AI公司员工应组建工会

I. Should safety-conscious employees at AI companies quit in protest, or stay and fight? The latest argument didn’t resolve the dispute, but it did get me in contact with organizers working on both sides. Those planning to stay and fight are increasingly interested in labor unions. There’s already a group called the Coalition Of Concerned AI Staff, but it operates across companies and includes former employees, which is less effective for labor-organizing purposes than a traditional union linking the employees of a single company. You may remember stories of bitter unionization battles at places like Starbucks, but AI workers are likely to route around that. The toughest labor disputes happen in fields where the employer could easily fire all the unionized workers and replace them from a bottomless pool of faceless scabs: although this is illegal, everyone needs to be maximally lawyered-up to prevent it. But there are so few skilled AI researchers that these laws are hardly necessary; if a dozen top AI researchers threaten to walk, it doesn’t matter whether Section P Sub-Section Q forces the AI company to negotiate - the AI company will want to negotiate. This cuts through the red tape that intimidates workers in less blessed fields1; AI researchers could likely get away with only the package of rights provided by informal “concerted activity”, defined as two or more workers doing anything vaguely labor-activism-shaped. Just put up a sign somewhere saying “OpenAI Safety Union” and get at least two employees to stand behind it, and it counts.(even the word “union” is unnecessary; if employees felt like it was too adversarial, they could call it a “research council” or something)Once a union existed, the law would ban the company from firing people simply for being part of it, or talking to other members, or planning demands or actions together. It also couldn’t fire workers for striking over workplace conditions2.Does the “workplace conditions” requirement rule out most forms of safety activism? Not necessarily: many safety issues double as workplace issues, including whistleblower protections, auditing requirements, and safety team staffing. Most of all, fears of recursive self-improvement are naturally workplace-related: whatever else RSI does to the world, it will also automate AI researcher positions. This would be a popular starting issue that might attract even non-alignment-pilled colleagues.But even if some safety issue has no workplace relevance at all, unions can still strike over it; they only lose their protection against being fired. And good AI researchers are worth tens of millions of dollars each and nearly irreplaceable, so AI companies are already averse to firing dozens of them at once. And any attempt to fire striking AI researchers would likely make national news and be a PR disaster

因此，针对被解雇的法律保护本来就没有承担大部分工作，如果愿意，AI 工会可以就与工作场所无关的问题进行罢工。如果员工认为他们的公司已经在优先考虑安全方面做得很好，那么他们应该组建工会，以便给已经表现良好的公司提供更多选项。

工会之间的谈判比公司之间的谈判受到的反垄断审查更少，因此即使高管束手无策，工人也可以达成协议来减缓研究或优先考虑安全。例如，假设 OpenAI 领导层命令其研究人员切换到一种更难监控的循环 Transformer 设计。

一个具有安全意识的员工工会可能会提出更多问题，或者共同拒绝推进这一设计。如果 Sam Altman 说他们必须构建循环 Transformer，否则 Anthropic 会先构建并击败他们，组织者可以联系 Anthropic 员工工会的朋友，询问如果 Anthropic 构建循环 Transformer，他们是否会罢工。

如果 Anthropic 员工工会说会，那么这两个工会可以形成统一战线，他们的公司就不必担心另一家公司会抢先一步。尽管仅凭这一点价值有限——Meta 或 DeepSeek 仍然可以构建循环 Transformer——但这些工会协议还可以提供一个行业可以团结起来的标准，或者为政府干预提供明确的起点。

在极端情况下，两个工会可以谈判暂停协议的雏形，强加给他们的母公司，政府可以注意到这一点并将其纳入未来的国际协议。工会还可以争取什么？维护关于纪律和解雇的正常保护。10 月，OpenAI 在指控三名安全研究人员泄露关于公司对潜在危险的循环 Transformer 实验的信息后解雇了他们；

这些指控现在似乎是不实的，最可能的情景是 OpenAI 对泄密感到愤怒，解雇了问题附近的一些人以示警告。如果 OpenAI 员工拥有工会，公司在捏造理由解雇员工时可能会更加小心。要求公司遵守他们在 Pacing The Frontier 周围兴奋期间做出的承诺，例如，要求他们在某个时间点之前聘请拥有员工级别访问权限的独立评估员。

要求透明度，例如关于计算资源分配，或关于测量递归自我改进速度所需的信息。作为独立的发声者，要求公司遵守他们的承诺。这也是另一个即使（尤其是如果？）员工已经信任其公司领导也能起作用的方法。目前，公司难以做出可信的承诺，因为内部没有人能够强制执行。

一个如果承诺被打破就会威胁进行调查或大闹一场的工会，可以帮助高管们被认真对待。如果你感兴趣，请联系负责此事的人，我可以担保他们聪明且值得信赖，邮箱是 [email protected] II. 对于走另一条路——举报或辞职——我的联系人推荐联系 Psst，这是一个为担忧的科技工作者提供法律建议的非营利组织。

举报是一个充满风险的过程。你的公司在抓捕和化解举报人方面比你作为举报人的经验更丰富，而且如果你独自行动，你很可能无法掩盖行踪（你知道吗，公司会查看不同员工查阅泄露文档的次数，理由是那些为是否举报他们而纠结的人，查阅频率可能比大多数人都要高？

）另一个常见的错误是在内部抱怨某事，然后在投诉不被重视后进行举报；公司很容易将线索串联起来，意识到投诉人和举报人很可能是同一个人。Psst 在这方面比你或你的公司更有经验，可以带你走完流程。

即使你正在考虑辞职，Psst 也可能提供帮助。你可能比你想象的拥有更多选择，比如威胁辞职，除非你得到你想要的东西。而且如果你真的决定辞职，你可能希望以最有效的方式做到——像 Jacob Coxon 那样在离开时制造轰动。

这需要具备基本的媒体素养，Psst 会将你与能提供这种素养的人联系起来。通过在个人设备上使用 Signal 向 @PsstLegal.01 发送消息来联系 Psst。对方将是一名律师，你们之间的对话将是保密的。

无论 AI 员工做什么，都应该尽快行动。RSI 可能会在明年就开始让他们变得过时，所以他们可能再也不会拥有这么大的筹码了。1 要成为正式的多数派工会，工会必须在秘密投票中获得多数工人的支持。

这赋予了他们一些额外的权利，比如迫使公司与他们进行谈判（公司不必同意任何谈判结果，但可以）