Almost Everywhere, I notice Artificial Intelligence.
After A.I.s from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google kept recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei said his company would not help the U.S. surveil unwitting civilians or deploy killer drones. In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said contractors don’t get to tell the government how to do its job. Dario Amodei stands by his belief that the decision to kill people must remain a human one.
The Peace Corps has started a new department: The Tech Corps. The Tech Corps’ volunteers will promote American A.I. abroad at farms, hospitals and schools. (Will anyone help people relate with robots and other living creatures?)
San Francisco’s school district bypassed its Board (and disregarded students’ privacy concerns) to approve a contract with OpenAI. Los Angeles and San Diego school districts have also agreed to surveillance of students. No comprehensive federal or California law governs how K-12 schools may use generative A.I.
Then (while I need weeks or months to organize a substack and years to write a book), several colleagues now have A.I.s “write” their scientific reports and political essays and poetry translations in no-time at all. I have to admit that the work these A.I.s generate is admirable.
Paul Kingsnorth has initiated a Writers Against AI Campaign. To support it, a writer must pledge: #1: I will not use AI in my work as a writer. #2: I will not support writers who use AI in their work. #3: I will support writers, illustrators, editors and others in related fields whose work is entirely human-made.
I can agree to #1 and #3. I can’t promise about #2—even when A.I. weakens human brainpower.
Plus, every A.I. activity engages the energy-intensive, water-intensive global super-factory that designs computers and LLMs; requires mining, smelting and refining of ores; manufactures chemicals, generates toxic waste from cradle-to-grave; and requires assembly plants, intercontinental shipping, building and deploying access networks, building and deploying data centers, etcetera.
A.I. threatens our existence.
Faced with A.I.’s profitability, Tech Bros (and users) don’t pause, notice consequences or adjust technology use to respect the ecosystems on which life depends. They speed forward with upgrades and corporate protections.
WHAT OPTIONS DO WE HAVE FOR THINKING ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?
There’s fighting it. I think of John Henry. Born into slavery in 1848, a giant of a man, John Henry worked for the C&O railroad. In 1867 (post slavery), the company delivered a steam-powered machine to drill through Big Bend Mountain near Talcott, West Virginia. Afraid they’d lose their jobs to this machine, John Henry’s crewmates challenged him (their strongest worker) to race against the machine. The steel-driving man nearly doubled the amount of rock that the steam drill cut.
After winning, John Henry collapsed and died.
Taoists advocate for being in concert with reality and other people.
I do not know how to be in concert with A.I.
We can witness what’s happening and write about what we see. After writing a half dozen books and hundreds of blogs and substacks, I get the message that writing is a hobby—like making compost, growing chard and living without a mobile device: it does not contribute to the economy.
There’s waiting for forces beyond our control to end A.I.: After revealing that drone strikes recently damaged three of its UAE and Bahrain data centers, Amazon.com warned of prolonged disruptions to its services. Then, if China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports to American companies, the tech industry and the U.S. economy would be crippled.
I remind myself that life regenerates from ashes (even if the ashes we generate now are toxic and radioactive).
Here’s a round-up of recent news:
AFTER THE U.S./ISRAELI ATTACKS ON IRAN, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA) DIRECTOR GENERAL RAFAEL MARIANO GROSSI said, “We cannot rule out a possible radiological release with serious consequences, including the necessity to evacuate areas as large or larger than major cities. To achieve the long-term assurance that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons and for maintaining the continued effectiveness of the global non-proliferation regime, we must return to diplomacy and negotiations.”
CenturyLink (sometimes called Lumen, now part of AT&T) PLANS TO RETIRE ITS TRADITIONAL COPPER-BASED LANDLINE AND LONG-DISTANCE SERVICES. Customers on these older systems may have to “upgrade” to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) such as WhatsApp or Google Voice. In December the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposal, “Carrier of Last Resort and Network Modernization Staff (R.24-06-012)…and opened a Comment period. In their Reply Comments, AT&T asserted that copper landline “legacy service” (also called POTS, Plain Old Telephone Service) is no longer needed or wanted by 97% of the public. If this number is accurate, then 1.2 million Californians still rely on copper landlines.
During power outages, only wired landlines may work.
Individuals disabled by exposure to electromagnetic radiation (or those who choose to minimize radiation exposure) rely on wired, copper-legacy landlines.
Consumer-advocate organizations (EMF Safety Network, TURN/CWA District 9, Small Business Utility Administration, Center for Accessible Technology, Farm Bureau Federation, Empowering Quality Utility Access for Isolated Localities and others) warn that the Commission must monitor and enforce every step of this transition and into the future, because carriers will likely not otherwise comply with COLR (Carrier of Last Resort) relinquishment mandates. They also clarified that providers are inescapably obligated to provide service that leaves no Californian inadequately served.
Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) supports “reasonable modernization of COLR obligations,” but remains concerned that premature or insufficiently-supported relinquishment risks would “leave rural and high-cost communities without universal, reliable access to essential voice services.”
To preserve California’s landlines, submit comments to the CPUC docket. View Public Comments.
SANTA FE COUNTY FACES ANOTHER PROPOSED SOLAR AND BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE (BESS) FACILITY. If approved, Linea’s Globemallow project (significantly larger than AES’ Rancho Viejo solar/BESS) will be located about 30 miles south of Eldorado. The Clean Energy Coalition (CEC) has posted details and an overall assessment about Globemallow at https://cleanenergycoalitionsfc.org/aes-vs-linea/
CEC notes that Blackstone aims to purchase PNM (New Mexico’s largest utility); and Blackrock just acquired AES (the corporation permitted to build the Rancho Viejo solar/BESS facility) for $33.4 billion. CEC bets that A.I. data centers will play big parts in these corporations’ futures (and New Mexico’s).
Santa Fe County has scheduled a Linea Globemallow BESS hearing March 12, 3pm at the Santa Fe Convention Center. (You can also attend virtually.)
The Planning Commission Hearing will be held April 16, 2026. (Not much posted yet.)
GOVERNMENTS, INDUSTRIES, MEDICAL BUSINESSES, SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS AND FINANCIAL MARKETS NOW DEPEND ON on A.I. and A.I. DATA CENTERS. The U.S. has over 4,000 data centers–more than the next 14 countries combined. Despite citizens’ concerns about their impacts on electricity bills and water quality, many states have offered financial incentives to attract new data centers’ construction jobs, tax revenues and business opportunities. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted that discussions about AI’s energy consumption often overlook that training a human takes twenty years of food!
Every data center server rack uses 328 KG of copper, plus gold, iron, gallium, antimony, tungsten, silver, rare earth elements, indium, tantalum, palladium, barium, niodimium and titanium.
President Trump has directed the Department of the Interior to inventory federal-land mineral deposits and prioritize mineral production where they are found. He’s added mining projects to a Biden-era legislative process intended to speed environmental review for infrastructure projects.
For a strategic response to corporate mining, check out Max Wilbert’s conversation with Tom Grotewohl. In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Grotewohl aims to stop the Copperwood Mine. For every ton of extracted material, only 30 pounds will be copper and 1,970 pounds (98.55%) will be waste. Copperwood’s waste would contain mercury, arsenic, cadmium, lead and many other toxins (40+ million tons in total) to be stored forever on downward-sloping topography, in a water-rich environment, in unprecedented proximity to this continent’s largest, cleanest source of surface freshwater. To oppose S.2554 and urge Congress to protect our public lands instead of handing them over for private exploitation, here’s a sample letter with directions to register your opposition.
National Grid/Eversource/Peabody is installing new electric and gas utility meters in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island that will reportedly track the use of every device in real time. Ratepayers will bear the costs of “grid modernization”—the infrastructure necessary to collect, analyze, store (and sell) this data. Patricia Burke has posted details and ways to act (before March 18 in Massachusetts).
SLINGSHOTS AT GOLIATH
Mesick, Michigan schools implement ‘No Screens’ literacy initiative that replaces classroom technology with physical books and paper. The district aims to improve student literacy and comprehension by reducing reliance on digital devices during the school day. The program involves removing Chromebooks from classrooms and prioritizing handwriting over typing.
The Big Tech Walkout. Start here. https://blog.rebeltechalliance.org/the-big-tech-walkout-2026/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement by Ashley Shew, WW Norton, 2023. When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described “hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn’s disease and tinnitus,” there was no returning to “normal.” Well-meaning people viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives, yet the abled persistently frame disability as an individual’s problem rather than a social one. To forge a more equitable world, Shew advocates for eliminating “technoableism”—the harmful belief that technology is a “solution” for disability—while valuing disabled peoples’ expertise and making society more accessible and equitable.
Representing OVER 3,200 FIREFIGHTERS, paramedics, dispatchers, and other emergency personnel within the Los Angeles County Fire Dept. President of LA County Firefighters Local 104 David Gillotte called for an immediate “cease-and-desist” of any energy storage system facility adjacent to Fire Station 43: “Siting of an ESS system next to an occupied fire station—where firefighters work and reside 24 hours per day—constitutes an unacceptable, unsafe, and indefensible action that directly contradicts established fire protection engineering principles, firefighter safety standards and the intent of applicable codes.”
Former Palantir employee Juan Sebastian Pinto has launched a nonprofit design and education studio, Ziggurat, to fight for AI regulation and big tech accountability…as AI weapons are tested in cities like Minneapolis. The role of Palantir and AI weapons in Minneapolis is a wake up call for America. See Ziggurat’s pitch deck for more. Pinto is collaborating with think-tanks, teachers’ unions, legislators, and activists around the country by creating guides to convey complex AI topics to lay audiences. He supports Against Machines, a movement opposing ICE, Palanitr, Flock, and Data Centers. He’s looking for collaborators, contributors, advisors, and supporters of any kind. Here’s his first zine, Offline Underground.
A European group has published a manifesto that “digital connectivity should be an option, not an obligation: All human beings have the natural right to participate in society without electronic devices.” Associations and private citizens can sign onto it here.
The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South, MediaJustice’s report about data centers, complete with an organizer’s toolkit.