Buffalo DSA is saddened and angered to learn that ICE agents murdered another man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, in Houston.

This tragedy is unfortunately not surprising. It is just the latest act of cruelty from ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies enacting the Trump Administration’s fascist agenda. Western New Yorkers saw this inhumanity firsthand after CBP killed Nurul Amin Shah Alam through their neglect and disregard for his life, but we also see it in day-to-day operations, which have not slowed down. Community responders such as BIRD report weekly kidnappings by ICE agents, and watchdog organizations continue to speak on the horrible conditions inside the Batavia Detention Center.

These murders and countless other human rights abuses expose ICE as agents of terror.

Federal agencies such as ICE have always had free reign to scapegoat immigrants and minorities, and categorize our neighbors as “threats,” all while greedy capitalists, in both mainstream parties, refuse to provide basic necessities for us.

ICE should have never existed. There is no way to reform what is, and always has been, a violent group of murderers. Abolishing ICE is the only option.

We urge our members and the broader community to stand up to ICE’s terror as much as you are able to safely, and remain informed for yourselves and your neighbors. Campaigns, organizations, and resources include (but are not limited to):

• Buffalo Immigrant and Refugee Defense (BIRD): A community response group dedicated to monitoring ICE and CBP activity in the greater Buffalo area. If you see ICE/CBP active in WNY, call or text 716-222-2190
• Evict ICE 250: A campaign dedicated to the removal of ICE field operations from 250 Delaware Avenue, where the wealthy Jacobs family profits off of detention and human suffering
• Justice for Migrant Families of Western New York: An organization that works to support migrants’ human and civil rights
• New York Immigration Coalition: An advocacy coalition that shares important updates and resources, including Know Your Rights materials, throughout the state
• [For DSA Members] DSA International Migrant Rights Working Group: A national working group in DSA helping train and support local DSA chapters in defending local migrant communities

Recently, I attended a talk by an employee of a major AI company about work they were doing with the island nation of Tuvalu to help Tuvalu become the world’s “first digital nation.” Because of its extremely low elevation (4.6 m or ~15 ft at highest elevation), the island nation has been quite vocal about climate change-induced sea level rise and its impact on their land. For example, one of the videos shown during the talk was of an island chief standing in ocean water, pleading for the world to act on mitigating climate change.

Tuvalu has a long way to go before it becomes a digital nation, however. During the talk, we learned that the island nation currently does not even use digital spreadsheets, and data is entered into spreadsheets by government employees by hand on ruler-drawn paper. The Internet is available on the islands but only at certain times of the day and it is mostly used for entertainment.

Another challenge is that most of the people of Tuvalu don’t see the need to update to the latest technology. When casually asked about AI by employees of the partner company, many of them just responded, “What is the point?”  This is not to say that there was no interest in AI. After all, the Tuvaluan government is working with U.S. tech companies to digitize the nation. The local attitude toward AI, however, is a largely practical one. Tuvaluans want to use AI to improve government administration, education, and the quality of life on the islands. AI and other digital tech do not seem to be transforming their everyday lives in the same way that it is in the United States. For example, Tuvaluans still have most of their conversations with humans and generate their own written content without outsourcing it to AI.

The focus on AI for human development in Tuvalu is common, though not uniform, across the Global South, including in Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. At a related event, I talked to a former tech worker from Silicon Valley who now builds houses in Puerto Rico. When I asked them about how they saw the adoption of emerging technologies in Puerto Rico and where it would go, they responded that technology like AI is largely behind the scenes. Human relationships are in the foreground, while the Internet (being used to answer homework questions or for enjoying TikTok before bed) is in the background.

The increasingly dominant narrative in contemporary Western and other Global North conversations around tech is that technological development will lead to increasing alienation as large corporations and authoritarian governments use advanced digital technology to surveil their citizens and keep them distracted. This is also seen as a prelude to the emergence of posthuman superintelligences that will enslave or wipe out humanity. This vision of the future is described in the cyberpunk science fiction genre. 

A counter-narrative to grim cyberpunk scenarios is the solarpunk genre, where technology–such as robotics, cybernetics, and biotechnology–is used in a way that integrates humans with each other and nature. Cities are decked with vegetation and powered by renewable energy, and robots are used to free humans of repetitive labor so they can spend more time building relationships, creating art, and being in nature. Another feature of solarpunk fiction is that advanced technology is behind the scenes. The environment tends to look fairly low tech, despite being potentially much more advanced than the modern day. For example, it might look indistinguishable from a rural village apart from the massive solar panels or the humanoid robot walking by. Examples of this genre include Becky Chambers’s novels Psalm for the Wild-Built, Prayer of the Crown Shy, and Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. 

This raises an interesting question. Could a solarpunk-like scenario emerge from the Global South? Currently, the vast majority of AI development is done in the Global North and in countries like China, but it is also not clear how long this rapid development is sustainable with the increasing need for data centers and its strain on both water supplies and critical mineral supplies. 

If Global North economies were to hit the infrastructural and supply chain limits of AI development, strategic social activism could force a shift to a slower development of AI focused on artificial narrow intelligence or narrow AI. Narrow AI is trained for specific tasks, like drug discovery or environmental monitoring. These smaller, task specific models are more likely to provide direct benefits to people while being more environmentally sustainable and without the risk of replacing or wiping out humanity, as is the case with artificial general intelligence (AGI). Focus on narrow AI for specific beneficial tasks would also be resistance to the current race for AGI happening among a few U.S. companies and possibly between the United States. and China. 

Currently, the part of the world most likely to focus on narrow AI is the European Union with its AI regulatory regime. The EU has been criticized by AI advocates in the United States as being too slow. While the European approach has its shortcomings, it is an example of an AI regulatory regime that has the potential to develop AI in a way that still is safe and benefits humanity and the planet. 

This may also be a viable path for countries of the Global South. European AI development is currently dependent on U.S. Big Tech in critical ways because most of the European AI applications are dependent on U.S. models and cloud infrastructure. On the other hand, much of the Global South is yet to develop AI infrastructure. This may provide fertile ground for developing models from scratch that represent a resistance to AI capitalism driving the development of U.S. and Chinese models. I talked to at least one group doing this in Lebanon. 

Despite their potential usefulness and the likely sincerity of the good intentions of their creators (at least in the case of Anthropic), centralized U.S. models like chatGPT or Claude are trained to produce capital for investors, not to benefit humanity or the planet. A coordination of smaller models built around specific social needs rather than profit, and owned by communities or by a network of smaller socially-oriented companies, or perhaps individually owned, might be a way to create an AI-powered future that also resists capitalism. This would of course require a specific set of values to be trained into such models. This is where religions common in the Global South, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, could play a role.

Although other religions have resources for developing counternarratives to AI capitalism, my background is in Christianity, so I will focus there. The recent papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, and liberation theology are specific examples of theological roadmaps to provide motivation for an alternative, liberatory pathway for technological development. Liberation theology has inspired revolutionary movements in Latin America, such as the early Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Interestingly enough, there have also been attempts to develop a liberation theology specific to the Pacific Islands, which is directly relevant to the predominantly Christian nation of Tuvalu. 

Could liberation theology inspire a similar revolutionary movement in the realm of technological development where oppressed and marginalized people are able to use technology to improve their situation? Technology that works for integral human liberation where each community implements technology enabling their own liberation would be consistent with the pope’s vision of communities working together to each build their own section of the walls of Jerusalem.

The post Solarpunk, Liberation Theology, and the Future of the Global South  appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

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Greeting to our comrades in the United States. In the past, you have been members of the International League of Religious Socialists, the longest-lived socialist organization in Europe. For its centennial Congress, the ILRS met in Barcelona in April and also participated in the Global Progressive Mobilisation Conference that brought together 5,000 people from trade unions, social democratic and socialist parties, and movements fighting for justice and peace.

During the ILRS Congress I had the honor of being elected president, along with an 11-member executive committee. In my home country of Norway, I am the leader of Kristne Arbeidere (Christian Labour), an independent organization within the Norwegian Labour Movement.

The ILRS is an organization for reflection and action that brings together national organizations of religious people who channel their political commitment through socialist and social-democratic parties. The member organizations are for the most part Christians, but membership is not limited to one faith. As Europe has become multifaith, so has the ILRS. Our hope is to expand beyond eurocentrism.

We don’t believe in religious states, but we believe in practicing our faith and taking the values of our faith out to the people. Faith that does not influence our attitudes toward other humans, becomes a dead and dormant faith. 

Our member organizations want to build bridges among communities and parties committed to policies in favor of peace, social justice, the care of the planet, gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights. We live in an unsafe world, and much of what the labor movement has built is threatened by right-wing populism and right-wing extremism.

In its Constitution, the ILRS states that one of its primary aims is “to reduce the historical prejudices and to overcome the traditional prejudices between religious believers, religious communities and the socialist movement.” 

Religious socialists choose to believe in a future that is good for people. The labor movement has always been working with faith in the future, and we will continue to do so. I believe that goodness triumphs over evil, that solidarity triumphs over selfishness, fair distribution triumphs over injustice, love triumphs over hatred,  and dialogue and peace triumph over war.

We are happy to have reopened communication with the Religion and Socialism Working Group in DSA and we hope to continue dialogue with you.

The world needs us more than ever!

The post Letter to U.S. Religious Socialists appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.