Maia Woluchem

Grateful to @justinhendrix.bsky.social for facilitating this necessary conversation between @smw.bsky.social, Ryan Gerety, and me on why this AI Action Plan is so dangerous and what we can do about it. Listen/read here:

Webinar graphic for our upcoming webinar "Our Tech Future," which is centered on top in bold green text. Under it reads: "A community response webinar to Trump's AI Action Plan." with Trump crossed out stylistically. In the lower lefthand corner of the graphic is a greyed out Trump with the white Chat GPT logo on each eye. A red stylistic element is behind him. On the right is the date of our webinar in the same bold green color: "July 30, 6PM ET." Photo credit of Trump is Getty Images.

Our webinar speaker graphic is on top of our pinkish bold background. On the top is our title: Our Tech Future Webinar." Below in bold black letters is "Hosted by." Below this is a picture of our Sr. Movement Building Director, Myaisha Hayes, and our Executive Director, Steven Renderos." Below their titles in the same bold black letters is "Speakers." A headshot follows, with the name and title of Sarah Myers West, Co-Executive Director of AI Now Institute. Finally, below that is "And more..." In the background, there is a picture of community resistance against a data center in Memphis TN.

The final graphic for our webinar states in the center. "Join the call to find out who is behind Trump's AI Action Plan?" Trump is stylistically crossed out. In the lower righthand corner shows two composed images of protestors against Elon Musk. Toward the left is the date and final details of our webinar: "July 30, 6PM ET. Register for free." Finally our bit.ly link is below: "bit.ly/our-techfuture"

Trump's new #AIActionPlan threatens to expand the surveillance and criminalization of our people under the guise of “innovation.”

We’re breaking down what this means and how we can resist next WEDS, 7/30 at 6PM ET | 3PM PT,
bit.ly/our-techfuture

@tamigraph.bsky.social and I get to some mythbusting today about data centers and the supposed future they bring. Long story short: 😬

Of course, one industry’s decline often begets another’s ascendance, each with their own generational harms. However, in this AI race, PA needs to act more decisively to avoid cementing its own history alongside other global stories of industrial extraction for supposed AI gains.

You’ll hear more myth-busting in a piece @tamigraph.bsky.social and I are releasing next week. We’ll also soon be publishing more about what we found at Three Mile Island, in Pittsburgh, and across PA.

Though notably imperfect, the steel, coal, & glass industries bore strong local unions, community reinvestment, & a certain type of cohesion. Today’s proposed economic wins primarily benefit private tech companies, militarized infrastructure, and a race for global AI dominance.

We already know that all such investment in data centers can endanger cities’ right to self-determination, access to water & energy, & betray the meaning of dignified labor. In PA, this AI-centric vision may be extending this already traumatic history of land, labor, and power extraction.

Digital Infrastructures, Material Consequences Members of the Trustworthy Infrastructures team write about their research road trip through Pennsylvania, where they traced the connection from the industrial past to our tech-dominated present.

We have been researching post-industrial PA as it shifts under the weight of this new vision. These cities built the industrial revolution only to be left behind when these sectors crashed. The question for today: Are industrialists using PA again at its own peril?
datasociety.net/points/digit...

Today Trump, Sen. McCormick, and industry leaders convened to discuss their plan for AI-forward PA. Upshot: $92 billion will go to data centers, natural gas & nuclear infrastructure, & re-organizing labor around the AI race. DoE Sec. Chris Wright declared: “AI is our second Manhattan Project.”

Proud of this labor of love and how full circle this process was - beginning as a grateful workshop participant and ending as director of this incredible team. Offering up precious ideas from around the globe on what trust means, with or without the tech that mediates it today. Read here!

JOIN me, @xriskology.bsky.social, @timnitgebru.bsky.social & @mwoluchem.bsky.social for @datasociety.bsky.social 's
#PredatoryData event discussion of the 21st C #eugenicsInBigTech and how to resist it. RSVP and join us online tomorrow Thur 4/10 at 1P EasternUS time! datasociety.net/events/resis...

Over 100 researchers are issuing a statement today that reiterates the scientific consensus that AI can exacerbate bias and discrimination.

The last three U.S. Administrations — including the first Trump Administration — and 192 other nations have recognized this basic fact.

Hi Teddy! Great question. Please feel free to shoot us an email at jobs@datasociety.net and it should make its way over. Thanks very much!

Trustworthy Infrastructures is hiring! Come work with @livgar.bsky.social, Joan Mukogosi, and me, as we look to build out our Nodes & Conduits project. We're really looking forward to getting to know you and your work - please don't hesitate to reach out with any additional questions!

A green, yellow, blue and red promotional graphic for the online discussion “Resisting Predatory Data” happening on April 10 at 1pm ET, moderated by Maia Woluchem, with headshots of participants Anita Say Chan, Emile P. Torres, and Timnit Gebru.

April 10 @ 1pm ET: Join "Predatory Data" author @anitachan.bsky.social, @xriskology.bsky.social, @timnitgebru.bsky.social, & @mwoluchem.bsky.social for a discussion of the 21st century eugenics revival in big tech and how to resist it. RSVP and join us online! datasociety.net/events/resis...

Congress: Save Medicaid Now Politicians are attempting to pass devastating cuts to Medicaid right now and we must act fast. Send a message telling your member of Congress to fight back now.

A thread of Save Medicaid actions:

@aclu.org action.aclu.org/send-message...

Lots of things coming up this spring! We're so excited to have @drniajohnson.bsky.social, Ekene Ijeoma, and @followlori.bsky.social in to talk through community confrontations around infrastructure. Registration link below!

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Fund Don't Freeze: National Higher Education Strategy Call. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. Join higher education workers from around the country on 2/13 at 8 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central / 6 PM Mountain / 5 PM Pacific for a national strategy call on the federal attack on higher education and h...

The only hope for higher ed is the academic labor movement. Join this @higheredlabor.bsky.social call next week to plan our fight us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Donate | The ACT Group Donate and help us make a difference in access to telemedicine for all

It turns out the NY doc indicted for telemedicine abortion care in LA was once MY doctor. Hands down the best I have ever had - I broke down in tears on my 1st visit because I had never received care like that & didn't even know it was possible

Pls support her if you can: www.theactgroup.org/donate

Many thanks for our friends along the way, including Uncle Johnny, @bobgradeck.bsky.social, @alicetiara.bsky.social, @tamigraph.bsky.socialm the National Museum of Industrial History, the Heinz History Museum, and everyone between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh who left their yard signs up

Are you doing similar work on this? Organizing around these questions? Just want to be in touch? Please fill out our form at the bottom of this piece or shoot us an email at trust@datasociety.net. We really want to meet you too.

TI is building work deep in these communities, trying to understand our social ties, our unions, our institutions, and our power, as these companies race to trade our communities for their visions of the technofuture. As much about what oligarchy takes as it is about what we build in return.

The speculative fiction that tech companies sell is fraying whatever threads of a social contract we have left. Frontline communities of all kinds are bearing the weight of this industry at beyond an extraordinary cost.

A week after the election, our team took a road trip through Pennsylvania to talk to folks about AI infrastructure taking over their towns. We stopped at Amazon data centers, abandoned electrical plants, Three Mile Island, ate at many hometown diners, and Bethlehem Steel, among many others 1/

Photos of a construction worker and office worker at their jobs morph into numbered blocks, representing the ways technology can reduce a person and their work.

📣 New CFP! On May 8 and 9, we’re hosting an online workshop on the intersection of generative AI technologies and work. Learn more about what we’re looking for and apply by February 7. datasociety.net/announcement...

Generative AI <p>and Labor This new primer shows that understanding how AI will affect work requires examining how work is organized, how industries are structured, and whose and what work is valued.

Thrilled to announce the @datasociety.bsky.social Generative AI & Labor Primer by Aiha Nguyen & Alexandra Mateescu. It covers how GenAI impacts many forms of work, the human labor behind GenAI & AI's impact on worker control & surveillance. A labor/tech must-read! datasociety.net/library/gene...

Silicon Valley’s Embrace of National Security Will be All-Encompassing Under Trump | TechPolicy.Press Data & Society policy director Brian Chen writes that President-elect Trump will inherit a techno-security architecture primed to militarize new technologies.

In @techpolicypress.bsky.social, D&S Policy Director Brian Chen writes about Trump's plans to militarize technology: “To conjoin Silicon Valley profits with the war machine, Trump now inherits a national security base that gets the last word on tech policy.” www.techpolicy.press/silicon-vall...

There are so many exciting things happening with Trustworthy Infrastructures these days, and there'll be more to come soon. For now, submissions are due January 17th. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or would just like to chat!

Connective (t)Issues Join us to reflect, critique, and imagine the manifold ways that digital, physical, and social infrastructures are built, broken, reconstructed, and mythologized.

I'm so thrilled to announce that Connective (t)Issues is finally here - a workshop on the manifold ways digital, physical, and social infrastructures are mythologized, built, broken, and reconstructed. We're looking for stories in any medium, and can't wait to read, watch, and listen to yours!

Catching up to you my friend!! ❤️❤️