Statement on Artificial Intelligence (Ai)

Berkeley Carnival Revolution is a protest mas band that honours traditional masquerade forms, and uses majority waste and natural materials, to create works of mas which address social and environmental justice – both thematically and during production. We understand that the tradition of resistance handed down to us must be safeguarded, honoured, and renewed in earnest. We also recognise, as a band composed primarily of young people, that our future, and that of our children, depends on our responsible use of both existing technologies, and those yet to emerge. To have a futuristic vision means exercising prudence and care in the present to ensure a just future for all, where human and more-than-human dignity is respected and – in instances where it has been and is currently being denied – restored.

As such, we oppose as a matter of principle the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, especially Generative AI and large language models (LLMs).

Concerns:
– Small cultures risk erasure as they are misrepresented by inauthentic media portrayals, otherwise known as AI slop. This was already a problem before AI, and is now being augmented and accelerated by uninformed and uncritical use of these technologies.

– Creative sector workers lose their jobs as the natural intelligence and creativity of cultural stewards is sidelined in favour of more ‘efficient’ production – of low-quality AI slop.

– Framing generative AI as a ‘disability aid’ which allows disabled people to make creative work is actually ableist. This conception holds that disabled people should be more productive, or productive in a way that approximates able-bodied productivity. This values productivity that is more useful to capitalism – this is exploitative. Disabled people should not have to approximate neurotypical behaviour and productive capacity to be welcome and accepted in society. People of all abilities have been writers, artists, musicians, and more since time immemorial. Many of our highly skilled band members are disabled people, none of whom use AI to design or produce their mas, or execute band administration. Further, AI models have been found to misinterpret ableist language, and reproduce cultural biases.

– The focus on the ‘efficiency’ of AI tools upholds the extractive optimisation logic of capitalism, which is responsible for both social and ecological collapse, and has its roots in the plantation system. Plantation logic sought optimisation through the instrumentalisation of human beings. As descendants of those who were stolen, shipped, and forced to work as agricultural machines, we refuse any technology that construes us as things to be used in a machine process – be it a plantation ledger, or Generative AI.

– Water use: AI data centres require millions of gallons of water for cooling. This heat is then discharged into the atmosphere. Communities where data centres are located are denied access to clean water, or any water at all. It has been found that AI-related water use may exceed the global annual consumption of bottled water.

– Energy use: AI consumes huge amounts of fossil-derived energy to function, producing as much carbon dioxide in 2025 as New York City. Elon Musk’s Colossus, which is located in Boxtown, a predominantly Black community in Memphis, is fueled by 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines. This area has been subject to environmental racism in the form of pollution for decades, and this xAI ‘supercomputer’ has led to a sharp increase in nitrogen oxides, which directly harm the lungs. This is social and environmental injustice. There is no such thing as a ‘green’ data centre.

– AI has repeatedly demonstrated that it makes up information to fill in gaps in its responses. It produces data output using media created by humans – often in contravention of copyright – through machines and software designed according to the desires of techno-fascist billionaires. It cannot be trusted to provide reliable and accurate information.

– AI is causing a crisis in education as people are graduating with degrees without actually having developed critical thinking skills, since they used LLMs to complete their assignments. We understand this phenomenon is a natural outcome of a model of education which prioritises the rapid production of results over the careful development of knowledge. It is possible to sympathise with young people who are desperate for qualifications which will give them an advantage in the floundering labour market, while also understanding that this will not prepare them to solve actually-existing problems.

– In general, there is a crisis in literacy. Reading and listening comprehension is at an all time low, as is evidenced in national exam results, online discourse, and the ease with which people believe the lies of authoritarian leaders. Misinformation and disinformation have become household terms in this era. As longtime media houses shutter their operations, people believe the regurgitations of language-analysing machines which exist only in a virtual space, and not in the reality they supposedly ‘describe’.

– The US economy is currently propped up by an unsustainable stock market AI bubble, propped up by billionaire investors. Stock price volatility is untenable, and when the bubble pops, it could cause a recession greater than the 2008 global financial crisis. Today, the global financial system is built upon US financial markets, and governments like ours hold US public debt in the form of Treasury securities.
Any crisis in the AI industry will have severe and multilayered impacts for us here. Investing speculatively in and relying on an industry that is yet to emerge and proven to be dangerous to people and the planet is unwise. We should be doubling down on our creative capacities, and developing our own cultures of tech repair and restoration. Further, demand for memory chips by the AI industry has already caused the RAM crisis, which affects all storage technology, not just AI ones.

Conclusion:
Human creativity has always existed and will always exist, regardless of what technologies are available to practise it. We consider it a grave insult to our ancestors – who guarded both this earth and our traditions so they could be passed on to us – to employ technologies that degrade our only home, and misrepresent our beautiful culture. As such, we oppose the use of AI technology in a time of rising fascism, ecological collapse, and disintegrating social safety nets and systems of governance.

Humans, and all the plants, animals, rivers, and other members of the nonhuman world with whom our collective survival is inextricably entangled, are facing the climate crisis because of the hubris of a small minority of elites who have sought to subordinate the natural world to their will for centuries. The latest cohort of this elite class is the techno-fascist billionaires. Berkeley Carnival Revolution refuses genocide and ecocide in principle and in practice.