u/Here-Together

From software targeting migrants to license plate readers, facial recognition programs to border panopticons, AI is a force multiplier in policing and surveillance.

As this community knows, AI did not create the surveillance state, nor the police state. In conversations about AI-powered surveillance, this analysis is often missing, but I believe it is crucial. 

AI is, however, widening the net, sharpening the camera lens, enabling the government to treat people like insects under a microscope.Instead of human beings monitoring surveillance cameras, or detectives investigating stolen vehicles, AI executes these tasks. This is important because with an understanding of policing as a mechanism to protect capital and quell rebellion, rather than prevent crime, AI-enhanced surveillance is perilous to all.

I’m an independent journalist authoring a series of AI explainers called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” In the fourth instalment, I wrote about surveillance and policing, covering three technologies: ICE Immigration targeting systems, facial recognition technology and Automated License Plate Readers. You can read it here.

When faced with the enormity of AI surveillance infrastructure, it is easy to fall into a debilitating despair — I certainly have at times. But it is not all doom and gloom — as always, we reserve the right to resist. And with AI-surveillance, the cat is out of the bag. What was developed in the shadows is now out in the open, eliciting more scrutiny and backlash by the day.

If there’s one thing AI is definitively good at, it’s killing people. 

I’m an independent movement journalist authoring a series of AI explainers called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” In part three of the series, I wrote about AI and militarism. Through a case study on Palantir “kill lists” I discuss Big Tech’s quest to automate war, and what it means for the rest of us. You can read it here.

To be clear: It is not as though militaries were previously moral entities committed to upholding human rights and international law, and are now corrupted by evil AI technology. War crimes are neither a new phenomenon nor the advent of AI; the same actors who massacred Vietnamese villagers sixty years ago are now implementing AI kill lists and massacring Iranian school children. AI is simply a tool to streamline mass murder and obfuscate accountability. 

For militaries, AI solves the problem of humanity. Because an autonomous drone has the exact morals of whichever tech company and military programs it, which is to say: no morals at all. 

So who has the ability to stop wars in the AI-era? With AI companies proposing a future in which “warfighters” become “technomancers,” the answer lies in developing a revolutionary brigade of tech workers and community members willing to take great risk to defend us from Anduril and Palantir’s nightmarish fantasies.

Here’s the good news: that work has already begun. Google and Amazon workers organizing under the banner  No Tech for Apartheid are pressuring their employers’ to end contracts with the Israeli military. Local campaigns called “Purge Palantir” also emerged this year, pressuring Congress members to return donations from Palantir and businesses to drop Palantir contracts.

Hi JoC community! I’m an independent movement journalist authoring a series of AI explainers for the left called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” I’ve shared my work with y’all in the past and have really appreciated the discourse. 

In part three of the series, I wrote about AI and militarism. Through a case study on Palantir “kill lists” I discuss Big Tech’s quest to automate war, and what it means for the rest of us. You can read it here and subscribe to follow along as a new article is released weekly. 

Gun to head, if I had to choose which impact or application of AI worries me most, my answer would be militarism. If there’s one thing AI is definitively good at, it’s killing people. 

The Pentagon uses a Palantir-developed AI-targeting system called “Maven,” which builds target lists of people and infrastructure by harvesting classified data from satellites and surveillance infrastructure.  Like many surveillance and weapons systems, the technology was tested and refined on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Israel has its own version of Maven, called “Lavender.” Using civilian surveillance infrastructure in Gaza, Lavender generates a profile of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, assigning each person a score from 0-100 expressing the probability that they are a resistance fighter.

In Gaza, Lavender is judge, jury and executioner: The IDF references these scores to generate “kill lists” for its genocide. 

War crimes are neither a new phenomenon nor the advent of AI. For militaries, AI solves the problem of humanity. Because an autonomous drone has the exact morals of whichever tech company and military programs it, which is to say: no morals at all. 

The only guarantee of safety from a future rife with algorithmic kill lists and autonomous drones is a wholesale rejection of AI in warfare. So who has the ability to stop wars in the AI-era? With AI companies proposing a future in which “warfighters” become “technomancers,” the answer lies in developing a revolutionary brigade of tech workers and community members willing to take great risk to defend us from Anduril and Palantir’s nightmarish fantasies.

Proponents of AI adoption and big tech sycophants will tell you that now is the time to acquiesce and adapt, that AI is coming for all of our jobs and there’s nothing we can do about it. One example is a recent Forbes article which presents Bill Ackman (hedge fund owner billionaire), Larry Fink, (BlackRock CEO), and Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase CEO) as sage prophets, heralding the ineluctable AI labor apocalypse with stark predictions of worker replacement. 

I’m an independent journalist authoring a series of AI explainers called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” In part two of the series, I wrote about AI and labor from a socialist perspective, examining discourse about projected job replacement, while honing in on the under-discussed topics of “ghost labor” and worker surveillance. 

You can read it here and subscribe to follow along as a new article is released weekly. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The most dire reports about potential worker displacement should be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism. The same companies pushing the narrative of an ‘unstoppable force of AI adoption’ have vested interest in this dystopia’s fruition. They are not reliable narrators. It is revealing that the aforementioned Forbes article concludes with Ackman and Dimon claiming that certain jobs can’t be replaced by AI: specifically, “high-level management jobs,” “strategic leadership,” and “inspiring teams” … also known as CEOs. These billionaires want us to think that our jobs are replaceable, but theirs aren’t.

Proponents of AI adoption and big tech sycophants will tell you that now is the time to acquiesce and adapt, that AI is coming for all of our jobs and there’s nothing we can do about it. Tech oligarchs love to present themselves as sage prophets, heralding the ineluctable AI labor apocalypse with stark predictions of worker replacement — but these are not reliable narrators. However, there are real and present labor implications to consider.

I’m an independent journalist authoring a series of AI explainers called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” In part two of the series, I wrote about AI and labor from a socialist perspective, examining discourse about projected job replacement, while honing in on the under-discussed topics of “ghost labor” and worker surveillance. 

You can read it here and I would love to hear your thoughts!

Just as the Luddites took up hammers to smash automation machinery two centuries ago, many workers today recognize the threat of AI, not because the technology is inherently evil (though many applications are), but because it is a weapon wielded by corporations to immiserate their lives. Unions are perhaps the most important frontline of resistance to AI. As corporations attempt to introduce AI into more and more industries, more and more workers will have the opportunity to organize their workplace against AI. Every time AI encroaches on new territory, the labor front expands. 

In backyards across the United States, towering edifices loom large: warehouses spanning dozens of football fields, filled with rows and rows of refrigerator-sized computers, and miles of high-voltage electrical wiring. Picture the human-harvesting machines from The Matrix, remove all the goop, swap out the human-batteries for dead dinosaurs, and you’re not far off.

Undoubtedly, the environmental consequences of data centers are front of mind for all in this community. They are for me as well. 

I’m an independent journalist authoring a series of AI explainers called “Ten Reasons to Resist AI.” For the first article in the series, about AI and the environment, I compiled research on the local and atmospheric consequences of data centers to concisely communicate all of the most salient info. 

You can read it here and subscribe to follow along as a new article is released weekly. I would love to hear your thoughts!

As generative AI models are trained and used and re-trained and used again, the computers inside of data centers churn along, exuding metric tons of carbon emissions. A single AI data center uses the same amount of energy as 100,000 homes, but the largest ones under construction today will consume 20 times more, equivalent to more than half of all homes in New York City. On a global scale, MIT researchers estimate that in 2026, electricity consumption from data centers will approach 1,050 terawatt-hours, which, if data centers were a nation, would make them fifth in global electricity usage, after Japan and before Russia.

Because data centers are predominantly powered by gas, with some coal mixed in, this translates to a substantial bump in carbon emissions. While the environmental consequences of AI are grim, we are not powerless in the face of these behemoths. Across the U.S., communities are rising up against those looming figures in their backyards, unplugging data centers.

Hi futurologists. I’m an independent journalist who covers political movements and it recently dawned on me that AI would be a major topic that I will report and write about for the next decade, so I spent the past six months reading as much as possible to develop a concrete understanding and political orientation towards this technology. 

I know that many in this community are grappling with how artificial intelligence does (or does not) factor into our vision for the future. I authored a series of articles that addresses these precise questions from a socialist perspective, called Ten Reasons to Resist AI: A series of AI explainers for the left. 

Every week for the next ten weeks, I’m publishing an article that dissects an application or impact of AI in the following order: 1) Environment, 2) Labor, 3) Surveillance and policing, 4) Militarism, 5) Algorithmic racism, 6) Health, 7) Art and music, 8) Education, 9) Media and misinformation, 10) Human dignity.

You can read the series introduction here and subscribe to follow along as a new article is released weekly. 

I firmly believe that even for people who have an intuitive understanding of why AI is harmful (as many in this community do), the details still matter. Understanding the intricacies of how AI is being deployed and becoming well-versed in the details can guide our conversations with others.

Please let me know what you think!