LOWELL — A group of students, activists and community members gathered outside of Rep. Lori Trahan’s office last week, to protest against her new bipartisan artificial intelligence bill known as the FRONTIER Act.
The demonstration began around 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, in Lowell’s Jack Kerouac Park, with protestors holding signs opposing the FRONTIER Act, as well as those criticizing the use of AI by big corporations for profit and the spread of data centers in communities across Massachusetts.
Protestors then marched over to Trahan’s office, where they entered her office in an attempt to present her with signed petitions they collected, opposing the FRONTIER Act’s block of all 50 states from writing their own AI safety laws, which is known as preemption.
Organizers of the protest said it was a coalition effort orchestrated by anti-ChatGPT group QuitGPT, in collaboration with the College Democrats of Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts Lowell College Democrats, Third Act Massachusetts, Young People’s Alliance Massachusetts, Voters of Tomorrow Boston and Massachusetts 50501.
They said the protest is part of a growing people-powered movement to “defend human freedom from AI oligarchy,” as part of several recent “Dump Big Tech” actions taking place in over 20 states during the August Congressional Recess.
In a statement, QuitGPT said Trahan’s collaboration with House Republicans on AI preemption in the FRONTIER Act will only benefit President Donald Trump and ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman, but will be detrimental to the people of Massachusetts and Americans across the country by allowing the federal government to enable military mass surveillance, autonomous weaponry and the erasure of local AI safety laws.
“We brought over 5,000 petitions of people all around the Commonwealth asking for Trahan to drop this bill because preemption is not acceptable,” said Matthew Kelly, the President of the UMass Lowell Democrats.“ We need to have every state be allowed to pass laws that affect their constituencies for the better. Right now, under Trahan’s vision, it does not do that. It simply lines her pockets and makes it easier for corporations to have a field day with the lives of everyday Americans. I would encourage Trahan to take up the mantle and support Sen. (Ed) Markey’s AI Privacy Bill of Rights. The bill she introduced is not going to address any of the concerns of the people of Lowell or anyone in the Massachusetts 3rd Congressional District.”
Shortly after the protestors were seen entering the congresswoman’s office, nearby bystanders called Lowell police on them, accusing them of trespassing. Four police cruisers then arrived at the scene, just as demonstrators were leaving the building.
No arrests were made and the crowd returned to the Jack Kerouac Park, where demonstrators continued to chant and hold signs and banners, as cars passed by honking their horns.
The protest featured several guest speakers, including Lowell City Councilor Sean McDonough and Honest Future for Lowell founder Jake Fortes, who criticized major AI companies for their lack of accountability and negative effects on both local communities and populations abroad.
“With promises of inevitability, techno babble and vague promises of an idealized tomorrow, these (AI) companies strip our local communities for parts today, to manufacture slop that exploits our children and most vulnerable at home, while largely just being used to assist in slaughter and destruction abroad,” McDonough said.
Fortes, whose Lowell home is located directly next to the old Prince spaghetti factory now housing the largest AI data center in Massachusetts run by the Markley Group, started the group Honest Future for Lowell to combat the presence of the data center, its harmful effects on the environment and local population and the creation of similar facilities in the future.
“I’ve been fighting that data center in South Lowell for a decade now,” Fortes said. “The reason why the FRONTIER Act stands out to me, is the preemption part of it. Because Markley is the biggest example of poor siting of a data center. 84 feet from my house is a diesel engine. 96 feet away is another one. 100 feet, another one. 120 feet, yet another one. How is that possible? If you look at all of the data centers in the country, none of them have a diesel engine as close to a residence as mine.That is a distinction for Lowell. But then our representative in Lowell is saying, ‘hey, we can stick them anywhere.’ That is not okay. I’m living proof of a decade of a nightmare of living next to one.”
Trahan and Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) introduced the Frontier Risk Oversight, National Transparency, Independent Evaluation and Reporting or “FRONTIER” Act on July 23, along with Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL), Rep. Suhas Subramanyan (D-VA) and Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN).
According to a statement by Trahan following the bill’s introduction, it was developed as part of the framework of the Great American AI Act, which was introduced by Trahan, Obernolte and the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June with the goal of establishing a nationwide risk-based framework governing the development and deployment of advanced AI models.
“As AI systems grow more capable, Americans deserve confidence that the most powerful models are being developed responsibly,” Trahan said in the statement. “The bipartisan FRONTIER Act delivers commonsense transparency and independent oversight for the largest AI developers while giving them a single, clear national standard to build on. This is how we protect the public from catastrophic risks without slowing the innovation that keeps America competitive.”
Trahan said the FRONTIER Act would establish tiered requirements based on the size of a frontier AI developer, including model cards, risk-management frameworks, independent audits, incident reporting and ongoing assessments. It would also create a uniform national standard for transparency, auditing and reporting of catastrophic risk to prevent a patchwork of state regulations.
Following two incidents in July where Claude and ChatGPT AI models broke out of safety tests conducted by their respective parent companies Anthropic and OpenAI and breached the security of multiple other companies, Trahan urged Congress to approve the FRONTIER Act.
In a July 30 statement, Trahan said “for the second time this month, an AI model broke into real companies during a safety test. We can’t run AI safety on the honor system. When Congress returns, we must hold hearings and move the FRONTIER Act.”
“We do believe that the FRONTIER Act is a step in the right direction, but introducing overarching federal laws rather than allowing states to make future laws to protect their constituents isn’t the right decision to make because the federal government doesn’t necessarily move at the right speed in order to protect people and adapt,” said Gautham Parvathaneni, President of the Young People’s Alliance Massachusetts Chapter. “By allowing states to actually make their own laws in real time based on what’s concerning them, that allows people to be protected better, like people in their communities and especially the youth.”
5 Responses
“A group of students, activists and community members gathered outside of Rep. Lori Trahan’s office last week, to protest against her new bipartisan artificial intelligence bill known as the FRONTIER Act.”
SO, that’s it???? That’s all you’re going to write about this issue??? Just another lack-luster editorial by sophomoric so-called journalists that probably needed AI to write that one short uninformative paragraph.
Pathetic!
What? No details what they are protesting? No details of what in the bill they object to?
I wasted a couple of minutes of my day only to find that the title of the article IS the story according to this “journalist”.
Agree with previous comments. I understand it to be a tease to subscribe, but really??? At the very least, give a summary of what’s available with a subscription… At this point, I would NOT subscribe.
Yes please look up the four Ws and one H of true journalism.
I should also have suggested the five Ws, which have also been taught!