Librarians told 404 Media they're being inundated with new pitches for AI library tech and catalogs are being flooded with AI slop books. But more broadly, AI maximalism across society is supercharging the ideological war on libraries, schools, government workers, and academics.

I'll be giving a talk next Tuesday for the EUt+ webinar series on digital transformation: "Not the digital transformation you planned for: AI accelerationism versus decomputing" Free registration: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

University finances are precarious, but leading institutions are swallowing the pedagogic promises of Anthropic & OpenAI just at the moment when the AI bubble looks ready to burst. Beyond fees and the attrition of skilled staff, will AI trigger the collapse of the entire sector?

If your organisation still feels the need to start any questioning of AI with "We recognise that AI has huge potential to help with XYZ, but.." then they're still not free of the hype. It's past the time for fake even-handedness, and the AI emperor has no clothes.

The opening statement here is jarring: "the U.S. Army quietly signed away a piece of its sovereignty" - we are supposed identify with some sense of concern, because what? The self-sovereign US Army is a force for good? 'The Authoritarian Stack' www.authoritarian-stack.info

The Amazing World Of Tomorrow

The insane financial and ideological all-in-ness around AI is inexplicable by models of capital & profit alone. This is a war on racial and gender equality and on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. White male privilege must prevail to the heat death of the universe, and beyond!

www.civicsoftechnology.org/events If you are EU timezone and are interested in a book club that discusses ai in education, I hope you will join us for the Book Club in December. We will be looking at the themes in Resisting AI by @danmcquillan.bsky.social link to sign up below!

Next week, 5 Nov, we're hosting a talk by Lindsay Weinberg and Anish Vanaik on "astroveillance" in HE "Through astroveillance, conservative political elites attempt to recruit students into roles as partisan monitors and informants against faculty" Open to all here: www.de.ed.ac.uk/event/lindsa...

AI is everywhere, damaging society, causing division, and even suggesting fascistic solutions to social problems. Hear Dan McQuillan in conversation with Andrés Saenz de Sicilia discuss an anti-fascist approach to AI. Mon. Nov. 3 ~ 2pm ET / 7pm UK FREE www.tickettailor.com/events/theph...

'Resisting AI' foreshadowed much of our technofascist moment, but a lot has happened since publication. Why does a broken tech attract such huge commitments? How can it burn so much energy yet claim to save the planet? And can decomputing offer an escape from AI-drive nihilism?

"Decomputing as Resistance" ✊🏼 Nous avons le grand plaisir de publier aujourd'hui la version française du texte de @danmcquillan.bsky.social Il est à découvrir en deux parties (la seconde sera publiée demain) Très belle lecture à vous!

« Decomputing as Resistance » ✊🏼 Après une première partie publiée hier, retrouvez la seconde et dernière partie du texte de @danmcquillan.bsky.social dans laquelle il explore son concept clef de Decomputing. À lire sur Synth bien évidemment (le lien est en commentaire) 👇🏼 Très belle lecture à vous!

On Monday, I'll be talking with Andrés Saenz de Sicilia of The Philosopher magazine about why it's more important than ever to resist AI, and how we can develop a convivial technopolitics. Register for free at www.thephilosopher1923.org/events/ai-an...

Fantastic thread (and pre-print) on Critical AI Literacy in Psychology. The final line from the introduction is brutal: “Ultimately, current AI is research malpractice.”

"We aligned our environmental and climate change sustainability strategy to ensure that buildings and infrastructure at Haslar contribute to net zero carbon emissions" www.gov.uk/government/p... Turns out part of the Green Economy will consist of low carbon concentration camps.

The second part of the Italian translation of 'Decomputing as Resistance' is out. Huge thanks to Gianluca Fuser at 'Controversie – Ripensare le Scienze e le Tecnologie'. Linking to both here: www.controversie.blog/decomputing-... www.controversie.blog/decomputing-...

It was a privilege to be a PhD examiner for this work, delighted it's made it into book form. There's never been a more urgent time for Eoin's critical, nuanced & insightful perspective. 'Chatbot Therapy - A Critical Analysis of AI Mental Health Treatment www.routledge.com/Chatbot-Ther...

'New blueprint for AI regulation' www.gov.uk/government/n... [*this correction to government disinformation involved the use of no AI whatsoever]

'Altman spelled out OpenAI’s “audacious long-term goal”: to build... a staggering 250 gigawatts of capacity by 2033' fortune.com/2025/09/25/i... - AI’s increasingly brazen energy demands revitalise burning as much energy as possible in the service of nationalist expansionism.

The video of my talk last week for the Low Carbon Computing Seminar: "Low Carbon Computing versus The Blackpilled Anthropocene" uofglasgow.zoom.us/rec/share/C5...

this group built a data center tracker www.distilled.earth/p/these-data...

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 ✊ www.vice.com/en/article/c...

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 ✊ www.vice.com/en/article/c...

OpenAI’s New Energy Chief Is a Trump Administration Natural Gas Evangelist www.desmog.com/2025/10/13/o... "The creatures outside looked from [AI] to [fossil fuels], and from [fossil fuels] to [AI] again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" (with apols to Orwell).

Cool yes what fun to do this with Marilyn, a woman definitely not famously abused & exploited by an exploitative patriarchal system

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" danmcquillan.org/wim_locos_ab...

Part 1 of the Italian translation of 'Decomputing as Resistance' is up on Controversie magazine. Huge thanks to editor Gianluca Fuser! 'Decomputing come atto di resistenza' www.controversie.blog/decomputing-... Part 2 is out on Wednesday with an accompanying essay by researcher Natalia Irza.

I wanna posit this really big and awkward question: What does "Canadian digital sovereignty" mean for Indigenous Peoples here when Canada is not only giving up its pretences for "Reconciliation", but also increasingly hostile to Indigenous Peoples who oppose Canada as a resource extraction colony?

It's as if there's some sort of weird cognitive algorithm in the minds of settlers that Indigenous Peoples = backwards and savage therefore anything tech related doesn't apply to them. Ummmm, you do realize all this "Canadian digital sovereignty" stuff requires unfettered access to Indigenous land.

I am once again asking Canadian journalists to ask the most basic-ass question of "on whose land will these be built?" How is it that every other major industry must consider Indigenous rights but with tech it's like "meh". www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

"AI is the broken product of an already-broken system which sucks more of everything into its cycle of simulated solutions. By focusing on energy as the conjunction of materiality & hype, decomputing combines degrowth and conviviality into a policy for post-collapse liveability"

A great panel, fizzing with militant ideas. My questions for a Critical AI Centre included: - Is critical AI a bubble? - How do you deal with institutional capture? - How Butlerian is your Jihad? - Can critical AI save lives?

Sure, I'm meant to be tidying up a report for a meeting at 11.30 but at least 20% of my brain is pondering what costume to wear if a UK ICE tries to nick my friends and neighbours

Tonight in “war ravaged” Portland… a frog brigade standing guard outside the ICE facility. Trump says there’s “nowhere worse than Portland”… and the frogs magically multiply. They’re showing that he’s not only a liar, but Portland is still safe, still weird and still full of people resisting.

I got into a bit of argy-bargy on the Burning Platforms podcast, but tried to hold the line on the need to resist AI across the board: "Bursting Bubbles with Dan McQuillan" burningplatforms.podbean.com/e/bursting-b...

Is Critical AI a bubble?

As one of the Brits sold down the river by a Labour government after being brutally beaten, tortured and disappeared by Italian police in Genoa in 2001, I am entirely unsurprised by this vindictive servility. Solidarity to the Flotilla detainees ✊

My piece on 'Labour's AI Action Plan - a gift to the far right' has been reposted as one of the diverse set of papers for debate at 'The World Transformed 2025' assemblies theworldtransformed.org/twt25/assemb...

Most of the time the mute compulsion of capitalism passes unremarked, as we trudge through the daily struggle to make ends meet. But now, people increasingly turn to each other to say "This AI is a bit crap isn't it. Why is it being shoved down our throats?" #technopoliticisation

'AI Growth Zone' = an assembly point for the stranded assets of the near-future

"Google Calls ICE Agents a Vulnerable Group, Removes ICE-Spotting App ‘Red Dot’" www.404media.co/google-calls... - turning perennial fascist victimhood into technofascist victimhood

Wtaf? "Software giant Palantir snubs ‘undemocratic’ digital ID scheme". This would actually be funny if we weren't living in an emergent technofascism powered by the likes of Palantir... archive.ph/MncRd

Six years ago, almost to the day, Apple removing a similar app from the Hong Kong App Store was seen as such a breach that Tim Cook wrote an all staff email to defend it www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Headline: % of US GDP propped up by data centre build-outs (> consumer spending) & circular financing Punchline: merger of the state with big tech + redistribution of power in our non-democracies 'Are AI Companies Cooking the Books? w/ Sarah Myers West' www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvN1...

Either real-time bidding data or app SDK data is being bought and used by ICE to seize people from the streets. If you didn’t believe that the adtech stack is a human rights concern, I’m not sure what more evidence you need. www.404media.co/ice-to-buy-t...

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!'.

Why are the negative consequences of so-called AI so consistently directed at disabled and racialized people? Disabling Intelligences details the ongoing effects of the eugenicist mindset on our corporate ventures and our interpersonal relationships. link.springer.com/book/9783032...