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.

New research from Meta's Oversight Board found commercial large language models (LLMs) from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, OpenAI and xAI are far less likely to criticize repressive leaders and governments. The research calls it "free speech infringements by proxy." Apps and material produced by these generative AI tools could actively reproduce restrictions, including on political criticism. It's unclear why these AI models are doing this—underscoring the need for companies to be transparent and build "human rights due diligence" into the process, before it’s too late. China, Thailand, Cambodia and Saudi Arabia topped the list of countries with the highest refusal rates when LLMs were prompted to create materials criticizing governments. 

Nationwide protests against data centers and even demands to stop the AI race constitute a significant glimmer of hope as Artificial Intelligence colonizes every sphere of human existence with terrifying rapidity. The movement, however, faces potential pitfalls that could be fatal. The emergence of stochastic attacks on the AI bosses represents counter-productive adventurism seemingly informed by an ugly primitivism. An equal but opposite threat is exploitation of the movement by elements that really have no critique of the technology at all, but only seek to see it advance under Chinese rather than American techno-oligarchs—specifically the cultish and reactionary "Party for Socialism & Liberation" (sic). PSL is indeed an instrument through which the rulers of China (and Russia) are attempting to groom oppositional forces in the US. This provides convenient fodder for propaganda that would portray any opposition to the AI economy as a tool of Beijing's ambitions to global dominance of the industry. As struggles against data centers now emerge in places like the Philippines, it is critical that we take a Neither East Nor West position and repudiate the global divide-and-rule racket that is the essence of the state system. In Episode 338 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case for an uncompromising abolitionist position on Artificial Intelligence.

The technical prowess of jihadi groups in West Africa is well documented—from the use of surveillance and attack drones to Elon Musk's Starlink and cryptocurrencies. The adoption of generative AI, then, should come as no surprise. New research details how the jihadist movement in Nigeria has become adept at using AI operationally in attack planning, weapons calibration, and the design of explosives. Initial training was delivered through transnational jihadist networks, but Nigerian groups now have dedicated AI teams staffed by trusted personnel drawn from senior operational and technical roles, including bomb-makers, gun specialists, and engineers. "Trial and error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy," a recently demobilized ex-combatant explained to researchers at the Cambridge Programme on AI Science & Policy (CASP).