US Law Enforcement Warns of 'Anti-Tech Extremism' as AI Hatred Grows

[highplainsdem]

Source: Wired

In the wake of attacks on CEOs, a nationwide protest movement targeting data centers, and increasing concerns about AI job replacement, federal intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement are circulating reports with a new domestic target in mind: anti-technology extremists.

More than 1,000 pages of unpublished reports from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and fusion centers obtained by WIRED show a national shift taking place to surveil this new and worryingly broad category of people and activities deemed an emerging threat.

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Among the documents in the tranche obtained by WIRED is a New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report that warns of widespread upheaval in response to AI adoption. Of particular note is a novel term for what the bureau purports to be an emerging extremism threat.

"The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent AI technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City," the report reads. The term "anti-tech violent extremism" does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremism reports or guides and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/

[Tim S]

1. I, For One, Welcome Our New AI Overlords (/eyeroll)

[pecosbob]

2. Luddites of the world unite!

They were right, you know.

[ancianita]

3. It's not about just the resistance to AI "adoption." It's about NO water AND skyrocketing electricity bills.

Those two alone are worth being extremist about. It's not as if the DOJ is out there investigating corporate criminality re loss, harm or damage to whole communities who are currently suffering.

[highplainsdem]

10. Exactly.

[Karasu]

4. Fucking hell. The "anti-tech" (which they are actually using to describe anyone who specifically is anti-AI) people

aren’t the fucking extremists here. Or anywhere, but least of all in the US.

They (unfortunately) have next to no clout in this country, where tech companies with openly fascist ideologies reign supreme and regulation is nonexistent, propped up all the more by this regime running the government. As always, they are pretending a nigh-powerless group are the “crazies" here rather than the billionaires and the people in their corner who are pushing and enabling this shit, no matter the cost to democracy, the environment, or the human intellect.

[highplainsdem]

11. Those opposing generative AI and data centers are a large group, even though they don't have the

AI bros' wealth and power.

The pro-AI side, including some very influential venture capitalists, is very aware their tech is increasingly unpopular, and with many rightwingers as well as liberals and moderates. I think the regime is hoping to make AI opponents afraid to speak up, organize and protest.

[EarthFirst]

5. Time to get the Monkeywrench Gang back together...

Hayduke Lives!

[highplainsdem]

12. ...

[IronLionZion]

6. Anti-tech? Plenty of techies are against AI

Lots of people love technology but don't want data centers to destroy residential communities or use autonomous agents to replace humans in all types of jobs. Data centers jack up costs of water and electricity and are loud.

[highplainsdem]

13. Yes. So are science fiction writers like John Scalzi, and I think that particularly upsets the AI bros

who want to be viewed as saviors delivering a tech utopia, a science fiction fan's dreams.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. It's not anti-tech, it's anti-exploitation. They use new technology for new forms of exploitation, but ...

the instigators are the same class of people as ever.

[highplainsdem]

14. True.

[GenThePerservering]

15. Such were the luddites

They were anti-exploitation, not anti-tech per se.

Anything that hurts the tech bros helps us.

Now...where's that dynamite?

[patphil]

8. There isn't any need to have thousands of AI data centers all over the country.

How much data is there that it needs such an incredible amount of computing power and data storage?
What we do need is a moratorium on new data center construction and activation. In fact, I doubt if we need even half of the existing centers to hold and process all the data the nation produces.
There's so massive that it makes me wonder what their real intent is. Are they really data centers, or are they detention centers in disguise?
Whatever they are, they're consuming far too much energy. Not to mention all the jobs they're eliminating.

[NickB79]

9. If AI starts wiping out tens of millions of jobs

I can easily foresee anti-tech terrorist groups blowing up data centers and shooting out transformers that supply them power.

Desperate, angry people will do extreme things.