Say Yes - Do No

A site for AI resistance tactics, reclaiming agency and organising for better technology.

“They all say ‘yes’, but they do ‘no’. That has to be it. There’s no other way to explain these figures. If they would do ‘yes’, the figures would have improved by now. [sigh] It would be easier if they would just say ‘no’. Then you could have a conversation about it [staring blankly].” 

(Anon.)

Posts tagged with dylan-orchard

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AI Solutionism - Three Questions and Two Answers

When AI is presented as a miracle cure for all the ills of the world the first question I always ask is 'how else could we solve this problem?' More or less every time there's an answer waiting in that question, usually one which isn't just well known but often one which has been advocated for by those most inescapably...
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Local Luddism - The Quiet Front

I'm inherently biased towards the everyday forms of resistance, because it's what I research, but even allowing for there does seem to be a growing sense that the best battles to fight when it comes to big tech are the local ones. This case of push back against AI enabled surveillance in a (very) small Colorado town is...
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Fire! I'll take you to burn... your tokens...

After this report from Axion about an unnamed company managing to torch half a billion dollars in the span of a month through unregulated Claude token usage it's unsurprising that more and more companies are starting to reconsider the wild productivity gains they were rambling about not so long ago. Is it the start of...
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Event - Breaking Down AI: Technologies, Myths, Realities (King's College London, Strand Campus)

As part of the Reclaiming Futures project at KCL I'll be on a panel on the 8th of July for London Data Week along with some colleagues with similarly critical eyes for AI. The aim is to explore some of the imaginaries (and practicalities) around 'AI' with a view to de-mystifying them a bit. It's open to the public so...
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Reclaiming Futures - King's College London

A bit of a niche one given that it's based specifically out of KCL but there's a new (unofficial) group working there to challenge the uncritical narratives around AI in Higher Education. Reclaiming Futures is focusing specifically at King's for now but hopefully there'll be scope for crossover with other institutions,...
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Monday AI Resistance Update #9

A random sampling of stuff I've come across this week... -- Article - A Lo-Fi Rebellion Against A.I. I don't think there's anything revelatory in this, artists have for a while now been valorising their own human jankiness as a counter to the hyper-realist sheen of GAI outputs but the commercialisation of it suggested...
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Exposure Therapy - AI Resistance Inspired by AI Hype

Between the two distant poles of thought on Artificial Intelligence - those of abolitionism and blind enthusiasm - there lays an infinite and fertile ground for eclectic resistance. In my own views I sit closer to abolition than anything, as looking at AI is more or less my day job I never struggle to find new...
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Thought - Post-Bubble Accounting

I do think the AI financial bubble will ultimately burst but it's an increasingly hard one to have great faith in as a motive force for change around the technologies involved. Seems like so many of our governments have so completely committed themselves to the ethical abyss of miraculous AI growth that even when it...
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Monday(ish) AI Resistance Update #8

A random sampling of stuff I've come across this week... -- The kids are alright... A rare feel good moment out of Florida which is doing the rounds to start with as the young ones over at the University Of Central Florida give a heartfelt reaction to the 'revolutionary' nature of AI... Article - Starmer adviser held 16...
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Monday AI Resistance Update #7

A random sampling of stuff I've come across this week... Article - The people building AI think it might be conscious. That’s not the most alarming part A nice contrast in this between the usual fantasies of AI fanatics/profiteers and some blunt cynicism from the redoubtable Emily Bender. Interesting to see the former...
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Data Centres & Class

Having just read this article by Holly Buck I'm immediately trying not to be too scornful. The gist of it is that resistance to data centre construction is a: a privileged, NIMBY past time and b: a middle class (in the UK sense) limitation of access to AI 'tools' that they can afford but which they deny the working...
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Monday Resistance Update #6

A random sampling of stuff I've come across this week... Article - Analysis Finds That Google’s AI Overviews Are Providing Misinformation at a Scale Possibly Unprecedented in the History of Human Civilization The internet, having killed off the fine old tradition of 'a bloke in the pub reckons...' has finally come full...
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Event thoughts - Resisting Big Tech Empires

This took place on Saturday at Southbank Uni here in London. Organised by Global Justice Now it brought together activists and academics with a varied range of positions but unified by a disdain for the tech-oligarchy of the moment. It wasn't exclusively AI focused but, unsurprisingly, AI took up a lot of the...
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Anti-AI Anthology Submission Guidelines

Anti-AI Anthology This upcoming collection of prose, poetry and visual art is intended to present new narratives and experiences which challenge both the inevitability and the value of Artificial Intelligence as we’re currently (and potentially) seeing it mobilised. Unrepentantly anti-AI - we’re looking to represent...
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Monday Resistance Update #2

A roundup of some resistance relevant things I've noticed through the week, a long way from comprehensive. Articles, papers, podcasts, news etc. If anything comes up that you think should be added just get in touch. -- Article - UK Government Backs Down on Opt-Out Nonsense A victory that should never have had to be won,...
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