Sociology of Tech Tribes and Status Concerns

Holly Elmore leads protests against frontier AI labs, and that work has strained some of her closest relationships in the AI-safety community.She says AI safety insiders care more about their reputation in tech circles than actually lowering AI x-risk. This is our full conversation from my “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” unofficial launch party livestream on Sept 16, 2025.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:06 Holly’s Background and The Current Activities of PauseAI US

4:41 The Circular Firing Squad Problem of AI Safety

7:23 Why the AI Safety Community Resists Public Advocacy

11:37 Breaking with Former Allies at AI Labs

13:00 LessWrong’s reaction to Eliezer’s public turn

Show Notes

PauseAI US — https://pauseai-us.org

International PauseAI — https://pauseai.info

Holly’s Twitter — https://x.com/ilex_ulmus

Holly’s Substack: https://substack.com/@hollyelmore

Holly’s post covering how AI isn’t another “technology”: https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/the-technology-bucket-error

Related Episodes

Holly and I dive into the rationalist community’s failure to rally behind a cause: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/lesswrong-circular-firing-squad

The full IABED livestream: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies-party