Climate protesters picket OpenAI, Google and Amazon in Manhattan

On Monday evening, protesters gathered outside the unmarked Manhattan offices of OpenAI holding signs that read "Eat the rich, save the planet." Over the next two days, groups picketed Google and Amazon, and clergy were among those arrested while disrupting a closed-door AI health summit, according to the Guardian.

Many of the demonstrators were in town for New York's Climate Week, the gathering of officials and advocates timed to the UN general assembly. The action, dubbed "unplug AI," was coordinated by Jonathan Westin of Climate Defenders and the Stop Funding Billionaires campaign.

"They are claiming that they have the power to end humanity, but at the same time can't get AI to do a lot of major things," Westin said, framing the week around what organizers cast as tech companies' own contradiction.

Tennessee state representative Justin Jones joined the OpenAI protest and told the crowd the building was "a danger to humankind," warning of a "confluence of techno oligarchy." Adrosto de Silva, a New Mexico resident whose state is contending with Oracle's Project Jupiter datacenter near the drought-stricken Rio Grande, was blunter: "There is no way you can do harm reduction in any datacenter whatsoever."

Organizers also plan to target a Brooklyn gas power plant that had been set to close until it was purchased to power AI datacenters. The pressure is landing. From 2024 to 2026, the reporting says, at least $64bn in proposed datacenter buildout has been blocked by local organizing; bans have passed in at least 18 states at the local or county level, and New York passed a statewide moratorium this summer.