Hyperscalers: "We're investing more than $1 trillion in AI capital investment". Smug AI adopter: "I'm completely in charge, I just use it for brainstorming ideas". AI isn't a consumer toy, it's a push for systemic transformation that amps up alienation and climate harm.☣️
Out now, my conversation with Josh and Ray of the great Politechs podcast where we collectively wrestle with the idea of 'decomputing' politechs.dev/episodes/s02.... Check out their other episodes, if you haven't yet; cracking conversations with critical voices politechs.dev/episodes.html
Politechs Episode 12 - Decomputing - Dan McQuillan
Josh and Ray talk decomputing with Dr. Dan McQuillan.
politechs.dev
Did nobody use the headline Alpha Folds
Dan McQuillan@danmcquillan.bsky.social · 5d agoAlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.
This looks like a well-researched and situated counter to Masley's 'do your own Qanon research' - 'The AI Data Center Water Management Challenge: A Georgia Case Study' tapsrundry.com/georgia-wate... Blunter version from the author in this pod youtube.com/watch?v=oNSQ...
AlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.
To paraphrase Raoul Vaneigem, people who talk about Resonsible AI or Responsible Tech without referring to the need to restructure our political-economy for the common good and to socialise all infrastructure, such people have a corpse in their mouth.
Abstract for the forthcoming paper 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good'. Pre-print coming soon. "Rather than taking AI as a central focus, this paper treats it as diagnostic of deeper contradictions...." danmcquillan.org/beyond_ai_ab...
Looking forward to a book titled 'Destructively Scan This Book!' in homage to Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal_T...
Abstract for the forthcoming paper 'Beyond AI: Infrastructuring the Common Good'. Pre-print coming soon. "Rather than taking AI as a central focus, this paper treats it as diagnostic of deeper contradictions...." danmcquillan.org/beyond_ai_ab...
Where is the university ethics committee that has stepped up to the plate and said "There's no ethical way to use Generative AI"?
Seems like agentic AI's capacity to really f*ck things up isn't limited to deleting your personal $HOME directory.
FAccT and its predecessor FAT/ML are very poorly acronymed gatherings, as the point of their algorithmic objects of study is, in a specific technopolitical sense, to drain Fairness, distance Accountability and misdirect Transparency.
Ron Salaj has posted his chapter on 'The New Spirit of Education and the Techno-Politics of AI' which goes from a genealogy of machines-for-learning to an analysis of AI Ed in terms of 'seriality' (Sarte) and 'interpassivity ' (Pfaller) meaningmaking.it/new-chapter-...
New chapter: The New Spirit of Education and the Techno-Politics of AI – Meaning Making
meaningmaking.it
Some rando trying to sell AI grading systems made the mistake of cold emailing me at work and I had prosecco for dinner so I replied with a link to @danmcquillan.bsky.social's "the role of the university is to resist AI" 🤷♀️
The role of the University is to resist AI
danmcquillan.org
Perhaps the mistake was talking about the 'digital commons' as if a separate, unsullied space could host the social relations we were long robbed of, when we should have been talking about 'commons digital'; real common ownership of the infrastructure lock, stock and barrel?
Advocating for "AI sovereignty" is another way to call for a war economy.
Let's just stop pretending that calculative prediction is a valid framing in most social settings. Dump the ML, invest in people. #FAccT2026 #decomputing
angela zhou@angelamczhou.bsky.social · last mo.Check out our #FAccT2026 tutorial tomorrow on Bridging Predictions and Interventions in Social Systems! We're going to be building a predictions - interventions index to track ADS systems, evaluations, and gaps therein. Bring a device; I'll try to bring worksheets too :)
As media opinion increasingly tries to discredit data centre opposition for being reactionary populism, it's important for campaigns to squash any possible far right infiltration by explicitly declaring themselves as anti-racist and anti-fascist.
If you're interested in this talk but can't make it today, I'll be re-hashing a version with more emphasis on care services for the Newcastle Youth Studies seminar tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9am GMT. Registration here www.eventbrite.com.au/e/from-resis...
From Resisting AI to Decomputing
Dan McQuillan talks critical AI politics
eventbrite.com.au
Dan McQuillan@danmcquillan.bsky.social · 2mo agoVery late notice, but I'll be doing an informal talk and discussion for SPINE (Speculative Inquiry into Ethics) tomorrow on 'AI, Decomputing and its Discontents'. Open registration events.teams.microsoft.com/event/efc27d...
Very late notice, but I'll be doing an informal talk and discussion for SPINE (Speculative Inquiry into Ethics) tomorrow on 'AI, Decomputing and its Discontents'. Open registration events.teams.microsoft.com/event/efc27d...
So...the originators of the nudity detection software which UK gov mandated today say this is all God's doing, so it's a good thing there isn't a Christofascist regime anywhere looking for technology partners or anything like that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkPm... h/t @owenboswarva.bsky.social
It's bizarre that 'transparency' remains part of Responsible AI narratives. This is the most mask-off moment in decades; the technopolitical hegemony is very transparent about the fact that we & the rest of the biosphere are disposable accessories to their desire for domination.
Having already fast tracked resistance to these products as terrorism, the next step is to frame resistance as a form of discrimination.
Top AI labs expand research into machine ‘consciousness’
Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Meta study whether AI could become conscious — and what follows for humans if it does
ft.com
thesis: people's councils are the militant wing of the pluriverse
"Salvia Women's Therapy Centre provides mental health services for women who would not normally have access due to poverty, ethnicity or learning disability. Their experiences include trauma from domestic abuse, trafficking and FGM." #fundraiser www.justgiving.com/charity/salv...
This seems like an important initiative. 'Archaeologists Resisting Far-Right Appropriation' archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com @a-rfa.bsky.social (h/t today's 'Teaching Anti-Fascism' workshop at ilcs.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...)
Archaeologists Resisting Far-Right Appropriation
Countering the far-right co-option of archaeology and heritage
archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com
The belief that tech==progress seems to me to be one of the deepest colonialisms.
