A while back I chatted with @alekskrotoski.bsky.social about phantasies of immortality that connect deeply to a (tech industry) desire to be machine, or to be product, what Günther Anders would have called "Promethean Shame". Nice to see the book is out soon! www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

This is a very good read: "The easy-going nerds [...] have thus been able to transform themselves into frightening molochs, engaged in a ruthless war for planetary and intergalactic supremacy, with no rules or responsibilities to counterbalance their immoderate power" www.ft.com/content/85ee...

"Sure, there will be hollering that anything with a capacity for destruction is in conflict with ESG aims. But a combination of government clout, commercial opportunity and investment outperformance will suffice to drown these out." 'war is peace' ... and all that

Thiel has peddled the argument that 'we should be more afraid of the Anti-Christ and less afraid of Armageddon' for many years now. He recently revived it emphasising that the Anti-Christ comes in the guise of peace & stability. It's a crude claim to justify upheaval www.linkedin.com/posts/elke-s...

The below is of course grotesque but the alignment of right wing tropes with government talking points is widespread, including in the UK where some officials seem to parrot unsubstantiated claims made in the tech / online sphere. Where DO get gov’t officials get their information from? A serious Q.

Peter Thiel: "[environmental concern & Islamic Shariah law are] the only thing people still believe in in Europe" - casts both as the Anti-Christ Trump: "I hate to see [Europe] devastated by [green] energy and immigration, that double-tailed monster that destroys everything in its wake" #hymnsheet

Congrats to Sandy on this banging article. More to come from him soon, next time with more ketamine!

@coldwarsteve.bsky.social doing a stellar illustration here

The labour gov't absurdly adopts the language & visions of the US tech-VC sector. Here, Reeves parrots a familiar US VC mantra "We are backing the builders, not the blockers. By slashing red tape and transforming the planning system to get Britain building again" www.theguardian.com/business/202...

A prescient tune www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5FE...

The emotional blackmail of the Duolingo icon is really rather powerful

What do we think what we are doing? We have just welcomed our students back to uni, to an ever-more uncertain future. They are worried. When asked at a careers talk for 3rd year students how they feel about their future the most frequently used words were “terrified”, “scared”, “stressed”. 1/

If you ever needed an illustration as to how the whole ‘free speech’ clamouring is a ruse of epic proportions , look no further.

So, if I am reading this right, the UK government announcement on the Palantir deal suggests that Palantir will invest "up to 1.5bn" in the UK (creating 350 jobs - not that many jobs really). But the Palantir X post suggests that the UK will invest "up to 1bn" in Palantir ...? 🧐

At almost all UK defence discussions on AI, experts have raised the the problem of sovereign AI and emphasised that defence should not be locked in with US companies (which may pursue different interests and aims). This seems like a blatant disregard of this expert advice www.gov.uk/government/n...

This will produce an extraordinary amount of waste, duplication and lack of transparency. To understand why it is crucial to understand what VC dynamics are and what their aims are. See my @finandsoc.bsky.social article here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

One of the marking lines for Thiel's Founders Fund Hereticon ball extravaganza in October 2024 was literally: "Maybe if you are not trying to destroy the world, you are not trying hard enough" opiniojuris.org/2025/01/30/c...

If it doesn’t, can we throw it away?

In a closed expert discussion on sovereign AI yesterday, someone asked the question to what degree considerations of sovereignty also means not becoming overreliant on AI (or indeed specific AI). It strikes me as important. What good is sovereign AI if the 'sovereign' can't decide NOT to use AI?

"There is no longer any depth, no longer any subtext either. The entire history of economic life is pushed up to the surface, leaving nothing behind for it to hide. It is this profound superficiality that now rules."

CBC Radio has produced a wonderful documentary about the philosopher Günther Anders and the notion of Promethean Shame, with the excellent Christopher John Müller, and I was able to contribute a little bit too. podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a...

This is a very insightful article

I've followed defence tech industry (war tech?) narratives for a while - renaming of the DoD as Department of War, & the pivot to some crude ideation of war, victory and warriors is a longer-standing fantasy floated by figures like Alex Karp (Palantir) and Palmer Luckey (Anduril). 1/

States must now turn the common ground they have developed into law. We stand ready to support states in taking the courageous political action needed to negotiate a treaty that will save lives and stop the slide towards the automation of killing. #CCWUN t.co/uomUv3VUI9

🚨🚨“We are therefore ready to move ahead towards negotiations.” #CCWUN closes with a joint statement from 42 states affirming that the Chair’s rolling text discussed this week can form the basis of treaty negotiations on #KillerRobots.

I guess "defend the West" was already taken, so Anduril, a US company, decided see how far the marketing & branding envelope could be stretched here. What I find most striking is that it seems in their assessment, the time is now to go all in.

"products like ChatGPT are thus indeed a logical next step in the trajectory of Silicon Valley striving to create more addictive commercial software services for increasingly lonely consumers." Nb death tech also invests in killer robots: OpenAI has partnered with the defense tech startup Anduril.

"Deploy millions of weapons without risking millions of lives"? Military AI companies sell fantasies. The reality: more violence, more instability. Don’t fall for the hype. 📖 Our latest Substack: stopkillerrobots.substack.com/p/dont-belie... ✏️ @elkeschwarz.bsky.social

NEW PODCAST | @elkeschwarz.bsky.social joins host @kevcomms.bsky.social to unpack the virtue signaling of today’s techno-military-industrial-complex & the resulting dehumanization of civilians in conflict zones like Gaza & Ukraine. carnegiecouncil.co/values-inter...

It was a delight to speak with @kevcomms.bsky.social for the @carnegiecouncil.org podcast about the military tech ecosystem. Check it out below:

The narrative of AI glory is carefully crafted with enormous amounts of $$. I listen to an interview with Joe Lonsdale (Palantir & 8VC) where he says "I’ve been fighting in DC for 20 years now, we know everyone, we have people on the ground, you know, we have to, it’s our job to protect ourselves ..

Excuse me what?

@elkeschwarz.bsky.social warns that venture capital is reshaping defence with a Silicon-Valley ethos that needs startups to scale up fast, but this move fast and break things model poses ‘strong ethical concerns’ where tech mediates ‘life and death decisions.’ www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/policy-h...

no, yeah, everything's fine...why do you ask? www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

You know, the notion of an AI / AGI 'take-over' can only exist in an environment where no or few alternative material infrastructures are in place. So, 'AI safety' concerns, or existential risk can probably be mitigated quite a bit by not hooking all infrastructure to AI. Just a thought ...

Ausgezeichnete und wichtige Diskussion

I finally got around to reading @markkersten.bsky.social 's thoughtful article about genocide being a process not an event. As he says, "genocide is not time-bound", it can unfold over months, years or decades. This is so important to keep in mind in the current sensationalist media environment.

Nothing says “pursuing peace” like a military fly over

This process is described in detail by Hannah Arendt in Totalitarianism. There were thousands of Markwayne Mullins in Nazi Germany in the late thirties.

This is going to be a must read for our times!

It was a pleasure speaking with Gary O’Donoghue for the BBC World Service 'The Inquiry' last month. The programme discusses 'How drones are changing the landscape of modern warfare' with four expert witnesses. Listen to the whole show here: www.bbc.com/audio/play/w...

We are approaching the anti-singularity, that crucial moment when we realise that AI/LLM will never deliver on its promises.

The current 10x obsession is so very strange to me. As though you could meaningfully measure the size of a revolution or indeed the speed ... you can't 'measure' human affairs like that, only business processes or computational processes. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI is now capable of designing a record-breaking deep sea submersible on its own. This marks a new age of exploration and I encourage all my fellow AI champions to build one and get in it so they can celebrate this achievement from the bottom of the sea.

In the not too distant future, the best USPs for companies, or the most appealing party programmes for governments, will be in stark differentiation to AI. Start conceptualising your non-AI and Plan B strategies now!

The solution for fewer traffic fatalities is not autonomous cars, it's fewer and slower cars. www.politico.eu/article/hels...

Siehe dazu auch: www.ardmediathek.de/video/watchi...

Der mächtige Strippenzieher Peter Thiel, sein Überwachungsimperium und die sensiblen Polizeidaten: Wie sich die deutsche Polizei von Software von #Palantir abhängig macht www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2025...

Precisely this is what I try to highlight in my research regarding the military tech industry with VC backing. I can't stress enough that this raises huge ethical questions in the context of defence. My short policy brief based on my longer research here: www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/policy-h...

imagine a tobacco company urged governments to embed smoking a 'core component' of a healthy lifestyle