These Effective Altruists Betrayed Me — Holly Elmore, PauseAI US Executive Director
Description
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
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