after a pretty busy spring semester, I'm delighted to announce that I am planning on taking more naps, reading more to my kids, and enjoying longer walks.

Flier for zoom event. Text reads: Accelerate or Die? Digital Damage after AI Acceleration The motto “accelerate or die” encapsulates an ideology lurking behind the rapid buildout of AI data centers across the planet. In this talk, after tracing Big Tech’s swift turn from so-called sustainable development to fossil-fueled acceleration, Dustin Edwards will insist that this moment of AI acceleration is not a foregone conclusion. In contrast to the techno-optimist ideologies that have fueled the recent AI data center boom, many frontline communities opposing data centers insist on a different vision for our collective futures—one rooted in place, attuned to uneven vulnerabilities, and dedicated to slower and more transparent processes of democratic decision making.

Looking forward to talking with folks at UMD this week! My talk is "Accelerate or Die? Digital Damage After AI Acceleration"

Also, making this fired me up and I'm stoked to visit WVU next week! Giving a talk "Hyperscaling: Policy and Protest in the AI Supply Chain." wvu.libcal.com/event/157334...

A visual depiction of the money going into Project Jupiter. There are 12 circles—depicting different companies—that are overlapping.

All this to employ maybe 200 people and emit more carbon that the whole state of New Mexico. I hope the bubble bursts tomorrow.

Charlie Day meme: a scattering of documents pinned on a wall with lines pointing everywhere

researching the financial arrangements (shell companies, political consultants, law firms) of the Stargate Project (openAI/Oracle) has me wrecked

can't a guy (me) go to a coffeeshop without seeing another guy vibe code on claude ?

Four paragraphs of dark blue text on a bright kelly green background. A squiggly line touches the left and right edges near the bottom of the image. Text reads: But, Klein and Taylor reveal, the new supremacist survivalists are far from impregnable. They have no vision of a shared future. All they offer are remixes of a bygone past: the nihilistic, sadistic pleasures of domination. If we're to meet this critical moment and defend what's left of democracy before it's smashed up beyond repair, we must break the doom loop, and find a new way of living together, rooted in our existence on this earth, in the here and now. A story not of end times - but of better times. This book shows us how.

The fight for the living world is upon us... back to writing!! 😰

The Rhetorical Power of Data Centers: Case Studies from the Global North and Global South This Yack article explores the rhetorical power of data centers from Global North and Global South perspectives.

"If the data centers we rely on are built on the infrastructural remains of colonial and imperial ideologies, we must interrogate how these spaces and histories shape our engagement with the newest manifestation of these ideologies."

I think part of the problem, at least in rhetcomp, is too many people never took comparative, BIPOC, and global nonwestern rhetorics and rhetorical histories seriously. Planning to present on this at RSA.

Cameron Tonkinwise thank you for transcribing my sick burn

"I see most people being obsessed with [...] your H index or how many papers you've published. This is all nonsense. And it's completely radical to say, I don't care about this. And what I care about is doing a good job at my actual job.”

This is not a coincidence. It’s not a coincidence because we are the kinds of people who have been here before—or, maybe, you could say have been here all along. AI is not really new in how it harms us. It’s just an exaggerated form."

“Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that most of the people who are outspoken against AI are, in fact, some of the most vulnerable scholars, mostly women, often women of color or other minoritized groups in the academy.

Just wanted to say this whole conversation was so spot on. Thank you so much! This was my transcribed part:

I'm still laughing that that lady's change dot org campaign has like 8 signatures

"People are afraid they'll be criticized if they talk about AI at Cs" man, none of you would last a second as a transsexual woman

This has been my experience too. I am admittedly surrounded by tutors and humanities majors, but still ...

Data centers get makeovers to blunt NIMBY criticism Tech companies are facing backlash over their data centers. Can a facelift help?

Phew, problem solved

ooh, yes, this looks good!! thanks for sharing!

We've had the rise and fall of both the metaverse AND crypto crypto within the last 5 years. This isn't just bad history; this is a concerning lack of short-term memory.

but getting them in essay form is a TREAT

Like, maybe we should have responded differently??? Can't that be a takeaway?

Well, maybe that's why we are here: on the way to having the world's first trillionaire on the backs of stealing and enclosing the world's IP + devastating land, water, and community wellbeing, with no accountability and no vision for a world where people aren't sacrificed in the name of progress.

It's wild to me that one the repeating themes against refusal as a framework is iterations of "we never responded this way to technology in the past."

Can't wait to read!

IMO, this is one reason (of many) why milquetoast AI literacy lessons are such a failure: they don't engage students with questions like, "Should 'robot dogs' be deployed to protect the sprawling infrastructure of AI?"

We're in hell

I admit my patience for polite discourse with genAI hypers is dwindling. When scholars who should know better insist on false dilemmas ("face the future or get left behind") and generally bad faith reasoning, I start to find the "ridicule as praxis" approach pretty appealing.

People asking for decorum about genAI need to get a grip. Billionaires are poisoning our planet for slop. We should be more RUDE.

Writing Faculty Push for the Right to Refuse AI As universities rush to adopt generative AI–powered tools that claim to enhance teaching, learning and workforce preparation, a growing contingent of academics is questioning where that urgency is com...

Writing Faculty Push for the Right to Refuse AI www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

Very grateful for Kathryn Palmer's reporting and the opportunity to speak with her about this topic.

Writing Faculty Push for the Right to Refuse AI

Reporting in @insidehighered.com on the CCCC Resolution on Academic Freedom and Upholding Students' and Teachers' Right to Refuse Generative AI in the Writing Classroom that was passed at the #4c26 Annual Business Meeting.