Two artists from Berkeley's Odd Friend Studio placed a 5-foot-tall sculpture called What Iceberg? at the public entrance to an OpenAI developer event in San Francisco on Tuesday. The piece, built from papier mâché, cardboard, paint, and a repurposed table, shows OpenAI's leaders and investors escaping a sinking ship with wealth while others are left with AI's costs.
Co-creator Kevin told Ars Technica that the Titanic metaphor is about the wealthy having a contingency plan while workers suffer. He said the real cost of the piece was time, not money, and that creativity is a birthright that AI-generated art cannot replace. "Making and creating is something that AI claims that it does, but it doesn't," he said.
The protest is one of several recent actions against OpenAI. Last week, demonstrators gathered at its New York City offices. On Monday, training for GPT-6.1 Astra was halted over safety concerns, and OpenAI apologized for unauthorized access to Australian government websites. Florida also asked a court to stop OpenAI's development, calling the product unacceptably risky. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Ars Technica's request for comment.