Am 13.06. durfte ich zum Programm der “Sicherheit ohne Überwachung” Demonstration einen Redebeitrag beisteuern. Diesen möchte ich hier kurz dokumentieren.
Das Thema Sicherheit ist heute nicht mehr nur eine Frage von Polizei oder anderen Sicherheitsbehörden sondern maßgeblich ein Technologiethema: Big Tech hat den Staat und seine Behörden als willige und zahlungskräftige Abnehmer für nahezu jedes noch so unmoralische System identifiziert.
Dabei sprechen wir in der Öffentlichkeit darüber sehr individualisiert. Auf Seiten von Big Tech sprechen wir z.B. über Peter Thiel’s und Alex Karp’s Palantir oder darüber wie die KI-Bros Sam Altman und Dario Amodei Sicherheitsbehörden mit Systemen beliefern, die am Ende sogar Kill Decisions treffen sollen. Wir sprechen viel über meist amerikanische Konzerne und ihre Chefs – als wären deren Firmenanschriften und Staatsangehörigkeiten das zentrale Problem.
Und auch auf unserer Seite als Betroffene sprechen wir oft sehr individuell: Über „unsere Daten“, die unrechtmäßig verarbeitet werden. Über Datenschutz und unsere Abwehrrechte. Als wären DSGVO-Verstöße das Problem. Wir können diesen Kampf nicht gewinnen, indem wir die falschen Probleme betrachten.
Was wir ablehnen müssen ist nicht, dass ein US Konzern für die Bundesregierung Überwachungsinfrastrukturen baut, sondern die Konzeption von Sicherheit als diese Form von unterdrückender Kontrolle selbst.
In den letzten Monaten kommt der Begriff des Faschismus zunehmend auf. Nicht nur in seiner parlamentarischen Ausprägung wie bei der AfD sondern auch als politische Strömung, der sich Big Tech und seine Leader von Peter Thiel bis Elon Musk anschließen. Was uns dabei klar sein muss ist, dass Sicherheit konzipiert als datenbasierte, homogenisierende, gewaltvolle Kontrolle faschistische Prinzipien in unsere Gesellschaft einbringt und vorhandene bestärkt.
Sicherheitstechnologien wie die von Palantir erzeugen die Erlaubnisstruktur zur Niederschlagung von Kritik und politischem Engagement und Aktivismus. Sie markieren – durch vorgeblich objektive, doch meist massiv diskriminierende Daten und Algorithmen – die Feinde des Systems, der Ordnung. Sie legitimieren und normalisieren die Ausübung struktureller und oft auch physischer Gewalt gegen die automatisiert bestimmten Feinde. Diese Normalisierung von Gewalt gegen den politischen Gegner ist ein klassisches Merkmal des Faschismus.
Die Einführung solcher Systeme unter der Prämisse des „Notstands“, der Verteidigung gegen – ja gegen wen oder was eigentlich? – erzeugt einen Kontext des Ausnahmezustands, einer Situation außerhalb geltenden Rechts und etablierter demokratischer Normen und Rechte. Einer Situation, in der Aufgrund der Schwere und Dringlichkeit der angeblichen Bedrohung, algorithmisch gesteuerte Systeme mitentscheiden dürfen – gar müssen -, wer Opfer von Gewalt werden, wessen Perspektive und Rechte geachtet werden sollen. Diese sogenannten Sicherheitssysteme erzeugen qua ihrer Existenz eine Hierarchisierung innerhalb der Gesellschaft entlang der Frage, wessen Identität und Überzeugung wie stark von der implementierten und erwünschten Norm – die zunehmend nach rechts verschoben wird – abweicht.
Sicherheitssysteme sollen durch technischen Fortschritt eine kontrollierte, starre Welt erzeugen, in der Abweichungen algorithmisch ausgemerzt werden. Ein Ausdruck eines zu tiefst antidemokratischen, faschistischen Verständnisses von Gesellschaft und Politik.
Natürlich müssen wir Systeme wie Palantir und andere Big Tech Systeme als Waffe gegen die Bevölkerung verhindern. Aber es darf da nicht aufhören. Wir wollen auch kein Europäisches Palantir oder ein souveränes Open Source Palantir. Wir wollen den Faschismus bekämpfen und ihn nicht über digitale Infrastrukturen weiter zementieren.
Wir müssen den Begriff der Sicherheit den Klauen der zunehmend faschistisch denkenden und handelnden Tech-Oligarchen und auch Politiker*innen entreißen und neu definieren. Sicherheit nicht als gewaltvolle Homogenisierung, Kontrolle und Unterdrückung, sondern als Ausdruck davon, dass die Grundbedürfnisse von Menschen unverhandelbar sind und von uns allen für uns alle ohne Kompromisse erfüllt werden müssen.
Ich glaube wirklich, dass es aus linker Perspektive absolut unverzichtbar ist, die zentralen Begriffe “Freiheit” und “Sicherheit” zu übernehmen. Als positiv und entlang menschlichen Bedürfnissen definierte Konzepte, die sich nicht an Wettbewerb, Ausgrenzung und struktureller Gewalt ausrichten sondern daran, allen Menschen die Grundlagen für ein würdiges, bereicherndes und glückliches Leben zu garantieren.
Freiheit entsteht aus Sicherheit. Aus der Sicherheit zu wissen, dass man niemals allein gelassen oder fallengelassen wird. Aus der Sicherheit, dass die eigenen Bedürfnisse erfüllt werden: Wohnung, Nahrung, Gesundheit, soziale Teilhabe, Selbstentfaltung. Erst dann werden wir frei sein können.
"Freiheit entsteht aus Sicherheit. Aus der Sicherheit zu wissen, dass man niemals allein gelassen oder fallengelassen wird. Aus der Sicherheit, dass die eigenen Bedürfnisse erfüllt werden: Wohnung, Nahrung, Gesundheit, soziale Teilhabe, Selbstentfaltung. Erst dann werden wir frei sein können."
I did my job fine before AI came along. Now my workplace ‘suggests’ we use it. How do I say no?
Sigh. Fuck. Fine. OK. Buckle up.
Let’s talk about the 1990 Texas governor’s race.
In 1989, I moved from Philadelphia to Austin for graduate school. Having grown up in the middle of an East Coast city and suddenly finding myself in what was still, at the time, either a small city or a big town—depending on your world view—was… jarring. It was neither better, nor worse. It was just… different. So mostly I watched. I watched how other people behaved. I watched how other people interacted with one another. And I looked for cues on how to behave in this new place. (First parenthetical aside: In Philadelphia, when two people cross on the sidewalk you nod. The nod is an acknowledgement of safe passage. Much like clinking glasses during a toast started as proof that I had not poisoned your drink, nodding was reassurance that I was not going to turn around and stab you after we’d crossed. I was raised to nod. My first morning in Texas, I went for a walk to explore my new neighborhood and someone came walking in my direction. Just as I was preparing to nod, he bolted out “Good morning!” in a loud reassuring way not unlike Foghorn Leghorn, had Foghorn been raised a little further west. So that was new. In San Francisco, where I live now, people neither nod nor say “Good morning!” They purse their lips, as if they’re disappointed that they aren’t crossing paths with someone of a higher net worth.)
Shortly after I moved to Austin, Texas decided to elect a new governor. Mainly because the current governor, who is not important to this story, got caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar. The Democrats decided to run Ann Richards, who I knew nothing about at the time, but certainly grew to admire. The Republicans, for their part, decided on a good-ole-boy cattle rancher from Midland named Clayton Williams. (Second parenthetical aside: At this point in history, this point being 1990, Texas had elected exactly one (not a typo) Republican governor since Reconstruction. One. So when they tell you that Texas has historically been a deep red state that is bullshit. It has recently elected a slew of Republicans, which is as much about gerrymandering as it is about any change in voter sentiment. Much like when California is described as a solid blue state and I remind people that we gave the world both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, which my neighbors love being reminded of, even as they vote for Daniel Lurie and vote down propositions to tax billionaires fairly.) (Wait, open the parenthetical back up. As long as we’re here—I should make note that Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and Barbara Jordan were, at one point, the strongest political trinity in the state of Texas, and I have no particular reason to name all three of them today, but I enjoy doing it, and you should read up on all three of them.)
Anyhoo… Clayton Williams was very much a Texas “good ole boy” who made lots of money on oil, cattle, telecom, and other Texas-like businesses. He liked smiling, shaking people’s hands, being on television, and telling jokes. For her part, Ann Richards also enjoyed those things, and as an added bonus enjoyed—and excelled at—civil service. The media, both state and national, had a great time with the campaign, dubbing it “Claytie vs The Lady” (cringe). This all came to a grinding halt when Clayton Williams decided to kick the ball into his own goal and pronounced—unprovoked, mind you—that rape was like the weather and that "if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.” In 1990, even in Texas, this was enough to kill a campaign. Which it did. Ann Richards went on to be a fine governor. (Fun fact: her daughter Cecile Richards went on to be the president of Planned Parenthood from 2006–2018. Sadly, we’ve lost them both.)
Now why the fuck did I just write three long paragraphs about the Texas gubernatorial campaign when I’m supposed to be writing about AI? Because the language we are using about AI adoption is very similar to how Clayton Williams described rape.
“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”
“Better get on board if you know what’s good for you.”
“If you want to keep working here, this is what it takes.”
“It’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
Am I comparing AI to rape? I am not. I am, however, comparing the language we use when discussing AI adoption to the language of rape culture. It’s the language of coercion. Language that implies a lack of choice and reminds you of the power those who are using it have over you. A lack of agency. It’s language that does not rely on consent, but instead the idea that we are bereft of choices, so we might as well get with the program. A program which is being foisted on us by—if you take a look at the group photo—men. And not just men, but men who like to cozy up to—and hand awards to—a convicted rapist. (Third parenthetical aside: in 2002, when the AI bubble was still a misfiring synapse in Marc Andreesen’s very large head (probably a result of eating a twin in utero) an AI Summit was held in the Virgin Islands. Specifically in the Virgin Island that was home to Jeffrey Epstein, which was convenient because the summit happened at his retreat. And yes, he footed the bill. The fact that Jeffrey Epstein was curious about a technology that eliminated consent should surprise no one.) These are not men with a lot of introspection. In fact, they proudly tout their lack of introspection. Which is a mark of a sociopath.
We’ve talked a lot about whether AI is “good” or “bad” and we should continue to do so. But it’s also worth having a conversation, or two, or a thousand, about how—and why— it’s being rolled out, at this particular moment in time, by this particular set of people, for whom the language of coercion appears to come naturally. And why people are fighting back against it.
Designers are notoriously disloyal, which I mean as a positive. Let me explain. When I was coming up as a designer, we used Photoshop to do all of our comps, a tool famously not made for doing comps. But it worked, if not perfectly. Every few years another tool would come around to knock Photoshop off its perch, we would try it for a few days, and inevitably sigh and go back to Photoshop. Not out of loyalty, mind you. But because whatever the other tools offered weren’t enough to offset the learning curve. Until the day Figma showed up. We tried it, and the majority of designers never looked back. Entire companies switched to Figma seemingly overnight. And here’s the important part: this didn’t happen because of some top-down mandate, but because the workers found a tool that made their job easier. It was, for the most part, a worker-driven shift. Like I said, we’re disloyal. We’re happy to adopt tools that make our lives easier.
And while there are certainly workers who’ve embraced AI tools—I’ll let them provide their own reasoning elsewhere—what I’m seeing is the opposite of a worker-driven shift. Management is driving the shift to AI. And it’s going as well as you’d expect. Let me give an example, in addition to this week’s question.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend who works at a fairly well-regarded company in San Francisco. They’re an engineer. They’ve been working as an engineer at this company for a few years. They enjoy what they do, they enjoy working with their team, and from what they’ve told me, they do their job well. I believe them. A few months ago they received a mandate from management to start using Claude, and everyone got their allotment of tokens. Sure, they were open to it. So they asked management for guidance.
“How do you want us using it?”
“What can it help us to do better?”
“Where are you seeing room for improvement, and how do you see Claude helping us improve in those areas?”
These are good questions. They’re not the questions of haters or boosters. They’re questions of workers open to doing their jobs better. The answers they got back from management only qualified as answers because they immediately followed a question. They were told that from now on their jobs would be measured by how much they used Claude. I’m sure lots of readers are nodding along right now because they’re either in that situation, or sitting at home in the aftermath of that situation. For reasons that had nothing to do with the workers’ efficiency, or client satisfaction, or anything that even vaguely resembled the ghost of a metric, the entire team had to change how they worked, and the tools they used, for secret reasons. Naturally, morale took a nosedive.
“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”
Earlier this week I did a Q&A with the graduating class at Glasgow School of Art. I love talking to students. But more importantly, I like listening to students. I want to know what they care about. I want to hear their concerns. I’ve been doing an annual Q&A with this particular school for a few years now. Usually their questions come in a range of topics. This year there was one topic. They were concerned about AI. And again, it wasn’t whether AI was good or whether AI was bad, but how AI was being used to decimate a workforce they were about to enter. Most of them feel like they’re graduating into a field where they’re no longer welcome. We have a new generation of people who want to do the work, they’re excited to do the work, they want to prove they can do the work.
We’re going to lose these kids.
One of the things the students mentioned is they go out into social media and see “design leaders”—people they look up to—talking about how this shit is inevitable, and how it’s coming whether you want it or not, how we’re going to get left behind if we don’t comply, etc., etc., etc. And it makes them feel hopeless. Of course it does. This field (or fields, whatever) is now describing the future in the language of coercion. Because this appears to be something that the leaders in this field are very comfortable with. Force. They look out over a decimated workforce, struggling to pay their rent and they call it abundance. (For who?!)
These fucks have decided that the future is already written, and that it is written in their favor. These sad sociopathic fucks are attempting to write a future where everything and everyone behaves in a way that benefits them. Where no one gives them lip. Where no one tells them no. Where no one defies them. Where consent has been taken off the table. Where they can get what they want, from who they want, when they want it.
And that you should just “relax and enjoy it” when they thrust their vision of a future upon you. For which I would like to remind you that very few of you had any idea who Clayton Williams was before you read this essay. Because he was a loser. And because the future remains unwritten.
TL;DR: “No” is—and has always been—a complete sentence.
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Mathematicians warned against rising tech industry influence in a declaration describing the many challenges that AI poses to mathematics research. The timing of the declaration comes two weeks after OpenAI publicized one of its AI models as having disproved an 80-year-old mathematical conjecture in geometry.
The declaration was developed by a working group of 16 researchers over eight months following a conference held at Leiden University in the Netherlands in September 2025. Published on June 2, 2026, the resulting Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics has been endorsed by the International Mathematical Union—the international non-governmental organization that hosts conferences and oversees the most prestigious prizes in mathematics such as the Fields Medal.
“Mathematicians should find it quite striking that tech companies are suddenly interested in their work,” said Kevin Buzzard, a mathematician at Imperial College London, in a statement. “The Leiden Declaration is a well-thought-through response to what is currently happening, as AI continues to disrupt this space.”
"The Leiden Declaration, […] warns that recent AI developments are threatening “characteristic values” of mathematical research, “often in ways that disproportionately affect students and early-career mathematicians, and hence the long term future of the discipline.”"
This cartoon has six panels, each of which shows a different scene. The first five panels all feature cheerful robots in office environments.
PANEL 1
A shiny golden robot talks to the viewer.
GOLDIE: Good news! Here are just some of the ways AI saves you time and makes your job better!
PANEL 2
A robot – which seems to be a suit and tie with a smartphone sticking up out of the collar – talks to us. He’s carrying a huge stack of papers.
PHONE: Good news! Because your new AI agent is expected to save you so much time, the company is providing you with extra work!
PANEL 3
A tiny robot that looks like a ball with hands is bouncing on a desk.
BOUNCY: Good news! The AI agent makes lots of mistakes, so you get to do proofreading and debugging! Yay!
PANEL 4
A robot with a head shaped like a Telsa Cybertruck talks to us. A bunch of other robots are in the background.
TELSA: Good news! The company has determined you’ll get more work done with more AI agents doing more bad work for you to check and correct!
PANEL 5
A coffee machine with a screen with a happy face on it talks to us.
COFFEE: Good news! More of your colleagues are letting AI do their jobs, so now you get to fix that work, too!
PANEL 6
A human with a shellshocked look is walking on a sidewalk, carrying a cardboard box full of desk stuff in classic I’ve-just-been-fired iconography. A caption is shaped like a memo on paper.
CAPTION: Good news! We’ve determined that bad work done by A.I. is more cost-effective than better work done by humans.
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is obsolete jargon for what we now call “Easter eggs.”
PANEL 1: A poster on the wall says LESSER EVIL INCORPORATED. “If it’s not lethal, it’s a lesser evil.” A rat sits reading a book, Charlotte’s Web.
PANEL 2: A gigantic ant is climbing a skyscraper in the background.
PANEL 3: A picture of an adorable toddler is inscribed “I heart you Mommy! Always remember if u quit ur job I’ll starve.” A “to do” list says: “-Work -Work -Work -Labor -Toil -Lunch -Drudge -Slog -die.” A coffee mug, decorated with Charlie Brown’s zig-zag shirt line, has a mouse wearing glasses peering out of it.
PANEL 4: One of the robots is a toaster. The robot puppy has left poo (a steaming pile of nuts and bolts) on the ground. The cybertruck robot’s head is on fire, and if you peer closely at the passenger window you can see a screaming person trapped inside.
PANEL 5: The coffee cup has a picture of Bender from Futurama on it. There’s an electric outlet with two “faces”; one of the faces is the standard, the other one is smiling and winking at us. A poster says “NOTICE: Cups must be cleaned after death.” A cannister is labeled “82% real Sugar,” with an adorable granny mascot saying “What you don’t now won’t kill you, probably.”
PANEL 6: The box of stuff from the fired employee’s desk includes a coffee mug; the mouse from panel 3 is still in the mug. A jar on the sidewalk says “Background Juice” on the label.
And there’s graffiti! “BG” (for background) is written in a few places. Someone has written a list of jobs: “Priest Poet Lawyer Marine Squire Grocer Vicar.” (Let me know in comments if you know where that list comes from.) A game of “hangman” is in progress: “A_S_ER.” (You see the answer, right?) More things written on the wall: “Filler.” “Who reads this?” “PP + Marcie 4EV.” “E=M.C. Hammer.” “Mary + Charlie + Frank.” Finally, a poster on the wall is partly blocked by the caption, but I can tell you it says “Secret Hidden Text! Because you can’t read this text: At last, I’m free to say it: Basketball is BORING! Bite me, b-ball fans!”
Deutschland und andere europäische Staaten geben Milliarden für Rüstung aus, bleiben aber auf die USA angewiesen. Prominente Wissenschaftler und Topmanager wollen das ändern. Das ist ihr Plan.
OpenAI released its latest chatbot model, GPT 5.5, in April. It has a habit of talking about goblins. A lot.
One OpenClaw user was using GPT 5.5 and their bot would say things like: [Twitter, archive]
“helpful minion in a power suit” was taken, so I evolved into goblin mode with calendar access.
Trademark dispute with three raccoons in a trench coat. Legal said “pivot to goblin.”
Another user asked ChatGPT about camera lenses. It offered him “filthy neon sparkle goblin mode.” [Twitter, archive]
OpenAI even put specific instructions into the system prompt for Codex, their AI coding model, to try to get it not to talk about creatures: [GitHub]
Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query.
In fact, OpenAI put in “never talk about goblins” twice.
It’s the usual content for a system prompt, as we saw in the leaked Claude Code source — desperately begging the robot to please, please, don’t screw up this time.
The anti-goblin line was not in the instructions for previous models. So how did GPT 5.5 end up like this?
ChatGPT relies heavily on coming across to the user as an actual person you’re talking to. This sucks you in, so you spend more time with your new best friend — the chatbot. Here’s another part of the new Codex system prompt:
When the user talks with you, they should feel they are meeting another subjectivity, not a mirror.
Try as hard as you can to pretend you’re a person. The odd spot of AI psychosis, or the bot talking people into killing themselves or killing others? Just an unfortunate side effect. Mild AI psychosis? That’s just marketing.
The goblins started showing up in GPT 5.1. OpenAI blames post-training, where you take an existing AI model and try to tweak the model’s outputs: [OpenAI]
training the model for the personality customization feature, in particular the Nerdy personality. We unknowingly gave particularly high rewards for metaphors with creatures.
The “Nerdy” personality was retired — but the goblins leaked through to the rest of the GPT 5.5 model. It’s full of goblins.
The goblin problem looks very like visible signs of model collapse — where you see some weird bit of data increasingly overrepresented in the chatbot output.
OpenAI doesn’t use the words “model collapse” in the explanation post — but model collapse from training the model on the previous model’s output is precisely how they’d end up with the effect they’re describing.
OpenAI trained GPT-3 on literally the whole Internet. Everything since then is going to include added slop — as the web fills with more and more slop.
OpenAI doesn’t have any way to make their models actually reliable. All they have is post-training, yelling in the system prompt, and one-trick workarounds that can count the R’s in “strawberry” but not in “blueberry”.
The only trick Sam Altman has left here is trying to lean into the goblin memes on Twitter. This is fine. [Twitter, archive]
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