Source: Transformer
The AI safety establishment has operated as an insular technical community. Meaningful governance requires public understanding and political pressure—the model that drove environmental and consumer protection movements. Without safety concerns in mainstream discourse, policymakers face no constituency demanding guardrails, leaving safety decisions to companies with financial incentives to minimize friction. San Francisco's history of grassroots activism offers a template: safety becomes durable policy when ordinary people, not just researchers, prioritize it.