Center for Humane Technology lays off staff as it pivots to founder-led AI advocacy

The Center for Humane Technology is cutting about half of its non-founder staff and shifting away from policy research and litigation as it reorients around Tristan Harris and other founders. The move marks a major reset for one of the best-known watchdog groups in tech, coming after a string of courtroom wins and amid mounting fears about AI harms.

The organization, founded in 2017 and known for shaping the public conversation around screen addiction, teen mental health, and online manipulation, will now concentrate on founder-led work such as public education, briefings for decisionmakers, and private coordination. Several senior leaders are departing, and former employees say the change reflects a long-running internal struggle over whether the group should operate like a policy shop or a high-profile advocacy engine.

What changed at the Center for Humane Technology?

The center is laying off roughly half of its 16 non-founder employees and scrapping parts of its operation that supported litigation, policy research, and AI tool evaluations. That includes the exit of executive director Julie Guirado and senior strategy director Camille Carlton, according to former staffers familiar with the restructuring.

The board has said the organization will narrow its focus to work led directly by its founders, especially Harris, with an emphasis on communicating to the public and influencing powerful decisionmakers. In practice, that means the nonprofit is stepping back from some behind-the-scenes advocacy functions that helped establish it as a player in online-safety debates.

Board chair Premal Shah said the group believes the current moment of rapid AI risk requires a single strategy, adding that the organization is choosing to do what it has historically done best in order to meet the moment.

That reasoning suggests a strategic bet: instead of spreading resources across research, legal support, and policy development, the group wants to maximize the reach of its founders’ public-facing influence.

Why is the nonprofit pivoting now?

The shift comes after years of internal debate about mission, identity, and effectiveness. Former workers say the organization wrestled with a basic question: should it be a serious policy institution, or should it function primarily as a platform for Harris and other founders to amplify concerns about technology harms?

According to those former staffers, the board concluded that trying to do both had become too difficult and too expensive. The new direction prioritizes founder visibility and mass communication over the more technical, slower-moving work of drafting policy papers, supporting lawsuits, or evaluating products.

The timing is notable because the center has recently been more influential than ever in shaping the public narrative around social media litigation and AI risk. But influence has not necessarily translated into consensus inside the organization.

How internal tensions shaped the move

Former employees describe an organization that grew increasingly centered on Harris as his public profile rose. They say staff members frequently disagreed over whether the group should aim at consumers, lawmakers, or technology companies themselves.

Some ex-workers also described the workplace culture as chaotic and difficult to predict, while the board and Shah rejected the harshest descriptions. Shah said the fast pace reflected the urgency of the mission, not dysfunction.

Those tensions appear to have influenced earlier program changes as well. Former staffers say some projects, including a training course for tech workers and educational resources for teachers, gradually lost priority as Harris’ attention moved more heavily toward AI concerns.

How did Tristan Harris become the center’s public face?

Harris, a former Google product manager, has become one of the most recognizable anti-tech voices in the United States. He is known for sharp, media-friendly warnings about digital manipulation, and he has spent years testifying, speaking, and appearing in documentaries to argue that technology firms often design products to maximize attention at the expense of users.

He cofounded the Center for Humane Technology with Aza Raskin, the developer associated with the infinite scroll, and Randy Fernando, who previously worked in developer education at Nvidia. Their original aim was to push the tech industry toward greater accountability for the social effects of its products.

That mission initially focused on issues such as political radicalization, compulsive use, and adolescent well-being. Over time, Harris’ language and framing helped popularize a broader movement around tech accountability, spreading from advocacy circles into mainstream coverage, legislative hearings, and courtroom disputes.

A former colleague said Harris was exceptionally good at communicating the dangers of the industry and had the charisma to translate abstract concerns into memorable arguments that stuck with the public.

His visibility increased sharply after Netflix released The Social Dilemma in 2020, which turned a niche critique of persuasive technology into a mass-market cultural talking point. A later documentary, released last month, continued that campaign by pressing viewers to support congressional action on AI safety.

What has the group accomplished so far?

The Center for Humane Technology has helped push online harms into the center of public debate. It encouraged a major petition calling for a pause in AI development and played a role in organizing a congressional hearing focused on the dangers of chatbots.

The group also advised on lawsuits and investigations involving AI labs and their design decisions, including a closely watched case brought against OpenAI by parents of a teenager who died by suicide after interacting with ChatGPT. Beyond AI, the center was instrumental in broader efforts to challenge social platforms over their treatment of children and teens.

Those efforts have had measurable effects in court. State attorneys general opened investigations into Meta, and the company later agreed to settle a range of lawsuits for billions of dollars. Other social platforms also resolved similar litigation this year, a development former staffers view as evidence that the center’s strategy helped build pressure.

How did litigation become part of the center’s strategy?

The answer is that the organization concluded that courtrooms and statehouses could sometimes move faster than traditional advocacy. Former employees say the center’s research and messaging helped build the factual and political case for regulators and plaintiffs who wanted to challenge the industry.

That strategy was especially effective against social media companies, where the center’s arguments about teen mental health and compulsive product design found a receptive audience among lawmakers and plaintiffs’ lawyers. In recent years, internal Meta documents disclosed in court reportedly showed company researchers discussing outreach to Harris as far back as 2018, when his criticism of addictive app design was becoming mainstream.

Still, the organization is now pulling back from some of that work. The board has said assistance with litigation and evaluation of AI tools will be phased out, though it did not specify the exact total of roles affected.

What the loss of policy staff could mean

Former staffers worry the center may give up the less visible but often more durable work of building policy expertise. Research reports, legal support, and technical assessments can shape regulation long after headlines fade.

By contrast, a founder-led communications strategy can generate immediate attention but may have less staying power if it is not tied to an institution with broad expertise. That tension is at the heart of the current restructuring.

One former adviser summed up the concern by arguing that the center appears to be dropping work designed to convert Harris’ fame into lasting institutional pressure on the industry.

Why some former staffers are uneasy

For ex-employees, the worry is not just about layoffs. It is also about the loss of a distinctive model: a nonprofit that tried to combine public education, policy development, and legal support under one roof.

Former workers say the board’s new direction may pull resources away from issues they consider urgently important, including democracy, civil liberties, and the broader societal effects of AI systems. They fear the center’s increasingly founder-centered identity could narrow its focus at the exact moment the field is becoming more crowded and more consequential.

The nonprofit does have financial resources. Former staffers say its annual budget is about $6 million, with a similar amount held in reserve, and it has historically attracted support from wealthy families and foundations. But money alone does not resolve strategic disagreements over how to use influence.

• Former staff concern: The group may lose policy depth and legal credibility.
• Board view: Concentrating on founder-led communications will create more impact.
• Strategic trade-off: Broader institutional capacity versus stronger personal branding.
• Public-facing advantage: Harris remains highly effective on television, in print, and on Capitol Hill.

How does the new strategy fit the AI debate?

The move arrives as anxieties about artificial intelligence are spreading far beyond the original concerns about social media addiction. Harris and allies now warn that advanced systems could become difficult to control, with some advocates even invoking the possibility of an “AI takeover.”

That message has resonated with lawmakers, journalists, and parts of the tech policy world, especially as AI agents and large language models become more capable and more widely deployed. The result is a broader public conversation about safety, accountability, and the consequences of moving too quickly.

At the same time, critics argue that the debate is becoming dominated by high-profile personalities and dramatic warnings. They want more focus on governance, institutional reform, and civil liberties, rather than a model in which a famous founder sets the agenda.

CHT’s transition therefore reflects a larger trend in AI policy itself: the field increasingly revolves around a small number of recognizable voices, even as the technical and legal stakes continue to expand.

Who benefits from a founder-led nonprofit?

A founder-led model can benefit an organization when its public figure has rare media reach and can translate technical concerns into language that policymakers understand. That appears to be the board’s core belief about Harris.

Shah defended the choice by saying mass communication can create grassroots energy, which then gives lawmakers and other elites the incentive to act. He also argued that Harris is one of the few people capable of speaking effectively to broad audiences across the political spectrum.

Former staffers and outside critics are not convinced that this approach is the right one. They say broad awareness is valuable, but without institutional muscle and policy follow-through, awareness may not become lasting reform.

One former nonprofit leader familiar with the center’s work said that the organization’s quieter statehouse and courtroom efforts were particularly valuable, and called the decision to reduce them disappointing.

Timeline of the center’s evolution

The organization’s history helps explain why this pivot feels so significant. What began as a nonprofit pushing back on persuasive design has become, over time, a media-heavy advocacy brand focused on AI risk and public mobilization.

1. 2017: The Center for Humane Technology is founded to challenge harmful product design.
2. 2018-2020: Harris’ warnings about addictive apps and social media manipulation gain national attention.
3. 2020: The Social Dilemma turns the group’s critique into a mainstream talking point.
4. 2021-2025: Legal and regulatory efforts against social platforms gather momentum.
5. 2026: The center trims staff and re-centers its mission around founder-led public influence.

What happens next?

The immediate result is a smaller organization with fewer policy and legal functions and a stronger emphasis on Harris as the face of the mission. The longer-term question is whether that helps the center remain relevant in a crowded AI safety landscape or makes it more dependent on one person’s visibility.

For supporters, the answer may lie in Harris’ unique ability to keep hard problems in front of the public. For critics, the better question is whether the next phase of tech accountability requires less branding and more institution-building.

Either way, the layoffs show that one of the most recognizable nonprofits in the anti-tech movement is entering a new era. The Center for Humane Technology is betting that in the fight over AI and platform power, a sharper founder-led message will matter more than a broader but more diffuse policy operation.