Hello (and, if you're joining us, welcome!).

We're reading Why We Fear AI by Hagen Blix & Ingeborg Glimmer.

Last week we read the introduction. This week, we'll get into the book in earnest; I'm reading these pieces:

• Why We Fear AI chapter 1: "Capital, Will, and Artificial Intelligence"
• "'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back" by Jason Koebler for 404 Media

(The 404 Media piece is, coincidentally, also kind of relevant to a conversation we had last week during the video chat, so you could think of this as "follow-up".)

(If you haven't ordered Why We Fear AI, please place an order as soon as possible - you can order it here as an ebook or physical copy.)

If you want a look at what my schedule, that's at the end of this email.

local things

I want to remind Michiganders of a couple of things you might want to know about coming up over the next few weeks or months, especially as the weather gets better.

(I wrote, as it snowed outside...)

Some fun events, some political/electoral things. I'll try to keep this section as short as possible from week to week, because I know a lot of you don't live in Michigan, and can't act on this stuff; please bear with us, as this reading group is one of the spokes of a local organizing effort, and we try to help each other out :)

University of Michigan regent primary

(I talked about this last week, but this is the only remaining opportunity to convince people before the deadline, so I'm taking one more swing.)

short version

If you live in Michigan (especially outside of southeast MI - eg if you live in Grand Rapids, Traverse City, or anywhere in the UP) please sign up here by March 19 to join the Democratic party so you can at least potentially vote in the state convention, to elect a regent who doesn't blithely support the UM-LANL datacenter.

longer version

You may or may not know that the University of Michigan is governed by a board of regents, like public universities in many other states. Unlike a lot of other states, in Michigan, regents are elected by a popular vote. Every 8 years, regents go up for reelection, and people can vote in leadership that better-reflects the public's interests.

All of the current incumbents have given broad and uncritical support for the UM-LANL project. This year there's an opportunity to vote out one of those incumbents - Jordan Acker - and elect a candidate regent who has explicitly spoken out against the datacenter and promised to find ways to stop the project. That candidate is Amir Makled. He's a civil rights attorney who has represented UM students in the past, and he has spoken out publicly against the UM-LANL datacenter/military project.

In order to make this happen, people need to attend and vote at the Democratic Spring Convention on April 19 in Detroit. In order to be eligible to vote, attendees must have been members of the Democratic party for at least 30 days. That means the deadline to sign up to be eligible is March 19.

If you live in Michigan, and especially if you live outside of SE Michigan (places like Grand Rapids, Traverse City, Marquette or really anywhere in the UP, etc...), your vote could have a lot of influence over who the Democratic candidate for regent is this year. As a result, organizers are pushing to get people across the state to sign up for the Democratic Party before March 19, and to try to help people travel to Detroit in April to attend and vote at the state convention.

If you're not sure whether you can come to Detroit to attend the convention, please sign up; the folks I'm talking to are working on transportation, childcare, accommodations, and myriad other needs that people will have, trying to make attending more doable for people from across the state. Don't count yourself out; the organizers are determined to help everyone get to the convention.

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(okay, let's get back to it)

routine stuff

If you've read these emails before, this is mostly the same stuff as last week (except for the discount code at the end). You can probably skip it if you're caught up.

format

As a reminder, there are numerous ways to keep up with the reading group:

• newsletter: I send updates on Mondays and Thursdays. In the Monday updates, I'll point to what to read; in the Thursday updates, I'll send an icebreaker question to think about, and a reminder of where & how to join the video chat later that day.
• video chats: Thursdays at 8pm ET we have a video chat on jitsi¹ where we talk about that week's readings. Sometimes we'll have a guest to talk about something related to what we read that week.
• group chat: if you want to chat with people on signal, we have a pretty active group chat. You can join the signal group chat here.

schedule

Here's my tentative schedule for the book. I'm not including the additional readings, but I'm thinking about ways to archive what we read each week - it just doesn't fit well in a table sent via email. If you have suggestions (the signal chat has recommended Zotero - if you have thoughts; please join the signal chat and let us know.)

next book(s)

After Why We Fear AI, we'll read Disabling Intelligences by Rua Williams. If you go to the link to order the book, I've been advised that the discount code PALAUT will give you a 20% discount on the book. Please order the book at your earliest convenience!

I'm also thinking about what our book after Disabling Intelligences will be; if you have suggestions, please feel free to reach out and make a suggestion!

last thoughts

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc... please feel free to reach out. Talk soon.

Also, if you come across something you think we'd like to read, I'd love to hear about it; contact me.

Okay, that's it; see you Thursday to discuss the chapter and other reading.