 a.m., San Francisco police received a 911 call about a man who was allegedly making threats and intent to harm others at 550 Terry Francois Boulevard, which is near OpenAI's Mission Bay offices, according to the report. data tracked by crime app Citizen. Police scanner footage archived on the app describes the suspect by name and states he may have purchased the weapon with the intention of targeting additional OpenAI locations.
Hours before Friday's incident, a man who police had flagged as allegedly posing a threat said in a social media post that he was no longer a member of Stop AI.
WIRED reached out to the person but did not immediately hear back. San Francisco police also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OpenAI did not provide a statement prior to publication.
On Slack, the internal communications team shared three images of the person suspected of making the threat. A senior member of the global security team later said: “There is currently no indication of active threat activity, the situation remains ongoing and we are taking prudent precautions as we continue to assess.” Employees were advised to remove their badges when leaving the building and avoid wearing clothing with the OpenAI logo.
Over the past couple of years, protesters affiliated with groups calling themselves Stop AI, No AGI, and Pause AI have demonstrated outside the offices of several AI companies in San Francisco, including OpenAI and Anthropic, over concerns that the unfettered development of advanced AI could harm humanity. In February, protesters were arrested for locking front doors to the OpenAI office in Mission Bay. Earlier this month, StopAI said its public defender was the man who jumped on stage to subpoena OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. during an interview on stage in San Francisco.
A Pause AI press release last year named the man who police say allegedly threatened OpenAI employees as the mastermind and quoted that he would not think “life is worth living” if AI technology replaced humans in scientific discoveries and job takeovers. “An AI pause could be seen as a radical move among AI and technologists,” he said. “But this is not radical among the general public, and does not stop the development of AGI as a whole.”
