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In February, I picked up a flyer at an anti-AI march in London . I can’t say for sure whether or not its writers meant to riff on South Park’s underpants gnomes. But if they did, they nailed it: “Step 1: Grow a digital super mind,” it read. “Step 2: ? Step 3: ?”

Produced by Pause AI, an international activist group that co-organized the protest, it ended with this plea to the reader: “Pause AI until we know what the hell Step 2 is.”

In the South Park episode “Gnomes,” which first aired in 1998, Kenny, Kyle, Cartman, and Stan discover a community of gnomes that sneak out at night to steal underpants from dressers. Why? The gnomes present their pitch deck. “Phase 1: Collect underpants. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit.”

The gnomes’ business plan has since become one of the greats among internet memes , used to satirize everything from startup strategies to policy proposals.…