The Vanishing of an Anti-AI Activist

一位反人工智能活动家的消失

The Journal.

2026-08-01

37 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Tickets for our live show in New York are on sale now! Get yours here.  Sam Kirchner, the founder of an anti-AI protest group, was on a mission to stop AI’s development. Then he mysteriously disappeared. WSJ’s Zusha Ellinson takes us inside the growing anti-AI movement. As violent threats against AI companies are on the rise, the backlash has tech executives and employees fearing for their lives. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - Inside a Debate at OpenAI Over Mass Shootings - The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement - Artificial: The Open AI Story Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • On a Friday morning in November of 2025,

  • a 911 dispatcher in San Francisco gets a tip about a potentially violent attack.

  • The dispatcher immediately relays the information to local police.

  • And they said that this is OpenAI.

  • The person was coming here.

  • They were making threats to kill people here.

  • The dispatcher says that a man may be heading towards OpenAI's headquarters and that he's potentially armed.

  • Police officers rushed to OpenAI.

  • Can we get some details about this?

  • We're kind of going in live here.

  • Yeah, copy.

  • The cat is an X reference.

  • The man the police are looking for is named Sam Kirshner.

  • He's a founder of an anti-AI activist group called Stop AI.

  • He's a white male, has some facial hair.

  • Kirshner's photo is sent around to OpenAI employees, and the company locks down its campus.

  • Police officers search the area but can't find Kirshner.

  • Sam Kirshner went missing that day, the same day that OpenAI went on lockdown.

  • It's very unusual for a prominent activist just to go missing.

  • Yeah.