Hello! We're finishing Why We Fear AI this week, so for this week, let's read the book and reflect on it as a whole.

• Why We Fear AI chapter 5: "Which Side are You On? Professions and Technocracy" & Conclusion

Next week we'll have Hagen Blix join us to talk about the book, as well as political education & organizing. I've had a few opportunities to chat with Hagen and it's always been a great conversation, so I'm looking forward to this.

stickers? stickers!

I set a goal of $50/month, and... it looks like we made it!

I'm as surprised as you are.

above: Some prototypes I made really quickly a few weeks ago. I'm partial to "fuck off with your data center" and "all bots are cops".

above: More paper prototypes that locals made; I personally really like "Yes Birds! No AI." and the stop sign with "SLOP" in place of "STOP".

I'm still thinking through designs, and talking with Stop the Data Center organizers who would benefit from the sticker run, but if you have design ideas, feel free to @ me or message me or something. I'm going to try to narrow it down to 2 (or maybe 3) designs so that there are a lot of friendly stickers "suitable for all ages" and then maybe a smaller run of stickers with fun language (read: "tasteful profanity").

subscribe

Hi, you don't appear to be subscribed. Consider subscribing, because I'll be sharing info on how to get stickers soon (if you want stickers)

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 some reflections and an icebreaker question to think about, and a reminder of where & how to join the video chat.
• 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 (like this 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!