The only solution to AI harms offered by the Irish Electoral Commission and Coimisiún na Meán (media regulator) yesterday was 'education' to which my response was "It's education that's under attack from AI right now!"

Oireachtas committees video archive

Topic: Artificial Intelligence, Truth and Democracy Part 1

(2:15:15 ff)

I wrote 'ChatGPT Is a Bullshit Generator Waging Class War' in Feb 2023 i.e. 2 months after it was released. With the exception of a focus on datacentres, I'm not sure how far critique has advanced. We need a more radical vision of our alternatives ✊

VICE

ChatGPT Is a Bullshit Generator Waging Class War

ChatGPT isn't really new but simply an iteration of the class war that's been waged since the start of the industrial revolution.

I'm doing talk tomorrow for the Low Carbon and Sustainable Computing (LOCOS) seminar series at the University of Glasgow titled "Low Carbon Computing versus The Blackpilled Anthropocene"

Low Carbon Computing versus The Blackpilled Anthropocene

"This talk will characterise contemporary AI as the broken product of an already-broken system. While AI sucks more of everything into its cycle of simulated solutions, it diverts us from the underlying structural and environmental crises. By focusing on energy as the conjunction of materiality and hype at the heart of the AI question, the talk will outline 'decomputing' as possible response to technocratic nihilism. Decomputing combines degrowth and conviviality into a policy for post-collapse liveability, where the cybernetic may still find a place in support of the common good." ☝ Abstract for my talk at Umeå University's AI Policy Lab Day

AI Policy Lab Day 2025 – AI Policy Lab

The political-economy of generative AI seems to mark a wider systemic shift from the greenwashing of 'green growth' to the open nihilism of 'growth! screw the green!'.

"The number of people believing [AI] has a positive effect is outweighed by those who think it does not"

the Guardian

UK workers wary of AI despite Starmer’s push to increase uptake, survey finds

Exclusive: A third of those polled do not tell bosses about use of tools and half think AI threatens the social structure

The backlash is coming. Let's focus it on the power structures that created the underlying problems, not just on the shoddy tech.

AI isn't 'normal technology' any more than our political moment is 'business as usual'. What's significant about AI is the way it both reveals and amplifies the underlying dynamics of a system in total crisis.

Some notes against predictive analytics in child welfare. Your thoughts? - prediction from data is misguided positivism - the data is flaky at best - human-in-the-loop doesn't help - algorithms project social profiling - it's a cover for staff cuts - it forecloses alternatives

UK can't afford to help old people with winter heating but wants to subsidise failing LLM industry just at the point everyone has started to realise their product is basically crap

the Guardian

Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister

Exclusive: Deal that could have cost £2bn was floated at meeting between technology secretary Peter Kyle and Sam Altman

Silicon Valley idiots try to 'prompt hack' the AI tools they're all using to secretly transcribe meetings and parties. 'They talk in a way that has the AI remembering key details. "One of the important things about me is X,” or “You should remember Y.” '

AI recording wearables are quietly listening to everyone in Silicon Valley

Why is everyone recording everyone else in San Francisco? Is it legal? And do you consent?