Sapiens First organizes voters to fight against concentration of power and for AI safety
Sapiens First organizes voters to fight against concentration of power and for AI safety
Project Details
Updated 07/01/26 · Edited by orgBackground
- Government action is critical for AI safety regulation.
- Well-funded industry opposition has made reforms slow and incremental.
- Populist support is vast — 73% of Americans, whether Democrat or Republican, favor better AI governance.
Theory of Change
We believe that large-scale mobilization is needed to accelerate policy.
- Build a political base through one-on-one outreach and community events
- Win public support through effective demonstrations, drawn from past social movements
- Challenge politicians to take a stand on AI governance with nonviolent direct action
Team
Rohan Prasad (founder)
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Ran media & operations at Constellation; previously, president of Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy, and organizer with Direct Action Everywhere
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Drove statewide campaign for University of California to drop cruel meat suppliers; co-founded activist community center in Berkeley
Advisory Board
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Our publicly listed advisors include Caitlin Yardley (influencer & journalist), Abraham Brauner (AI safety & activist lawyer), Nathan Subramanian (consumer protections advocate)
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Researchers from AI safety research/policy non-profits also serve as informal advisors. Names kept private but please reach out to rohan@sapiensfirst.org if this is cruxy to know.
Theory of Impact
Updated 07/01/26 · By grantmaking.aiSee theory of change above. Below is the roadmap and FAQ about the theory of change.
Roadmap
- Phase 1: Seed Cities. CA Governor passes numerous Executive Orders for AI safety.
- Phase 2: Multi-state Expansion. Comprehensive safety laws passed in CA, FL, TX, and NY.
- Phase 3: National Moment. Decisive action by Congress.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Sapiens First compare with other actors in this space?
- Strategy. We use community organizing and non-violent direct action (Outside Game) rather than petitions or lobbying (Inside Game).
- Focus. We target local politicians and state governments first (the same approach taken by advocates for Marriage Equality).
This combination of Outside Game and Local-First advocacy distinguishes us from actors like Encode, Humans First, Humans in Control, and PauseAI, which all do primarily Inside Game Advocacy.
People
Updated 07/01/26 · Edited by orgTeam Member
Funding Details
- Apr 2, 2026
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- 5 years
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- Partially funded
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Track Record
Traction
- Conducted 50+ in-depth voter interviews.
- Achieved a 90% conversion rate with chosen messaging (from in-person contact to event sign-up)
- Building relations with senior Republican officials. Begun advocacy in California and Utah.
- Built organizer guide and website
Discussion
Private comment. Only shown to approved funders and grant reviewers.
Neutral to slightly negative, sorry. Downvoted based on this sentence alone:
our focus is building public support and political will for AI safety, not promoting specific policies.
My model is that public pressure matters less in the near term than influencing lab employees or other elites.
In the traction section when you say you conducted 50 interviews, this doesn't give me a lot of information because I have no idea what you learned from those interviews. Maybe you link to it somewhere but it read like I was reading resume bullet points. You don't have a 1 page constraint, please elaborate on your points!
- What the marginal expected value of doing an additional interview?
- How is "in-depth" operationalised? Are you measuring by length, what's the structure? What is the outcome? Were you trying to elicit information from them, do you try to persuade them, is this purely to advance your understanding of what voters are thinking, or are you intending to publish a report or something?
You also don't seem to be modelling activism as adversarial or accounting for externalities. This level of spending is aggressive, aggression tends to invite some defensive response, and I'm not confident you've thought carefully about all the things that can go wrong and have a plan in place that would mitigate the worst case outcomes. But maybe I would have changed my mind with more information on how exactly you train your activists. $500 a month for props and flyers would barely cover printing costs. You are almost destined to end up way over budget.
There's a reason 501c(3) charities are subject to political limitations. Doing this work well requires incredible levels of trust and responsibility.
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Will you be held liable if you fail to secure proper legal permits to put flyers up in certain places?
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If emotions get heated and the police get called and your protestors (god forbid) engage in physical conflict or are otherwise accidentally injured, who pays their medical bills? Sure, you can make people sign waivers, but they will still sue.
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There are people just trying to do their jobs.who get annoyed at all the noise and develop a negative association with your movement.
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Some people who oppose your movement might never act against you if you keep your operations small scale, but if you try to take egregiously power seeking actions this triggers securitisation and kicks off a wasteful race where they retaliate by funding counter-protester groups, or send people to get into some sort of legal trouble, plaster bad press in the media, etc.
This is a smaller point on a purely aesthetic level I didn't find your website design to be beautiful. It almost looks like you've delegated all presentation choices for the entire website choices to AI instead of incorporating human taste. This website is your face and if you don't put care into it, then that implies bad things about the rest of your org.
I'm sorry, maybe there's a gentler way to get my points across. I hope this is helpful.
Hi Sheikh, thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I'll respond to a couple key points:
My model is that public pressure matters less in the near term than influencing lab employees or other elites.
I believe that government is a crucial lever for AI safety. AI safety is a collective action problem. Government action can force labs to prioritize safety; CAISI can allocate greater funder AI safety research. Currently, even if labs were safety-pilled, I believe they are ultimately driven by market incentives to make more powerful AI.
In the traction section when you say you conducted 50 interviews, this doesn't give me a lot of information because I have no idea what you learned from those interviews. Maybe you link to it somewhere but it read like I was reading resume bullet points. You don't have a 1 page constraint, please elaborate on your points!
The voter interviews were conducted door-to-door. The purpose was to discover ordinary people's familiarity with existential risk / AGI. Also, understand what framing best resonates. Chief learnings were that most people have not heard about AI safety, but are generally concerned about political corruption, lobbying, and concentration of power.
Appreciate all your comments / suggestions! We'll adapt our framing / tactics as we learn over time.
Thanks, I removed my downvote.
I've generally been impressed with Rohan's approach and commitment as he has been developing this project. I think we need way more Outside Game, and given his understanding and experience with activism and social change I'm bullish on his success. I've spent some time discussing this project with Rohan, and believe in his ability to execute this well given support.
Rohan is ambitious, reliable and proactive. I think outside game, creating pressure for policymakers to act, is essential for making aggressive legislation possible. Rohan and I have talked about his approach and it seems promising.
I do think that its important to try and align public concerns with the policy interventions that really reduce X-risk. Its worth striving to do that, but I'm not sure how much the specific public concerns matter here.
Overall good project!
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