Meet Pause AI, the Protest Group Campaigning Against Human Extinction

The first time we speak, Joep Meindertsma is not in a good place. He tears up as he describes a conversation in which he warned his niece about the risk of artificial intelligence causing societal collapse. Afterward, she had a panic attack. "I cry every other day," he says, speaking over Zoom from his home in the Dutch city of Utrecht. "Every time I say goodbye to my parents or friends, it feels like it could be the last time."