I'm inherently biased towards the everyday forms of resistance, because it's what I research, but even allowing for there does seem to be a growing sense that the best battles to fight when it comes to big tech are the local ones.
This case of push back against AI enabled surveillance in a (very) small Colorado town is indicative I think. AI with its data centers and their auxiliary of surveillance infrastructure are both pretty vulnerable to local, certainly more so than the national or global, attempts at resistance.
As we've repeatedly seen here in the UK (1, 2) it's easy for governments and credulous/corrupt leaders to drive towards unquestioning AI adoption as a centralised assertion rather than involving anything so messy as public opinion. For all the cyber-utopian fantasies of the disembodied cloud and its distant assertions of progress however most AI technologies are, in one way or another, inherently tied to the mundane, ground level existence we all live in. Data centers need to be built, cameras need to be put up (or worn, if you're particularly creepy (1, 2, 3), facial recognition needs to be deployed, AI needs to be trained, even automated decision making - the pinnacle of remote, authoritarian assertion - is somewhat ensconced within the (vaguely) human infrastructures of call centers and bureaucracy. All things which are perilously accessible to the average person, if they choose to think of them as such.
The local - with its data center protests, smashed surveillance cameras and combative local politics - are also a hard place for the giants of the tech sector to reach. I don't doubt that the lobbying is there, as it is everywhere else, but the prizes for compliance are smaller and the threats of offending your neighbours/electorate greater. Nobody's going to offer you a Tony Blair style payoff for signing off on a contract with a surveillance or AI education company no matter what reaction you get for pushing it. Worse - the main lines of propaganda for AI companies especially has been, for a long while now, focused on either major investors or credulous retail customers. Their distinct brand of utopianism has been both disdainful of what most humans experience and actively expressive of the worst instincts of their generally abhorrent CEOs. Promising a future of lay-offs, automated inhumanity and nebulous efficiency gains is a great way to sway middle managers upwards but it doesn't do much to entice the poor sod who gets a data center for a neighbour and a camera focused on their front door. And it seems to be beyond most of those involved in the hype train so far to lower themselves to such mundane concerns without drifting immediately into their own fantasies (horrific or nonsensical as they may be (1, 2, 3).
Inevitably I think we're going to see a reaction to that somewhat unguarded space of local reaction soon. We've already seen moves to criminalise even the most serene voices of resistance but along with that stick will, I suspect, come the carrot of increased astro-turfing and cack handed local engagement. Perhaps even the advent of a Tech Bro Tea Party or Turning Point designed to shout down local opposition and re-frame it as NIMBY or Luddite (derogatory). With the law of diminishing returns though that is something communities can brace themselves for, it's hardly a new or unknown innovation these days and if your local protest or council meeting ends up stacked with people in 'We Love AI' t-shirts then there might be minimal reason to assume good faith on their behalf.
Sticking to the positive though - we do have a space for action within the local at the moment. In the US that seems to be heading straight for overt aggression but there's no assumption that that'll be a one size fits all pattern. Pressure on local authorities can take many forms and even as the state drones on about the inevitability of AI (or AI sovereignty, up-skilling, the technology of the future and whatever other platitudes are in vogue) there's still that material, real and occasionally human point of access at ground level. A potential well worth being inspired by and indulging in.
- Dylan