Jack Paul 
Hunger Strike Enters Fourth Week
Guido Reichstadter has now spent 24 days on a hunger strike outside the San Francisco headquarters of Anthropic, the company responsible for the Claude AI chatbot. Each day, the 56-year-old activist sets up on the sidewalk at 500 Howard Street, watching as food delivery riders come and go from the unmarked office tower where Anthropic employees work.
Reichstadter, who leads the group Stop AI, has consumed nothing but electrolytes and vitamins since beginning his protest on September 1. His demand is straightforward: he wants Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei to publicly acknowledge what he sees as existential risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence and to call for an immediate halt to the development of superintelligent systems.
The Protestor’s Perspective
“There is a great and profound evil in this place,” Reichstadter wrote on social media platform X this week. “These developers are knowingly racing towards superhumanly capable general AI systems they have no credible plan to control.”
He watches daily as delivery drivers bring meals to the very people he believes are creating technology that could endanger humanity. “Have they no shame?” he asked in one of his recent posts. Reichstadter argues that Anthropic, despite marketing itself as an AI safety leader, is actually spreading what he calls “the lie that the race to superintelligence can be done ‘safely’ or ‘responsibly.'”
Fellow Protestors End Their Strikes
Reichstadter isn’t new to dramatic protests. Earlier this year, he chained open doors at OpenAI’s office and organized demonstrations at Google DeepMind. For this particular action, he initially had company—Michael Trazzi and Denys Sheremet began parallel hunger strikes outside DeepMind’s London office.
However, both Trazzi and Sheremet have since ended their protests. Sheremet called it quits after 16 days without food, writing that he still hopes DeepMind leadership will “make a first step towards de-escalating the race towards extremely dangerous AI.” Trazzi confirmed ending his strike the following day.
Anthropic’s Silence and Growing Concerns
So far, Anthropic has not publicly commented on Reichstadter’s ongoing protest. Local San Francisco media outlets have documented his vigil, noting his insistence that CEO Amodei meet with him personally to explain why the company continues its current course of AI development.
The protest highlights what appears to be a growing rift between AI laboratories pushing to scale their models and activists who view this technological race as an existential gamble. On discussion forums like the Effective Altruism Forum, Reichstadter’s opening statement was published, calling for an immediate cessation of what he terms “reckless actions” by Anthropic and urging society to treat the AI development race as an emergency situation.
Whether Reichstadter’s fast will force this debate into broader public awareness—or end in personal tragedy—remains uncertain. Hunger strikes are designed to shock public conscience, but their effectiveness often depends on whether the surrounding community chooses to pay attention. For now, Reichstadter continues his vigil, having wagered his health on the chance that people will start listening.