Protests against OpenAI get increasingly creative
At the entrance to a recent OpenAI developer gathering in San Francisco, a table‑sized sculpture titled What Iceberg? loomed, its five‑foot‑tall form built from papier‑mâché, cardboard and paint. The piece depicts the company’s leaders and investors climbing out of a sinking ship while ordinary workers are left to confront the rising tide of AI.\n\nThe work was crafted by two artists from the Berkeley‑based Odd Friend Studio, with one of them, who signs himself as Kevin, explaining that the installation was assembled in just five days. He emphasizes that the true expense was time and hand‑made labor, positioning the sculpture as a counter‑argument to the shortcuts offered by algorithmic art.\n\nThis intervention joins a wave of creative dissent aimed at the tech giant, which has faced protests in New York and legal challenges in Florida. By turning the conference space into a visual critique, the artists inject a tangible, human‑scaled narrative into the broader debate over AI’s societal impact.