Pluralistic: Load-bearing (16 Oct 2026)

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-10-18)

• Cory Doctorow argues that AI is not “load-bearing” for national digital sovereignty; removing all chatbots from a country would cause “nothing important” to fall down, debunking political rhetoric that uses AI as a pretext for building data centers.
• The actual “load-bearing” digital infrastructure consists of “boring, regular-degular-ass technologies” like Microsoft Office 365 and other cloud software from US tech giants, which are deeply compromised.
• These essential services are untrustworthy because their providers have aligned with the Trump regime, provided infrastructure for “racist pogroms” (e.g., ICE), and demonstrated a willingness to spy on or terminate accounts of international public officials (e.g., ICC Chief Prosecutor), creating a “white-hot, 278-alarm digital sovereignty dumpster-fire.”