A room with no screens

Human Resistance has finished its first week, and it went better than we expected!

On Sunday we held our first AI Free Zone in Paris, on the rise of technofascism. It was a small gathering but full of energy. There were no screens, and for two hours people argued, disagreed and kept talking long after we were meant to finish. One line from the opening talk has stayed with me all week:

“Technofascism is extremely sophisticated technology serving an extremely archaic imagination. But that tension inevitably opens cracks, and at the bottom of them may lie the resources of antifascist resistance.” — [John, our Parisian speaker]

Paris was the first of many. Ten more AI Free Zones are already set for October, on four continents. If you’d like one in your city, just reply to this email. Hosts get a script, promotion through our network, and a weekly organisers’ call. You won’t be doing it alone, because we will be with you all the way.

Next stop, if you are in town: Brussels, Tuesday 13 October, 18:00, Place de Londres. Brando Benifei, MEP and co-rapporteur on the EU AI Act, and Lara Natale, Chief Impact Officer at the Centre for Future Generations, will open the conversation. It’s free to attend. Register at humanresistance.co.

... And later this month we’ll present the movement at TEDAI in Vienna!

Two stories from this week show why we’re moving this fast.

On Thursday, Anthropic announced that from 12 November its rules will prohibit “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior” toward its AI models. Users who cross that line will have their conversations cut off. A tech company is now writing rules about how you may speak to its product, as if it was sentient. Scary.

Then there is NAZA, the new documentary from the makers of No Other Land, built on testimony from 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers. One of them explains how the army’s AI could mark a baker as a terrorist because Hamas fighters bought bread at his shop, and then recommend an airstrike that would kill dozens of civilians.

These stories show how quickly AI is entering ordinary life, and what a state that ignores the law will do with it. No one voted for any of this, and that is why we are organising.

Join us. You can host a gathering, volunteer with the team, become a member, or simply forward this to someone who should be in the room on Tuesday.

Andrea, Colombe and Yassine

Human Resistance