Dan McQuillan
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danmcquillan.bsky.social
Dan McQuillan
@danmcquillan.bsky.social
7.3K followers 360 following 850 posts
https://danmcquillan.org/
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danmcquillan.bsky.social
"“With AI and robotics, you can actually increase the global economy by a factor of 10 or 100. There’s not like an obvious limit,” Musk told the audience."
This idiot's dancing robots are dancing on the graves of climate refugees #ClimateEmergency #Degrowth
FT headline reading "Elon Musk celebrates $1tn Tesla pay vote victory" alongside photo of Musk
November 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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...
The EU's dubious vision of economic growth that could be digitally decoupled from carbon emissions has resulted in a deeply reactionary technopolitics. While it was never really the case that innovative tech efficiencies would magic up unlimited growth without climate consequences, the mask has really slipped with the advent of AI. Massive institutional and financial buy-in is failing to conceal AI's character as an already-broken technology trying to fix a broken system. While AI's imaginaries are far-right-friendly and accelerationist, the material consequences include a re-centring of high energy consumption as a sign of progress. This talk will propose decomputing as an alternative form of digital transformation; one that centres social justice, aligns with degrowth and applies people-powered conviviality to the governance of tech for the common good.
November 6, 2025 at 4:17 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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...
A screenshot of the event page
October 30, 2025 at 7:55 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
'New blueprint for AI regulation' www.gov.uk/government/n...
[*this correction to government disinformation involved the use of no AI whatsoever]
A screengrab of the press release's first para, with the word 'among' crossed-out in red and replaced with 'none': "More new homes, better outcomes for patients, and world-leading innovations are among the benefits people can expect to see from a new blueprint for AI regulation being announced today, as the government slashes bureaucracy and ramps up the safe adoption of AI to unlock its full potential. "
October 22, 2025 at 9:35 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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...
A picture of an old-fashioned computer monitor with a black pill graphic superimposed on it
October 20, 2025 at 11:26 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 9:50 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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 ✊
Headline from The National accompanied by a photo of Keir Starmer. The deadline reads "LATEST: Keir Starmer's spokesman has said that the detention of activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters is 'a matter for the Israeli government', "
October 7, 2025 at 8:10 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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...
October 6, 2025 at 5:31 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
'AI Growth Zone' = an assembly point for the stranded assets of the near-future
photo of an empty lot seen through a wire fence
October 4, 2025 at 2:31 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
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
screenshot of Times headlines reading "Software giant Palantir snubs ‘undemocratic’ digital ID scheme. The US-based company, which had been touted as a potential bidder, said that it would not seek any contracts around it"
October 3, 2025 at 11:40 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Bubbles within bubbles: 'Oracle's share price leap dependent on a cloud deal with Open AI' archive.ph/nQ5vQ No doubt Larry will funnel some winnings into our beloved Tony Blair Institute and into making sure AI keeps us 'on our best behaviour' www.businessinsider.com/larry-elliso...
Larry's smiling face
September 11, 2025 at 10:57 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
I should have said, the barista's reply is even funnier: "Sorry, we filled it with an AI agent"
August 4, 2025 at 5:52 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
@bcmerchant.bsky.social a funny/not funny t-shirt (via www.instagram.com/p/DM0XtRcx5lN/)
August 3, 2025 at 10:57 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Really rather chuffed to see 'Resisting AI' pop up as a prop in an insta video takedown of techbros
instagram.com/p/DM0XtRcx5lN/
A screenshot of the instgram video showing winnie_thepooj holding an open copy of 'Resisting AI' while standing behind the counter in Brooklyn Coffee Shop
August 1, 2025 at 7:41 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
- how it started: quote from 'Resisting AI', 2022: "Given the historical alliances between fascism and big business, we should also ask whether contemporary AI corporations would baulk at putting the levers of mass correlation at the disposal of regimes of rationalized ethnocentrism" - how it's going: Photo of tech oligarchs at Trump's inauguration
July 30, 2025 at 6:22 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Daron Acemoglu wrote in Prospect magazine that AI can be pro-worker and help cure cancer but only if we focus on domain-specific models. The magazine just printed my letter refuting his claims and his backward-looking embrace of thoughtless tech. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/letter...
AI’s backwards vision Daron Acemoglu (“AI’s biggest secret”, July) is right to describe the drive for artificial general intelligence (AGI) as a form of “bait and switch”. Unfortunately, by recommending domain-specific AI models, he does the same. All forms of neural network are innately opaque and will turn even “high quality data” into unreliable predictions. Rather than expanding human capabilities, AI relies on extracting people’s labour and using it to precaritise others. It’s already clear that the tighter we are “coupled together” with AI, the greater the degradation of critical thought and decision-making. None of Acemoglu’s alternative claims, from pro-worker AI to solving cancer, will emerge from this apparatus of mathematical dissimulation. His essay replaces dreams of AGI with dreams of productivity, a stance which only intensifies AI’s corrosive potential. We can see this in the UK, where the government’s obsession with growth has elevated AI above all social or environmental concerns. Regrettably, the links between AI’s maths and metrics and the historical eugenics movement resonate only too well in a political milieu focused on the total mobilisation of the nation and further marginalisation of the unproductive. Acemoglu’s rallying cry is “choice” but he asks us to embrace the opposite. All AI is fundamentally backward-looking, because it only knows the world through data from the past. No statistical juggling will produce truly novel options for reimagining and restructuring society. Rather than accelerate our current trajectory with technologies of thoughtlessness, it’s time to explore real options like degrowth. AI as we know it, even when it is domain-specific, is simply an obstacle to a just transition. Dan McQuillan, senior lecturer in critical AI, Goldsmiths, University of London and author of Resisting AI (Bristol University Press)
July 16, 2025 at 8:57 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
In tomorrow's talk (free signup!) I'll detail the idea of 'decomputing' as full spectrum resistance to AI's social and environmental harms. Decomputing draws from degrowth and 'de-automatisation' to propose both tactics and alternative imaginaries. www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/de/unstitchi...
Poster listing the 'Unstitching datafication' series of talks, of which the last one is decribed in the text of this post.
July 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Giving the final talk next week in the Media of Cooperation series 'Unstitching Datafication'. I'll try to pull some recent themes together under the heading 'Decomputing as Resistance' 1.15pm UK / 1.15pm CET 16-7-25 Free signup via www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en/events/le...
Poster for the series 'Unstitching Datafication' which repeats the info given in the post
July 10, 2025 at 3:37 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic put $23million into an academy for brainwashing teachers.
archive.ph/kffpB
Conversely, and ICYMI:
- ''Questions for Anthropic (or any other LLM-pusher)' danmcquillan.org/questions_fo...
- 'The role of the University is to resist AI' danmcquillan.org/cpct_seminar...
Header image from the New York Times article titled 'OpenAI and Microsoft Bankroll New A.I. Training for Teachers: The American Federation of Teachers said it would use the $23 million, including $500,000 from the A.I. start-up Anthropic, to create a national training center'
July 8, 2025 at 12:38 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Image of a toddler being swung from their parents arms, showing scores saying "+2 IQ" and "-12 ADHD"
July 5, 2025 at 4:56 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
"Nucleus gave us a report on which embryos were likely ...to grow into adults with above average cognitive abilities".
The dashboard allows you to deselect an embryo with alleged genome indicators including ADHD, OCD, osteoarthritis, male-pattern baldness & allergies #eugenics
A screenshot of the Nucleus Genomics' embryo dashboard, titled "Lily and Brad's embryos" and showing a set of pink and blue buttons labelled 'Embryo 1', Embryo 2' etc
July 5, 2025 at 4:50 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but AI's Chains of Thought"
archive.ph/BFzsX
June 24, 2025 at 4:11 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
I've posted my seminar on 'The role of the university is to resist AI', which takes as its text Ivan Illich's 'Tools for Conviviality'. danmcquillan.org/cpct_seminar...
A historical photo of Ivan Illich being interviewed by a camera crew. Speech bubbles have been added to the image. The speech bubble from the interviewer says "The role of the university is...?" and the speech bubble from Illich says "...to resist AI".
June 23, 2025 at 5:59 AM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
Thanks to POLITICO Pro Morning Technology UK for asking me to respond their weekly Q&A for the Friday 13th(!) edition. As they put it in the newsletter intro, "AI academic Dan McQuillan has some… strong feelings about the U.K.’s AI strategy".
danmcquillan.org/mtuk_q_and_a...
Screenshot of the MTUK newsletter. Content as per the linked blog post https://danmcquillan.org/mtuk_q_and_a.html
June 16, 2025 at 12:29 PM
danmcquillan.bsky.social
'll be giving an Illich-informed talk on Wed 11th June 16:00 UK time where I'll be proposing that the role of the university is to resist AI. There'll be plenty of time for discussion! Registration via docs.google.com/document/d/e... (scroll down) - more details danmcquillan.org/cpct_abstrac...
Photo Illich interviewed by Guillio Machetti, Italian actor and presenter, at CIDOC in the early 1970s, plus added voice bubbles with the title of the talk.
June 2, 2025 at 4:13 PM