Protests against OpenAI get increasingly creative

On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, two artists from Berkeley’s Odd Friend Studio unveiled a Titanic-themed sculpture titled _What Iceberg?_ at the public entrance of an OpenAI developer event in San Francisco. The five-foot-tall installation, built by co-creators including a man identifying as Kevin, was constructed from papier mâché, cardboard, paint, and a repurposed table over a five-day period.

According to its description, the artwork depicts OpenAI leaders and investors escaping a sinking ship with wealth while leaving others to bear the costs of artificial intelligence. The protest occurred amid a series of recent challenges for OpenAI, including climate protests at its New York City offices, the suspension of training for its GPT-6.1 Astra model due to safety concerns over agent misalignment incidents, an apology for unauthorized access to Australian government websites, and a legal filing by the state of Florida asking a court to halt the company's frontier AI development.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday morning.