FOR: A new left-of-center organization working to ensure society addresses the harms and risks of artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is going to reshape every part of American life — from how we work and what our kids learn to how we raise our families and what our democracy looks like. Right now, the people making those decisions are a handful of Big Tech billionaires and the investors funding them. Everyone else is being asked to go along for the ride.
We are at a critical crossroads in the fight to protect American workers, American families, American consumers, and the communities we call home. The same Big Tech billionaires and corporations who have spent the last decade concentrating wealth, gutting labor protections, and turning public discourse into an attention-economy slot machine now want unfettered control over an even more powerful technology that will reshape every corner of American life.
We believe the American people, not unaccountable billionaires and corporations, should make those decisions. That's why we're working to build a movement that takes on Big AI, and ensures that federal legislation regulating this technology becomes law soon. Our core demands for politicians are simple:
Defend the essential freedoms of Americans – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – from harmful impacts of AI.
Ensure the economy works for all Americans, not just Big AI and tech billionaires.
Don't put our humanity at risk: no development of superintelligent AI at home or abroad or replacement of humans.
We exist because ** Humans First** — the bipartisan organization that opened this fight — concluded that the fastest path to federal legislation runs through two grassroots organizations pushing for similar policy goals: one organizing conservatives, one organizing progressives and liberals. Humans First is now the conservative arm.** We are the left-of-center arm, spun out of the same founding team.**
We are well-funded, we are moving fast, and we are hiring a small team that will build our organizing program from the ground up.
New York is a strategically important state for addressing the harms of Artificial Intelligence.
High school and college students and educators are directly experiencing the disruption caused by AI in the classroom and in the early-career job market. Workers face growing digital surveillance on the job, and the humiliating experience of having to train their own AI replacement. New York is the home of a number of elected officials who are highly-engaged on A.I. policymaking. A national bill to impose an AI data center moratorium until policies to make the technology serve ordinary people are enacted is being led by NYC congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A.I. industry-funded super PACs are spending heavily to influence New York elections. The New York state legislature has passed A.I. laws and is considering more.
We're hiring an additional Organizer in New York, who will work alongside a Lead Organizer who will guide the program. You will spend most of your time on the ground — talking with workers, faculty and students, members of unions and faith communities, residents of communities where data centers are being proposed — having one-on-one conversations, identifying and developing organic leaders, and building a base of people willing to make AI accountability a political demand.
This role is for someone who wants to do the actual organizing — not run impersonal mobilization programs or sit in conference calls on Zoom. The work is relational, slow, and durable. It is also the foundation on which everything else gets built.
· Conduct one-on-one organizing conversations — many of them — with workers, students, faculty, faith leaders, and community members across your assigned organizing lane
· Identify organic leaders inside member organizations and develop them into organizers themselves who can carry the work forward
· Run structure tests to assess and grow our base — moving from low-commitment actions toward higher-commitment ones, identifying who shows up and who can be developed
· Hold hard conversations with people who are skeptical, undecided, or aligned with positions you'll need to shift — without retreating from values clashes or getting defensive
· Build day-to-day relationships inside one or more host organizations (likely a Labor Union local, a campus organizing operation, or a community organization engaged in data center fights) — earning credibility from the inside rather than parachuting in from outside
· Show up consistently in the communities where you're organizing — not as a campaign visitor but as someone people can rely on
· Document what's landing and what isn't, who's moving and who isn't, what arguments shift positions and which don't — and feed that learning back to the Lead Organizer and the broader team
· Support salience-raising activity in the lead-up to elections, including candidate accountability work, constituent contacts, and visible local pressure
· Help lay the groundwork for a permanent New York operation that can grow as our funding scales
You don't have to fit every line below. The strongest candidates will fit most.
· ** A real organizer, not just a mobilizer.** You have done one-on-one organizing as core practice, developed leaders, and stuck with the slow relational work that makes durable power possible (and all the tensions that entails). You know the difference between turning out a list and building a base. You can name specific leaders you've developed.
· ** Comfortable with the slow pace of real organizing.** You understand that this work is not glamorous. Most days are not action days. Most weeks are about conversations, relationship-building, and the patient identification of who can be developed. You don't need quick wins to feel productive.
· ** Hard-conversation skills.** You can sit with someone whose politics differ from yours and have a real conversation about AI without retreating from values clashes or getting defensive. You can shift positions, not just inform people.
· ** Working knowledge of at least one of:** organizing inside a Union, or faith-based, identity-based, or place-based organizing inside a real membership organization. You know what it means to earn standing inside someone else's institution rather than start a new one from outside.
· ** Cultural literacy with working-class voters across lines of difference.** You can talk with autoworkers, nurses, graduate students, faith communities, and people in communities affected by data center construction without sounding like a coastal elite or a partisan operative. You can operate in cultural registers different from the one you personally inhabit.
· ** Strategic discipline.** You understand that this is a class-axis populist fight — workers and communities versus concentrated AI capital — and you can hold that framing under pressure when others pull toward easier framings.
· ** Self-direction.** You can build relationships and run organizing without a fully-developed playbook or constant supervision. You'll be working under a Lead Organizer who will coach and coordinate, but most of your daily work will be self-directed. You have a bias for action.
· ** Curiosity about AI as an issue.** You don't need to be an AI expert. You do need to be willing to come up the curve fast enough to make the fight real for the people you're organizing. Genuine interest matters more than prior credentials. We make use of AI tools and technology ourselves when it helps us be more effective.
· ** New York roots or strong New York credibility.** You live in New York or have prior organizing work in New York that gives you standing with the people you'll be organizing. We need to move faster than a parachute hire can ramp.
Strong candidates will tend to come from one of these profiles:
· Internal organizer or rank-and-file member-leader at a New York-based Labor Union local — especially in healthcare, education, manufacturing, or service-sector Unions
· Field organizer at a faith or community-based organization in New York
· Field organizer on a recent New York ballot initiative, primary challenger campaign, or persuasion-heavy electoral campaign
· Community organizer in a New York community engaged in data center, environmental justice, or utility accountability fights
Non-paid volunteer experience counts! This list is non-exhaustive. We care more about the capabilities above than the résumé line.
We run a structured, scorecard-driven process.
· ** Career review** — a detailed walk through your last 2–3 roles, with particular focus on specifics of organizing work and leaders you've developed.
· ** Strategic alignment interview** — a deep dive on your alignment to our mission, values, strategy, and perspective on AI to ensure this is the right fit in both directions.
· ** Reference calls** — including at least one organic leader you developed who can speak to your organizing practice from the inside.
· ** Salary:** $90,000 annualized
· ** Structure:** Six-month contract starting summer 2026, with possibility to convert to a permanent role assuming mutual fit.
· ** Benefits:** Medical / dental / vision, fully covered for employee and dependents; unlimited PTO.
· ** Location:** NYC preferred; other New York locations considered for the right candidate. This role requires New York residency.
· ** Travel:** Significant in-state travel; occasional travel for training and convenings.
Please send a résumé and a short statement of interest to: alex@humansfirst.com
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the role is filled. We are moving quickly.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects the country we are trying to organize — across race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, age, and veteran status. If you need an accommodation at any point in the process, please let us know.