AI activists adapt tactics, issue new report as industry evolves

The AI Now Institute has issued a critical report on the concentrated power of dominant AI companies, highlighting how tech corporations have shaped AI narratives to their advantage while calling for new strategies to redistribute influence. This analysis comes at a pivotal moment when powerful AI tools are being rapidly deployed across industries, raising urgent questions about who controls this transformative technology and how its benefits and risks should be distributed across society.

The big picture: AI Now’s comprehensive report analyzes how power dynamics in artificial intelligence have evolved since 2018, when Google employees successfully pressured the company to drop a Pentagon AI contract.

• The report examines how tech companies have successfully framed AI development narratives around abstract concepts like superintelligence to divert attention from immediate concerns.
• While Google initially established AI ethics principles following employee activism, the company has since revised these guidelines to permit previously banned use cases.

Why this matters: The authors argue that tech companies are gaining unprecedented influence that extends far beyond financial success into reshaping social, economic, and political structures.

• Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of AI Now, emphasized that the integration of AI across sectors is “granting tech companies and the people that run them new kinds of power that go way beyond just deepening their pockets.”
• This power shift requires new approaches to accountability and oversight beyond traditional regulatory frameworks.

Key recommendations: The report urges advocacy and research groups to connect AI issues to broader economic concerns like job security and the future of work.

• As AI disrupts previously stable career paths across numerous sectors from software engineering to education, workers have new opportunities to resist harmful AI deployments.
• The authors suggest that this resistance could be especially powerful in the current political climate where Republicans position themselves as representing working-class interests.

Success stories: The report highlights several case studies where organized worker action successfully challenged or modified AI implementation.

• National Nurses United, a union that staged protests against AI use in healthcare, conducted its own survey showing the technology threatened patient safety and clinical judgment.
• These efforts resulted in new AI oversight mechanisms at several hospitals and scaled-back implementation of certain automated tools.

Regulatory outlook: The authors express skepticism about the current power of government regulators to effectively address AI risks.

• Despite numerous investigations into AI companies, few have resulted in concrete enforcement actions or legislative changes.
• Amba Kak, co-executive director of AI Now, noted that while her organization previously focused on government policy, it’s become clear those levers “will be unsuccessful unless power is built from below.”

Reading between the lines: The report’s authors emphasize they aren’t making judgments about specific AI products, but rather questioning the societal impact of unchecked corporate power.

• Kate Brennan, an associate director at AI Now, clarified that their concerns about unaccountable corporate power are “entirely compatible with believing that certain products are good and interesting and exciting.”
• The focus is on restructuring who has influence over AI development and deployment, not necessarily condemning the technology itself.