BOOK - work in progress

A(I)mbivalence

There is an enormous amount of talk about AI, yet surprisingly little discussion of the conditions under which it is produced.

A(I)mbivalence begins with this contradiction. AI can be useful and still rest on exploitation, appropriated knowledge, enormous resource consumption, and a growing concentration of property and power. People can benefit from individual tools while still having very good reasons to reject the system behind them.

Then it becomes more personal. Even those who understand all of this still live inside these conditions. Should one use AI or boycott it? Consume responsibly? Choose a better provider? Hope for personal purity? A(I)mbivalence examines what individual action can achieve and where a political question becomes only the personal guilt of one person.

The book moves through

01 / The system
Labor, data, ownership, extraction, resources, power.
who benefits?
02 / The individual
Responsibility, guilt, purity, adaptation, refusal.
you cannot shop your way out of structure
03 / The collective
Organization, co-determination, resistance, counterpower.
what becomes possible together?

From the introduction / The Bargain

The question “Is AI good or bad?” is too small, too clean, and far too useful to the people selling the answer.

Read an excerpt

not a book about becoming a better AI consumer

The book is still being written. Some thoughts escape early.

→ Read all notes