Watching the Shadows

Civil society call to end AI in warfare

More than 200 civil society groups and advocates issued a joint statement calling for an immediate halt to the use of artificial intelligence systems in military "kill chains," warning that AI-accelerated warfare risks facilitating violations of international criminal, human rights and humanitarian law. The signatories said that claimed safeguards such as "human in the loop" mechanisms cannot prevent the lethal consequences of AI-accelerated targeting, but instead risk becoming a means of "rubber-stamping" killing at greatly accelerated speed and scale. (Image: Andrew West via Pixabay)

Podcast: the Space Trilogy revisited

CS Lewis is mainly seen as either a purveyor of goopy children's literature or a Christian moralist fuddy-duddy. But Lewis' Space Trilogy—fantastic literature for adults, or "philosophical science fiction"—also reveals him as a dystopian prophet in the tradition of Orwell. The first two books in the series, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, are a critique of space imperialism that anticipated the Avatar movies. But the final one, That Hideous Strength, is particularly relevant for our historical moment, as it anticipated rule by fascist tech bros with hubristic visions of remaking (or abolishing) humanity. In Episode 332 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that Lewis offered a vital critique of technocracy and "transhumanism" that is now urgently needed, as humanity stands at the cusp of his worst nightmares. (Image via Diary of an Autodidact)

Watching the Shadows

AI: the case for abolition

Trump's executive order purporting to establish a regulation regime for artificial intelligence actually serves the aim of a government partnership with the AI industry to advance the police state. Ironically, it is AI company Anthropic that calls for a moratorium on development of the technology until its threats are assessed. Pope Leo XIV's encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," raises critical points but still echoes the illusion that this technology, now threatening to develop its own powers of "recursive self-improvement," can be effectively regulated. There are encouraging signs of worker pushback against replacement by AI, and an emerging anarchist critique of the technology. Of course the Trump regime is targeting critics for repression as "anti-tech extremists." In Episode 331 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again calls for total abolition of AI, citing unacceptable threats to humanity on ecological, epistemological and eschatological grounds. (Image: Pixabay via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Hasan Piker & the pro-fascist pseudo-left

The administrative subpoenas issued for Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin over their participation in the Cuba caravan are to be opposed—in part because the subpoenas will only give their sinister politics greater cachet among neophyte activists! Piker's shameless shilling for the dictatorships of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin invisibilizes the victims of their ethno-supremacist detention states—such as the Uyghurs of Xinjiang and the Crimean Tatars. This more critical point is obscured in the endless outrage over his supposed anti-Semitism. And with Xi and Putin joining with Trump to build a fascist world order, Piker's brand of campist pseudo-opposition (however overheated) is compromised from the start, mirroring what it ostensibly opposes—subpoenas notwithstanding. In Episode 330 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down in his typically unsparing manner. (Photo: Xinjiang Judicial Administration via The Diplomat)

Watching the Shadows

MAGA-fascism and anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism III

The Justice Department "Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism" has announced a national propaganda tour—as the DoJ is explicitly targeting anti-fascists for prosecution. The tour also comes as the question of Israel has emerged as the critical issue in the split within MAGA—with elements of the breakaway populist wing virtually gloating that the Israel Lobby's support for the Trump-loyal pro-war wing will result in a backlash against Jews. Both wings of MAGA are equally reactionary, yet elements of the supposed "left" are already in a dangerous flirtation with the populist wing—and it is a Democratic congressional hopeful, Maureen Galindo of Texas, who is openly calling for mass detention of "Zionists" in repurposed ICE camps. An incipient Red-Brown alliance can be seen, fueled by the Trump regime's ultra-cynical anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism. In Episode 329 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes an unsparing look. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: resist cellular hegemony! II

In Episode 319 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg resumes his rant against the hegemony of digital and cellular technology—and takes heart from the local New York chapter of the Luddite Club—smart, free-thinking youth who are eschewing cellphones and social media in favor of "real life." Despite the cynical predictions of some, the chapter is true to its values and refreshingly doesn't even have a website—although a documentary film about them is in the works. In other glimmers of hope, the New York City nurses' strike that just ended in victory had as one of the key demands safeguards against workers being replaced by artificial intelligence. And the recent Inida AI Impact Summit in Delhi was disrupted by a protest action. (Image: Wikipedia, modified by CounterVortex)

Watching the Shadows

Anthropic sues Pentagon over ‘risk’ designation

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic sued the US Defense Department ("Department of War") after the Department declared the company a "supply chain risk" and threat to national security. Anthropic maintains that it has no ties to any adversary and has gone to great lengths to prevent adversaries from using its technology. The company asserts that the designation is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act, and actually constitutes retaliation against Anthropic for exercising its free speech rights in deciding how its technology will be used. (Photo: Pixabay via Jurist)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: resist cellular hegemony!

As the architecture of total surveillance falls inexorably into place, cellular technology comes to colonize more and more of daily human existence. Accepted in the banal interest of "convenience," this trajectory ultimately ends in not only the extinction of human freedom, but the abolition of humanity itself—an idea openly embraced by the fascist tech bros as "transhumanism," and warned of by CS Lewis in his eerily prescient 1943 work The Abolition of Man. In Episode 317 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges a revolution of everyday life, in which we start saying no to the relentless encroachment of cellular and digital technology. (Image: Wikipedia, modified by CounterVortex)

Watching the Shadows

Trump Corollary: spheres of influence, white supremacy

Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy instates a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine. Like the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, which was used to justify the "gunboat diplomacy" of that era, this new corollary openly calls for dividing the world into spheres of influence—with the Western Hemisphere assigned to the US. Russia is obviously pleased as punch over this, as it implicitly gives Moscow a free hand in Ukraine—and Putin will likely consider this an acceptable pay-off for his betrayal of Venezuela. However, China is less likely to surrender its massive investments and mega-projects in Latin America in exchange for a free hand to take over Taiwan. The document's text on Europe is even more sinister, revealing a white supremacist agenda that looks not to Washington's traditional allies to counter Russia, but to the continent's Russian-backed far-right movements to counter Washington's traditional allies. In Episode 308 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg exposes the NSS as a further step toward consolidation of a Fascist World Order. (Image: White House)

Watching the Shadows

US instates ‘Trump Corollary’ to Monroe Doctrine

President Donald Trump's new National Security Strategy puts the Western Hemisphere at the center of US foreign policy and revives the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, appending it with a "Trump Corollary." The document presents the Americas as the main line of defense for the US homeland and links that doctrine directly to ongoing military operations against suspected drug traffickers in Caribbean and Pacific waters. It places the Hemisphere as the top regional priority, above Europe, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific, and ties that status to controlling migration, drug flows, and foreign influence before they can reach US territory. It also states that the US will block "non-Hemispheric competitors" from owning or controlling "strategically vital assets" in the Americas, including ports, energy facilities, and telecommunications networks. (Photo: USS Gerald R. Ford. Credit: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Trump for War-is-Peace Prize III

Trump's perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize was given a boost by his "winning" of the first "FIFA Peace Prize"—just as he is carrying out illegal deadly air-strikes in the Caribbean, and threatening Venezuela with war. "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth is denying claims that he gave orders to "kill them all" in the strikes, but Congress is preparing an investigation. Regardless of whether this order was given, the strikes are clearly illegal under the international laws of war. Nonetheless, the Pentagon has opened an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly for his video calling for troops to refuse illegal orders. Trump—who pardoned soldiers convicted of war crimes in his first term—has called for Kelly to be hanged for sedition. In Episode 307 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to be flabbergasted by the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda. (Image via Twitter)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Trump for War-is-Peace Prize II

Trump continues to pursue his perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize—now profferring "peace" plans for Ukraine and Gaza that would actually reward war crimes, and therefore portend wider war. In both cases these new "peace" plans are merely sanitized recapitulations of earlier proposals—for the surrender of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia, and for Israeli annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and "transfer" of their indigenous inhabitants. Meanwhile, the actual winner of this year's Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, is obsequiously pandering to Trump, and playing along with his bellicose designs on her country. In Episode 306 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg cuts through the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda. (Image via Twitter)