The Center for AI Safety (CAIS), a nonprofit focused on reducing societal-scale risks from AI, launched three major initiatives over the past week designed to mobilize creators, the music industry, and Hollywood to drive public awareness of AI risk and increase public pressure for regulatory action on AI safety.
“AI development has so far not been subject to any meaningful democratic input or public accountability,” said Devin Kim, President of CAIS. “These initiatives aim to give people a stronger voice in shaping how AI is developed and drive productive discourse on AI safety.”
Team Human Campaign
On October 3rd, Team Human, with support from CAIS launched a global campaign mobilizing a coalition of digital creators with more than 300 million combined subscribers to call for a coordinated international slowdown on AI development.
Participating creators including Lindsay Nikole, Kyle Hill and Species published videos to their audiences and asked followers to sign a shared statement: “AI is moving faster than our ability to control it. Alongside a chorus of experts, we call for a global slowdown through international agreements.” The campaign reflects a growing awareness among prominent digital creators and everyday observers of the risks posed by the current pace of AI development and the absence of international frameworks to govern it. CAIS will deliver signatures to legislators.
The Soundtrack of Safety
In partnership with Oakland creative tech incubator HiiiWAV, on September 17th, CAIS announced a global songwriting contest inviting musicians to write original songs about life with AI, from falling for a chatbot to watching a machine learn your job. The contest featured $25,000 in prizes. Submissions were judged by rapper and Bay Area icon P-Lo, artist/producer Zeke Finn, Maya Carter, and AI Safety experts from CAIS with finalists’ songs performed live with E-40’s band, the Soul Slappers, at the Oakland Tech Week finale on Saturday, October 3rd.
The winners, announced on stage at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, were:
- First Place ($15,000): “The Bluebirds” by Sasha Allen (Instagram) of Los Angeles, a folk song about what humanity loses, creatively and environmentally, when machines take over the work of making art.
- Second Place ($6,000): “Skin” by Meaghan Maples (Instagram) and Ian Kelly (Instagram) of Richmond, California, about handing AI more and more of your life until it reaches for the one thing you can’t give up: yourself.
- Third Place ($3,000): “ADAI (After Artificial Intelligence)” by Maya Love Coppola (Instagram, TikTok), which asks what happens when we build something we can no longer control.
“A policy paper can tell you what AI might do. A song makes you feel it,” said Bosko Kante, Co-Founder of HiiiWAV and Oakland Tech Week. “Songwriters from across the country sent us songs about what AI is doing to their work, their families and their sense of self. When those songs hit the stage in Oakland, a room full of people who had never read an AI safety research report understood exactly what’s at stake.”
RenAIssance Retreat
Rounding out the week’s initiatives, CAIS and With Good Neighbors (WGN) co-hosted the RenAIssance Retreat from October 6 to 8, as an invite-only gathering in Los Angeles that brought together actors, digital creators, philanthropists and media and entertainment executives to discuss cultural interventions for AI and technology.
“At a time when we are witnessing the consolidation of media, entertainment, and technology, our collective consciousness is experiencing a loss of agency. As the tension surrounding this concentration of power grows, we must fundamentally reimagine what is possible for AI regulation, safety interventions, and community organizing,” said Shaina Zafar, founder, With Good Neighbors. “This gathering brought together cultural tastemakers who are committing capital and building infrastructure across the cultural and digital ecosystem.”
About the Center for AI Safety
The Center for AI Safety is a San Francisco-based nonprofit conducting research and advocacy to reduce large-scale risks from advanced artificial intelligence. Through technical research, policy advising, and public engagement, CAIS works to ensure AI is developed safely and aligned with human values. Learn more at safe.ai.
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