Mark your calendars! The Summer of Ludd is coming to New York City this coming week with a ton of events for the opt-out-curious! I’ll be presenting an Opt Out workshop on both Monday the 29th at 4pm, and again on Tuesday the 30th at noon at the Quaker meeting house (15 Rutherford Place). It’s open to the public and free, with no registration required. Pick up non-digital information about Summer of Ludd in person at Thompkins Square Park in the East Village.

In the meanwhile, I have been busy! Check out the following talks, writing, and videos as Opt Out takes on AI:

• It’s not everyday you’re scooped by the Pope! My paper with danah boyd, Alex Taylor and Ben Shestakofsky on the Political Economy of AI just came out at the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency this weekend. Read the preprint online here — and check out the talk about it that I gave at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton!

• I participated in this rip-roaring debate at Take Back Tech in Atlanta: should we reclaim or abolish AI? It was a ton of fun that inspired a lot of thoughtful conversation and reframed the debate.

For those following my Cyber-cleanse or the Tech Reclaimers, I’ve got news for you too!

• The Tech Reclaimers Forum is live! From alternative ways to discover and keep your music, to experiments with alternative phones, see what others are learning and join in as we reclaim our lives from Big Tech!

• We have several crowd-sourced guides online to help you migrate to privacy protective browsers, to federated social media, to alternative music players. More are on the way!

• My co-founders and I will be speaking about Tech Reclaimers at DEFCON34 in Las Vegas, offering a one-year retrospective on how far we’ve come and where we’re going. Stay tuned!

In other Opt-Out News:

• Europe has released its Digital Sovereignty agenda, and Canada’s new AI Strategy also insists on change as well. Is the tide turning worldwide or will this move embolden tech multinationals or copycat extractive systems?

• Commodore (the old computer company) is teaming up with SailfishOS to offer a new flip phone with “less scroll, more soul.” A modern twist on nostalgic faves!

• Meanwhile, Sailfish’s parent company (Jolla) is releasing their Linux smartphone (the first in over a decade) later this summer, and they’re still accepting pre-orders…

• Personal genetics company 23andMe has to pay $47 million to claimants, thanks to a massive data breach that affected all their customers (note that 23andMe’s founder was once married to one of Google’s co-founders…)

• If you’re worried about AI data centers, look no further than your living room. Smart TV’s are being linked up to collect and process data within your own home. Maybe it’s time to disconnect that cable …

• Speaking of smart TV’s, Walmart, one of the biggest stores and distributors in America, has bought a major tech advertising firm, Vibe.co, for a reported $1.4B, for the purpose of advertising through connected television sets. Yep, definitely time to cut the cord …

• Surveillance pricing is under review in California, whose Attorney General is reviewing how personal data is used to change prices on consumers without their knowledge…

• With all these safety bans coming into effect requiring face-ID for age verification, it’s worth reading this excellent primer on why facial recognition poses more problems than it solves…

• Don’t miss this hilarious and satirical primer on Ai Economics at McSweeneys!

Hang in there, everyone, and make sure you know where your data is!