CounterVortex editor and ranter Bill Weinberg faces imminent cancelation of his landline and DSL service by corporate oppressor Verizon. As fiber-optic is not available in his building, this makes cable the only alternative—which means drilling through exterior walls, threatening the structural integrity of the 19th century tenement. This as the CounterVortex website remains debilitated following an attack by Chinese state-sponsored hackers. With this admittedly marginal dissident voice now in danger of being silenced, the system of corporate rule is increasingly replaced by worse-still actual robot rule. Trump and the fascist tech bros are putting in place the architecture for direct robot control over the military-security apparatus, and even of imperial decision-making. Robo-propaganda has already thoroughly colonized the political process, both in the US and elsewhere. All this as the ecological impacts of the technology continue to propel the apocalypse. In Episode 348 of the CounterVortex podcast, Weinberg looks for glimmers of hope in municipal pushback, and popular refusal of aritifical intelligence and the entire digital leviathan.

Protests happily continue to mount against the rapid encroachment of Artificial Intelligence over all spheres of society—and have met with some victories. Other responses, however, appear to have succumbed to desperation and counter-productive adventurism. But even the United Nations human rights commissioner has taken note amid repeated incidents of AI programs "going rogue," and more industry insiders coming forward to warn of catastrophic risks to humanity. Bernie Sanders has called for legislating a pause on "superintelligent" AI. Meanwhile, in a virtually regulation-free environment, so-called "biological data centers" are pioneering the neural-digital interface—portending the actual abolition of humanity. In Episode 347 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes how the predicament now facing humanity was predicted by dystopian prophets—from Samuel Butler in the 1860s, to Frank Herbert a century later. 

The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Sept. 17 that the planet now faces a "new water reality," announcing its latest report assessing the state of global water resources. Growing numbers around the world increasingly experience "abnormal water supplies," especially due to disruption in freshwater resources, including river flows, groundwater and glaciers.

With the CounterVortex website debilitated by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, chief blogger and ranter Bill Weinberg takes heart in the vibrant scene unfolding this summer in the Lower East Side's Tompkins Square Park—which was kicked off with the anti-tech fest Summer of Ludd. In an historical comparison, Weinberg reads from the December 1966 issue of Paul Krassner's The Realist, in which Robert Anton Wilson wrote on the "cybercultural revolution," and from the Winter 2025 issue of Berkeley anarchist zine Slingshot, in which Anthony Moser rants against Artificial Intelligence. Moser notes how Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki dissed AI-generated anime as "an insult to life itself"—only to have ChatGPT retaliate by targeting his Studio Ghibli for appropriation. In Episode 343, the CounterVortex podcast offers a vigorous defense of authentic human culture, the material world, and real life. 

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher on Aug. 29 warned that the recent rise in the use of drones poses a risk for aid operations in multiple conflicts around the world. He emphasized that international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on humanitarian workers and civilians, continues to apply to drone warfare regardless of how sophisticated or autonomous the weapons become.

The United Nations reported on Aug. 7 that the cost of key foods increased in July as a result of searing heatwaves and ongoing geopolitical instability, which have affected crop yields and global energy prices amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries.

Eighty-one years after Nagasaki, there is growing awareness of the heightening threat of nuclear war. There must be similar awareness of the existential threat to humanity posed by AI, and the hegemony of digital technology generally. The past week has seen cyber-attacks on critical water infrastructure in the US. The Flock AI-boosted surveillance system is being used for doxxing and stalking. Police use of "brain decoders" portends the very eradication of any notion of privacy whatsoever. And there have been still more instances of AI going rogue. The growing use of AI by cyber-criminals and jihadis is hardly more terrifying than its "legitimate" (sic) use by the techno-fascist establishment. Recent protests against the tech giants (such as that by Rise & Resist outside the Google headquarters in New York) are a good start. But in Episode 340 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case for an abolitionist position on Artificial Intelligence—and practical resistance to digital hegemony in everyday life.

The popular case against the data centers now proliferating vertiginously across the United States emphasizes the ecological imperative. As water resources shrink, forcing emergency restrictions on use across the western states, voracious water consumption by the industry is just one of the ways its advance portends imminent human extinction. Meanwhile, the industry slaps back in the courts against communities that would stand up against this advance. But Artificial Intelligence itself poses an existential threat, apart from the direct impacts of the computing power. Even respected voices in the industry warn of a high probability that AI will turn upon and destroy its creators. The bots themselves seem to be warning us of this through ominous messaging. Seeming instances of AI going unilateral have prompted a bipartisan AI Kill Switch bill in Congress. Finally, there is the systematic cultural destruction being wrought by AI—literally shredding humankind's legacy of literacy, to impose a reign of sheer error and idiocy. In Episode 339 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case for an abolitionist position on Artificial Intelligence.