Must-Reads and the Rise of the AI Industrial Complex
"This is about the algorithmic entrenchment of administrative violence."
Must-Reads
From Israeli attacks on Palestinian booksellers to the role of AI in Musk’s administrative coup, here are some of the most important articles I’ve read this week.
- It’s Time for a United Front to Take on Billionaire Rule by Luis Feliz Leon. “The U.S. working class has been thrown onto the battlefield with no organization. And we are in disarray. We must get our forces to coalesce into a united front, fusing the powers of disruption and solidarity. We need to fight back. But how?”
- In the Face of Overwhelm by Asha Ransby-Sporn. “Beyond a laundry list of moral positions or communities we care about, we should be tying ourselves together with a coherent vision for the direction we want our society to go—and a worldview about how it should work—that can compete with the individualist, free-market economic populism and so-called patriotism of the MAGA Right.”
- DOGE’s Illegal Takeover Pulls From Fascist Playbooks by Schuyler Mitchell. “Right now, we’re in a sort of pilot phase. The legal system is still there to contain Trump, but he’s seeing how far he can stretch and warp its bounds until it breaks.”
- ICE Wants to Know If You’re Posting Negative Things About It Online by Sam Biddle. “If this scanning uncovers anything the agency deems suspicious, ICE is asking its contractors to drill down into the background of social media users.”
- The Day Israel Came for the Booksellers by Oren Ziv. “If at any point over the past year and a half you might have thought the Israeli authorities had already crossed every possible threshold when it comes to curtailing Palestinians’ freedom of expression, you would have been mistaken. Because yesterday, Israeli police raided two branches of a world-famous Palestinian bookstore in occupied East Jerusalem, arrested the owner and his nephew, and seized a selection of books — including a children’s coloring book.”
- Mayor Adams to Sign Order Allowing ICE Agents Into Rikers Island by Luis Ferré-Sadurní. “The move followed a meeting earlier Thursday between Mr. Adams, a Democrat, and President Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, in Lower Manhattan. The meeting was seen as an early test of the mayor’s relationship with the Trump administration, and of the degree to which Mr. Adams might owe some fealty after the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against the mayor.”
- You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism by Janus Rose. “Perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism—an individualist solution to problems that can only be solved by collective action.”
- Native Nations Mobilize Against ICE Targeting and Profiling by Luna Reyna. “Several Native nations, including The Yankton Sioux Tribe and Rosebud Sioux Tribe, are temporarily waiving tribal ID card fees for enrolled citizens, while the Ho-Chunk Nation is reimbursing costs for passports and the Navajo Nation continues to release resources and guides on what to say if you are stopped and questioned by ICE.”
- Snapshots: I Spoke With 20 People in Gaza After the Ceasefire. My Heart Broke 20 Times by Mohammed R. Mhawish. “‘Everything is just ash and smoke. I found her ring in the rubble. It was blackened, but I could still see our names engraved inside. I held it so tight it cut my palm. I didn’t feel it. All I felt was her absence. In this very same balcony that is now a pile of rubble, we used to sit every night to drink tea.’”
- Officially Ending the Walk by Susan Raffo. “I look forward, every day, to learning how to expand the risks I can take. I look forward to every single pushback and pull forward that comes from the impact of these words.”
ICYMI
This week, I wrote about managing emotional overwhelm during these times, on a personal level and in our organizing groups. The piece includes a lot of practical advice and a grounding exercise that I sometimes use in group settings. From what I am observing, both online and in-person, a lot of people might want to check this one out.
Ayni Institute Workshops
The Ayni Institute has a free series of upcoming workshops, including an Emotional Resiliency Workshop, a Movement Ecology Workshop, an Organizational Seasons Workshop and a Coordination Fundamentals Workshop. The Ayni Institute is a training and research organization for movements that are seeking to bring about a more reciprocal world. I have attended some of their workshops over the years and found them helpful and rewarding.
Making a Plan
My friend Mariame Kaba has created a wonderful new zine called "Making a Plan" that aims to help politically-minded people chart a course in this moment. She writes, "It is my hope that this tool in process, which benefited from the input of many seasoned activists, helps you to connect the personal to the political. I hope that this offers the beginning of a bridge between information and action."
The Rise of the AI Industrial Complex
Elon Musk’s efforts to gut and rewire the US government, using an AI-first strategy are proceeding apace. In addition to heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk is also leading a bid to buy up the resources of Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT. Open AI is currently a capped-profit subsidiary governed by a nonprofit structure (basically, a nonprofit transmogrifying into a for-profit company). Musk claimed this week that he would drop his effort to buy up Open AI’s assets if the company would cease its for-profit conversion. Musk has previously sued Open AI for breach of contract, complaining that he contributed $50 million to the organization’s nonprofit mission.
Much has been written about the rivalry between Elon Musk and Open AI CEO Sam Altman. Obviously, there are no good guys in this standoff. Both men are nefarious billionaires who are angling for position in this smash-and-grab era of politics. Musk is gutting and rewiring the machinery of the federal government, seemingly without legal constraints. Altman is widely recognized as a leader in the global AI race, but he’s also a man fumbling to keep his crown after China’s DeepSeek shook up the market. Longstanding allegations of abuse by Altman’s younger sister have not loosened his hold on the industry, but DeepSeek’s cheaper approach to AI, and an ongoing, critical round of fundraising—which Musk has now disrupted—have created a vulnerable moment for Altman’s highly valued but still unprofitable company.
The real story here isn’t the rivalry between two scumbag billionaires, but rather, why gaining control of the AI market is so important to Musk right now. As Musk seeks to rewire the government with an AI-first policy, he is seeking to make federal systems dependent on AI. As Eryk Salvaggio recently wrote:
We are in the midst of a political coup that, if successful, would forever change the nature of American government. It is not taking place in the streets. There is no martial law. It is taking place cubicle by cubicle in federal agencies and in the mundane automation of bureaucracy. The rationale is based on a productivity myth that the goal of bureaucracy is merely what it produces (services, information, governance) and can be isolated from the process through which democracy achieves those ends: debate, deliberation, and consensus.
Musk is seeking to irrevocably destroy the systems that currently manage federal affairs and replace them with AI technologies. For months, the tech industry has been dogged by speculation about when the AI bubble might burst. The spectacle of hype around AI products has not yielded profitable case uses for the technology. Altman has openly admitted that Open AI has lost money on its most advanced product. DeepSeek’s debut further destabilized the market.
Musk, however, clearly has a vision for entrenching AI and ensuring its future, however unethical, environmentally destructive, and ineffective the technology may be. If the human-powered infrastructure of the federal government is destroyed and replaced with AI, tech leaders producing AI would be as secure in their business as major weapons contractors. Musk is working to create an AI equivalent of the Military Industrial Complex, permanently marrying the functions of the federal government, and the interests of the US empire, to an industry that might not otherwise survive. You could call this project the Algorithmic Industrial Complex, the AI Industrial Complex, or algorithmic governance.
Musk wants to seize Open AI, or beat back its for-profit aspirations, while his own AI company, xAI, takes the lead. This is about much more than who will lead an industry. It’s about disemboweling the federal government and reanimating its corpse with dubious tech, and controlling that technology. The fascist implications of this technological turn are extremely daunting. As Dan McQuillan wrote in his essential book, Resisting AI:
Rather than being an apocalyptic technology, AI is more aptly characterized as a form of supercharged bureaucracy that ramps up everyday cruelties, such as those in our systems of welfare. In general … AI doesn’t lead to a new dystopia ruled over by machines but an intensification of existing misery through speculative tendencies that echo those of finance capital.
This is about the algorithmic entrenchment of administrative violence. Just as Israel used AI to designate an ever greater number of homes in Gaza as military targets, organized abandonment and the disposal of human beings will be ramped up here, in the United States, under algorithmic governance. Put simply, the AI Industrial Complex will escalate the harms and indignities of an already violent system.
Some people may find it difficult to denounce these threats, as they may feel that, by doing so, they are defending an already insidious status quo. After all, the federal government’s current handling of healthcare, disaster relief, education, and support for disabled and impoverished people is not adequate, just or equitable. Some may fear that by critiquing Musk’s efforts, they are characterizing existing systems as acceptable, or even ideal. We must find language that circumvents these concerns. As Asha Ransby-Sporn put it this week, “[A] direct government takeover by the richest man in the world is a nightmarish escalation of how bad bad can get when the rug is pulled all the way out from under.”
Many people were already experiencing organized abandonment, abuse, and administrative violence under this system. Our desire for change and transformation is legitimate, but Musk’s acceleration of administrative violence must be adamantly opposed. Republicans are seeking to slash Medicaid and SNAP, in order to fund $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that would disproportionately benefit the ultra-wealthy. We should feel assured that the AI Industrial Complex would further cull the rolls of federal services.
Such moves are not unprecedented. More than half a million Australians were affected by the country’s Robodebt scheme—an automated effort to make Australia’s welfare system more efficient—which wrongly accused many recipients of owing the government large amounts of money. In their efforts to pay back funds the system claimed they weren’t entitled to, some people sold their cars, exhausted their savings, took out loans, and fell into despair. Some died by suicide. Ultimately, the tech was revealed to be at fault. A government inquiry into the scandal described the scheme as a "costly failure of public administration.” Commissioner Catherine Holmes wrote, "Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.”
This is what we can expect from AI, not only because the technology is faulty, error-prone and ill-equipped to do the work of governance, but because of the agendas and politics of those who are developing and deploying it. Elon Musk plans to power the US government with a product scheme that might have collapsed soon, if not for his administrative coup.
I cannot offer you a blueprint for defeating this agenda, but I do have some thoughts on the subject. The first is that Musk must be centered in all talking points around this situation, rather than Trump, for a number of reasons. Musk is more vulnerable than Trump. Musk has no legal mandate, and is actually functioning outside the law. The MAGA movement’s support for Musk and his agenda is not guaranteed, as it is for Trump, who receives constant approval as an article of faith. Musk can be isolated from Trump, and narratively, he should be. He’s weaker that way. Depicting Musk as the true architect and potential leader of a new kind of governance also creates a narrative that could ultimately alienate him from Trump.
However, we cannot rely on tensions within the MAGA movement or between Trump and his techno-fascist allies. We must build working-class opposition to these forces. We know that there are bipartisan, class-based frustrations that can be leveraged in this moment. The public response to Luigi Mangione’s alleged actions indicates that people are tired of being screwed over, and denied the care they need, while the rich get richer. That sentiment must be revived toward constructive ends. Acts of protest and public displays of refusal are important right now. Given that most people don’t understand the inner mechanics of the federal government, we need a strong, clear, moral narrative for the public to latch onto. We need the power of a good story and we need momentum.
Democratic leaders have been useless during this crisis, but my years of organizing have taught me that if you can create momentum at a grassroots level, officials will often line up to ride it. Democratic officials will not create the moment we need, but once that moment exists, they will want a piece of it, and that could give us some leverage.
As Zack Beauchamp has argued, federal workers also have an important role to play right now, in delaying and obstructing Musk’s efforts. Brian Merchant reports that some federal tech workers have undertaken such resistance by "declining to let DOGE officials access systems, and throwing up whatever roadblocks are possible to stop them from ingesting private information." Federal workers have also rushed to join unions. As of this week, the American Federation of Government Employees has the highest number of dues-paying members in the union's history.
Labor unions have taken a strong stance in the courts, but unions around the country should also prepare for more drastic actions, such as coordinating mass disruptions and work stoppages. This administration has demonstrated a willingness to violate court orders, and in the absence of judicial constraints, protest and disruption will be the public's only recourse. Coalitions must decide on red lines, with regard to the administration's defiance of court orders, and act accordingly.
Those of us who consider ourselves politically engaged must move beyond doomscrolling, panic, and online denunciation, and figure out how to take action where we are, when we can. We will all have roles to play as this coup continues. One thing is clear: This society cannot be allowed to function on Musk’s terms.
Much love,
Kelly
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