R.H. Lossin, “Artificial Intelligence: A Meaningless and Hazardous Concept”

Join us on Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 7pm for “Artificial Intelligence: A Meaningless and Hazardous Concept,” a talk by R.H. Lossin.

“This talk is about how we talk about technology or, more recently, so-called ‘artificial intelligence.’ Focusing on discourse is often a way of evading both political positions and material reality. In the case of artificial intelligence, however, what is said about it is often more politically important than what is done with it. Indeed, what A.I. actually does remains a mystery to most of the people it is supposed to affect. And dazzling descriptions of its potential often do little more than disguise the less-than-dazzling realities it purports to improve. Furthermore, the wholesale acceptance of the premises of a technocentric worldview—using the almost meaningless term ‘A.I.’ as if it refers to material reality, for example—into the language of resistance and criticism is a significant problem.

What happens when we stop to consider the gap between what the proponents of A.I. say about it and what it actually does? And what political and theoretical possibilities appear when we reject the premises of industrial capitalism and Silicon Valley and question the inevitability of technological progress? Conversely, what possibilities are foreclosed by the assumption that technology is redemptive and its forward march a necessary component of social progress? I consider these and other questions in an attempt to locate a language for resisting this process that is anything but natural and fatal to democracy.” —R.H. Lossin

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.​
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program [​at​] e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator that leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.