Against the “AI Week” — Call for a day to refuse AI in Rennes

In Rennes, since June 2024, researchers and industrialists (including Thales, an arms company, including Thales, an arms company, Airbus, an aviation company, and Orange, a telecommunications company), as well as the army (DGA), have continued to celebrate.

Indeed, without any democratic consultation, the government, through the ANR, has just granted them 20 million euros (directly from our taxes).

20 million donated for their “SequoIA” project (development of AI, particularly in terms of surveillance, intelligent networks and autonomous robots).

In this context, the University of Rennes, proud of its association with such prestigious manufacturers in the fields of genocide, mass surveillance and ecological disaster, is hastily organizing a week to promote AI in our city.

We cannot let this happen without providing critical feedback to the public!

We do not want this “awareness” (propaganda) to AI projects that, in Rennes as everywhere else in the world:

1. increase the dependence of humans on industrial infrastructure, where the priority should instead be the local empowerment of populations;
2. prioritize the needs of manufacturers (Thales, Airbus, Orange) and the military over the needs of humans and the planet;
3. are taxed on the population without any democratic consultation, while it is our tax money that is used (20 million euros);
4. develop “smart networks” (techno-police in the making, such as the algorithmic video surveillance that we were able to test at the Olympics) and “autonomous robots” (think of Israel's killer drones) that will be used to enslave or repress humans here or elsewhere;
5. have a monstrous ecological cost at a time that is already experiencing the sixth mass extinction and exponential global warming;
6. claim international visibility in Rennes in terms of the development of these inhuman horrors (military robots, or at least algorithms useful for perfecting them): the only visibility we want to have in Rennes is that of having been the first city to react to refuse to allow the production of current and future ecocide and techno-genocides to become trivialized!

We therefore call on all people sincerely interested in issues of ecology, democracy and human freedom to stand alongside us on Sunday, September 1, for a major day of conferences on the limits and dangers of AI, and then to join the anti-industrial assembly on Monday, September 2, that will be held to write a text critical of the “AI week” and organize its dissemination.

If this century should see the generalization of ecological disaster as mass surveillance, let it not be said that the RNNais have passively collaborated in it! Let's get together to act against the techno-dystopian development of this deadly system while we still can!

Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1204674350778937

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👉 Sunday, September 1, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 94 rue de l'Alma (Salle Rabelais)
Program of the day “Refusing AI? ”:
10:00am: welcome
10:30am: discover the challenges of AI with an AI fresco:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1533219720880720
12:30pm: lunch break (sandwiches will be offered on site)
14:00: XR conference “AI, a not so ecological solution? ”:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1050365529814370
15:00: RER conference “Is AI a threat to human autonomy? ”:
https://www.facebook.com/events/470238845820164
16:00: ATR conference “From AI to Technopolice, anticipating High Tech dystopia”:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1202161774308337
17:00: open discussion “Why and how to resist AI? ”:
https://www.facebook.com/events/26617853334495778
18:00: end of the day

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👉 Monday, September 2 at 6:30pm in the hall of building L of the University of Rennes 2
Against AI week — Rennes Anti-Industrial Assembly: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-w7Tw-AATS/

Additional Information:

• “SequoIA will study the implications of AI in terms of cybersecurity and defense (smart networks, surveillance, intelligence, autonomous robots).” ( https://www.opcalia-bretagne.com/blog/vers-lemergence-dun-cluster-europeen-sur-lia-en-bretagne-grace-au-projet-sequoia/)
• “The project is based on the strengths of research within partner institutions, on all competitiveness clusters and the support of numerous companies [Thales, Orange, Airbus...], on a privileged collaboration with the DGA, to meet the challenges of the national AI strategy and the objectives of France 2030.” (https://actu.univ-rennes.fr/actualites/le-projet-sequoia-ia-cluster-confiance-et-securite-labellise-pole-dexcellence-en)
• in September the related TiARE project is organizing a week of propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jcp4cJc12w.