Dan McQuillan

Given this abdication by UKRI we badly need a Critical AI Research Council as a 'shadow' council to highlight where research is needed and _should_ be funded, and as an exercise in collectively and democratically addressing urgent questions.

your enemies fighting each other can be useful but it doesn't make them your friends. anthropic doesn't want to help with hegseth's apocalyptic fantasy *because they have their own*

you do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to them

Given this abdication by UKRI we badly need a Critical AI Research Council as a 'shadow' council to highlight where research is needed and _should_ be funded, and as an exercise in collectively and democratically addressing urgent questions.

Here is the complete line-up of our 2026 seminar series "Critical Voices on AI" on March 05, 10 and 16. We start next week! 🎉

i cannot stop thinking about this man, who survived the Rohingya genocide but couldn’t survive border patrol. “He died trying to get home” is a gut punch

UKRI AI Research and Innovation Strategic Framework

Good👏to👏see👏UK👏research👏funding👏 keeping👏a👏critical👏and👏rigorous👏academic distance👏from👏AI👏hype👏and 👏AI-pilled👏government 👏policy
www.ukri.org/publications...

'Bigger cages, longer chains' libcom.org/article/spec...

Activists from the anti-billionaire campaign group "Everyone Hates Elon" went to the Louvre museum in Paris where they hung a framed photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble on February 19.

Yes. Definitely in my mind when calling it an apparatus of abuse.

Why Joi Ito needs to resign | The Tech I am calling for the immediate resignation of MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito because of his deep connections with Epstein, his lack of leadership explaining his involvement, and the lack of transparen...

Also: thetech.com/2019/08/29/j..., x.com/amberwoods10...

How Big Tech Manipulates Academia to Avoid Regulation “AI ethics” is a field that barely existed before 2017. It’s become a Silicon Valley-led lobby to avoid legal restrictions of controversial technologies.

This discusses the links between MIT Media Lab & Epstein: 'The Invention of “Ethical AI”:
How Big Tech Manipulates Academia to Avoid Regulation' theintercept.com/2019/12/20/m...

I'm sure there is

AI is Epstein Tech (concentrated networks of masculine power, conspiracism, widespread apparatus of abuse).

AI is Epstein Tech (concentrated networks of masculine power, conspiracism, widespread apparatus of abuse)

Looks good: 'Cables of Resistance' cableresist.de "We are movements and anti-capitalist activists who practise various forms of resistance against big tech. We want to bring together interested people, activists and movements, network and connect local struggles."

More in the sense of a politics that claims the application of the law provides an even playing field

It seems that Big Tech is following the liberal-authoritarian playbook of using policy announcements to defuse opposition (c.f. Microsoft and Anthropic's recent statements about covering the electricity costs of data centres) while the 'monopoly of violence' is applied to any actual opposition.

if you're interested in joining tonight, our readings are a chapter from Resisting AI by @danmcquillan.bsky.social ("Post-Machine Learning") and a paper by @annalauren.bsky.social ("Even when you are a solution you are a problem: An uncomfortable reflection on feminist data ethics").

Decomputing calls for an infrastructural intersectionality that prefigures the material commons and the condition of care without categorisations. [7/7]

When tackling the rapacious energy and cooling demands of data centres, for example, decomputing turns the question to one of the re-socialisation of all of society’s energy and water resources. [6/7]

A movement of decomputing is one that tackles technology as the convergence of politics and subjectivity, as raising the question of what kind of society we want to live in and who we need to be in order to inhabit that society. [5/7]

As a technopolitics of the interregnum, AI is a stark warning about the way hegemonic power intends to maintain control under changing conditions. It is also, therefore, a heuristic for possible alternatives. [4/7]

The particular pathologies of AI, especially scaling and accelerationism, are symptoms of the actual restructuring taking place in relation to energy politics and increasing authoritarianism. [3/7]

This question can be answered by treating AI as a diagnostic whose failings shed light on underlying structural transformations. AI is a fake solution to real crises, especially the breakdown of the neoliberal world order & the unsettling of patriarchal subjectivity [2/7]

"AI is a morbid symptom of the interregnum" danmcquillan.org/ai_is_a_morb... Let us begin from the contradiction that is AI. What does it mean that a technology which is functionally incapable of delivering on its claims continues to be the site of massive financial and strategic investment? [1/7]

"AI is a morbid symptom of the interregnum" danmcquillan.org/ai_is_a_morb... [0/7]

Pretending neutrality here would indeed be to support the rise of fascism. I hope your clients are students of the 1930s...

'AI is a morbid symptom of the interregnum'.
An abstract for a forthcoming public lecture: danmcquillan.org/ai_is_a_morb...

Hey Siri, show me the Library of Babel but let's make sure it only contains the worst and most nightmarish content ever produced.

This absolutely defies belief.

Big Tech says AI can solve climate change. The actual data says not so fast. Learn why/how so many claims about AI’s climate benefit are a hoax 👇

beyondfossilfuels.org/2026/02/17/t...