AI systems are often used to determine public benefits—but they have been proven to cut off eligible people, deny needed services, and falsely accuse people of fraud. These injustices can’t be made better by having a human simply review and approve the AI: keeping a “human in the loop” isn’t enough.

New job for a technologist w/ extensive experience working on Medicaid (preferred), SNAP, or Unemployment Insurance. They will support advocates to reduce harms to Medicaid recipients intensified by the recent reconciliation bill + also support TTJ’s other advocacy. 10/20 deadline. $120K-$150K.

It’s NYC Climate Week! 🌎 Our partners @ainowinstitute.bsky.social, The Maybe, Common Wealth, and the Climate and Community Institute are co-hosting a livestream on September 24, 2pm PT | 5pm ET about the impacts of the AI data center boom. (1/2)

Big Tech is building huge data centers in the South that increase energy prices and exacerbate environmental harms. We are attending @mediajustice.bsky.social LIVE launch of their new Report + Toolkit to hear from frontline advocates and how we can fight back! Register HERE: bit.ly/DataCentersSouth

New Digital Manager job posting to build out our communications work w/ a focus on community engagement + organizing. Remote, 5+ years experience req’d, pays $75-$95K, great benefits, flexible schedule. Preference for person in the US South. Full details + application process below. Please share!

New resource from us: a critic's guide to deciding if AI is right for your organization. It's a punchy 5 pages of the right questions to ask before hopping on the AI hype train. /1 www.techtonicjustice.org/resources/de...

#Medicaid & #Medicare turn 60 today, weeks after Trump’s Reconciliation Bill cut $1,000,000,000,000 from federal healthcare spending - defunding Medicaid and cutting health care for around 17 million people. On top of Medicaid access being continuously threatened by life-altering AI decisions. (1/4)

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), without it, people with disabilities would not have equal access in all areas of public life. In 2025, the fight for accessibility is disrupted by the invisible hand of AI decisions. This is why TechTonic Justice was born.

The advancement of AI must deliver first and foremost for the people; we can't afford to let Big Tech and Big Oil lobbyists write the rules. That's why we need a People’s AI Action Plan that puts the needs of everyday Americans over corporate profits. peoplesaiaction.com

Reminder that we have three openings now: one paid, part-time internship for a Digital Content Creator (deadline this Friday) and two permanent full-time positions for an Experienced Attorney and Operations Manager (deadline 7/1). Details in thread.

AI is central to the conservative agenda to destroy government capacity and public benefit programs, but its role is hidden. Here, we’ve got destructive policy being justified by the deluded notion that AI and related technology will make it less inaccurate and harmful.

Our latest newsletter has 3 job announcements (attorney, ops manager, paid social media intern) + updates. Get the latest on presentations, a NYTimes OpEd, a Tech Policy Press essay, + the reconciliation bill pending in the U.S. Senate that will snatch health care + food from tens of millions of ppl

Come join us TODAY (Tuesday) at 12:30 pacific / 3:30 eastern to talk about AI and the ways people with power--government officials, landlords, employers, and others--use it in ways that harm low-income people and how TechTonic Justice is fighting back. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../W...

AI is the most destructive way for conservatives to cut Medicaid + other benefit programs. Now, it’ll play a role in the effort to impose requirements on Medicaid recipients to report work or lose insurance. We cover that within a bigger-picture look at these termination traps in this NYT OpEd.

This great series of essays explains this moment of collusion between Big Tech + authoritarian forces that threatens democracy. Our president @kevindeliban.bsky.social’s essay is the fourth in the thread + explains how AI is stripping people of the stability needed to participate in democracy.

Two new entries in the series org'zed by @techpolicypress.bsky.social + @datasociety.bsky.social on tech power + democratic crisis. Tamara Kneese (@tamigraph.bsky.social) on energy demands: www.techpolicy.press/why-are-tech... Reem Suleiman on data misuse: www.techpolicy.press/public-secto...

How does democracy exist when AI makes life too unstable + too poor to participate in it? TTJ prez @kevindeliban.bsky.social lays out the case + the answers in this essay, one entry in a series coordinated by @techpolicypress.bsky.social + @datasociety.bsky.social on tech’s threats to democracy.

Join us for a conversation on combatting the harms of AI that we're hosting on June 10 with our friends at Spitfire Strategies. We'll talk about how governments, employers, + others use AI to make high-stakes decisions about people’s lives + what we can do to fight back. Bring a friend!

Happening one hour from now (10 am PT / 1 pm ET)! Join live to help me get the word out on the dangers of AI, especially for low-income communities. Let us know you're there with comments + questions. Two ways to join: CXOTalk page: www.cxotalk.com/episode/ai-f... LinkedIn event: lnkd.in/gqB5i_nN

In this article on the pending budget bill, TTJ prez @kevindeliban.bsky.social: "The House Republican proposal is stealing from poor people to give huge handouts to Big Tech to build technology that is going to perpetuate the president’s authoritarian plans + crackdowns against vulnerable people.”

Asking folks who care about AI/tech injustice to show up for Kevin's hour-long appearance this Friday at 1 pm ET on the #CXOTalk podcast. We'll focus on the shocking scale of AI failures, particularly for low-income people. Join the event + add it to your calendar: www.cxotalk.com/episode/ai-f...

TTJ's @kevindeliban.bsky.social will join #CXOTalk this Friday at 1 pm ET to talk about AI-related injustice, especially the harms to low-income communities. Tune in live this Friday and share your thoughts, questions, etc. You can also add it to your calendar: www.cxotalk.com/episode/ai-f...

It's the six-month anniversary of TechTonic Justice's formal launch to fight the ground-level harms that AI causes low-income communities. With rapidly spreading authoritarianism enabled by AI + Big Tech, our mission is even more urgent than it was six months ago... /1

While the administration and Congress scheme to gut Medicaid and SNAP, their proposed law would give $500 BILLION to Big Tech to force harmful AI on the federal gov't + the public. So, this new story--"Trump's AI push raises red flags for the poorest Americans"--is particularly timely. /1

Another story on harmful AI use: "This is a problem that's coming for everybody," said TTJ president @kevindeliban.bsky.social. "But it just so happens that it's deployed first + most perniciously against the communities that have the fewest resources to fight back.”

Invisible AI is making decisions about our health care, work, housing, public benefits, and kids all the time. Check out our guide to help spot where gov’t officials, landlords, bosses, and others are using AI and start fighting back! www.techtonicjustice.org/resources/ti...

*Chef’s kiss* for this guide to recognizing AI discrimination from @techtonicjustice.bsky.social. Read, rinse, repost

By @techtonicjustice.bsky.social (via @alexhanna.bsky.social). "government officials, landlords, employers, educators...who use AI to make decisions don’t announce it. This guide is...to help you figure out if AI is being used & what you can do about it." www.techtonicjustice.org/resources/ti...

Do you ever wonder if a landlord, a boss, insurance company, or government agency is using AI to make a decision about your job, home, health care, or benefits? Our new guide goes over the clues + gives tips on finding out more and fighting back. Read+share! www.techtonicjustice.org/resources/ti...

AI is a weapon of scale and reach. The simultaneous capture and destruction of American government simply couldn’t happen this quickly without AI.

We've only officially been at this 4 months, and we're already doing a bunch of cool stuff! Let me know if we can support you in efforts to fight the harms that AI causes low-income folks. We can educate, train, advise, strategize, raise awareness, and, soon(ish), litigate.

AI's ubiquity offers a chance to fight back in new ways against old efforts to make society more unequal, to undermine our stability, + to rig government exclusively for the rich. Here's our latest newsletter showing what we--launched in November '24--are doing to punch above our weight. Join us!

Can any democracy survive in conditions that allow for widespread AI use? No "guardrails" can possibly control the harms: misinfo, weaponizing+destroying state capacity, surveillance, punishing dissent, increasing corporate control, destabilizing life (work, health care, school). AI attacks it all.

This is one key step on the path to building ground-up resistance to harmful use of AI. As folks learn what’s happening, they’ll see it in their communities. And, TechTonic Justice will be there to help them fight it.

One thing we do is train frontline advocates serving low-income people on the ways AI is used to make decisions about folks’ benefits, work, housing, and schooling + how to fight it. Here, Washington’s legal aid community was a great host + audience. They left saying “oh sh*t,” the right takeaway.

"Keep the human in human services." Is that quote about AI from a bleeding heart do-gooder (Kevin) or a representative of the US's biggest data analytics firm (SAS)? For more surprises + deep discussion of AI's harmful use in public benefits, check out the March 13 episode of @wbur.org's On Point.

Join TTJ's president @kevindeliban.bsky.social on LIVE radio on Thursday morning at 10 am eastern (or the stream if you tune in later). He'll appear on the NPR show/podcast On Point to talk about the ways AI used in public benefits systems harms low-income people. www.wbur.org/radio/progra...

Start seeing "AI" more as a system for reorganizing and redistributing societal resources upward and less as a set of technologies with specific good or bad uses (almost always bad when it's making decisions).

Who are the people hurt by AI decision-making? Here, The Lever's Lois Parshley recounts the horrors faced by Medicaid recipients who can't get care, high school students targeted for police terror, and parents who lose custody of kids. Rage Against The Algorithm www.levernews.com/rage-against...

If DOGE/Musk/Trump can use AI so destructively in gov’t, imagine what powerful private actors who make key decisions about our lives—big tech, landlords, employers, insurers, banks—will do when they’re unrestrained AND emboldened. Now’s the time for ground-up power around a just vision of the future

@support.bsky.team My org's account (TechTonic Justice) has gained 900+ followers in the last 10+ hours--from 1.5K to 2.4K. I don't see any post/activity that would make the follower increase make sense. Just want to make sure nothing funny/bot-driven is going on. Thanks.

Social Security closures are devastating. People already wait hours to be seen + years to get benefits. How will Trump/Musk justify closures? By lying that bunk AI can do the work. AI = harm for real people, destruction of gov't, loss of services, corporate power, environmental degradation, etc.

Trump is the first AI president, weaponizing the technology to destroy government services + workers. The AI isn’t neutral: Musk programs it to hunt for anything he/Trump don’t like. Read more: 1. www.techpolicy.press/ai-cant-solv... (w/ @alicetiara.bsky.social ) 2. thehill.com/opinion/tech...

“TechTonic found that even before the Trump administration’s expansion, AI + related tech influenced basic decisions for almost all 92 million low-income Americans — impacting how people live, work, learn, + care for their families. And those technologies often reach conclusions that harm people.”

Grateful to have my work (and, scarily, life) profiled in a way that puts the issue I care most about--a more just world for low-income people--front and center. Please read + spread the message that use of AI undermines people's ability to have decent, stable housing, work, education, +health care

While Elon Musk aggressively pursues “AI-first governance,” the American people remain skeptical of AI and Big Tech. “The administration’s current AI blitzkrieg may intensify this antipathy,” @kevindeliban.bsky.social writes. thehill.com/opinion/tech...

🚨 AI is quietly reshaping the government. President Trump has said he wants to make the U.S. "the world capital of AI," but these systems are already wrongfully denying people health care, food, and housing at scale.🧵

That new organization mentioned? It's us. Grateful for Lois Parshley's comprehensive examination of the use of AI to make decisions harming low-income people. Lots of great quotes from others fighting AI, including people directly affected + advocates like @clarenceokoh.bsky.social + Anjana Samant.

"The incentives never align for anybody to do right by poor people.” Amazing deep dive by @loisparshley.bsky.social of @levernews.com on our work + how powerful people use AI in ways that harm low-income folks: states cutting health care, landlords denying housing, cops targeting students, etc.

Have just watched Kevin @techtonicjustice.bsky.social speaking with CT lawmakers about AI with lots of good questions from citizens & man it feels good to glimpse functional civic engagement.