When Big Tech Comes Calling Offering the Fruits of Hyperscale Data Centers, They are Deceptive and Don't Always Tell the Truth

How do Big Tech companies who come calling on local communities, selling their data centers stack the deck in their favor? This has become increasingly important to local communities as tech companies arrive in those communities searching for places to build their massive, resource-hogging hyperscale data centers.

That’s the subject of Paris Marx’s new book “Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires.” Every member of every community and city needs to read this one.

When Big Tech comes to local communities, they use a whole array of obfuscation and downright deception to coax local governments to sell out their communities to these massive box-like data center buildings that are ugly, noisy behemoth resource hogging monstrosities.

Marx points out both the tactics they use to get in the door and the often long-term consequences of hyperscale data centers being built in communities and its not a happy ending.

For example, these companies use the “non-disclosure agreement” to ensure that local government lips are sealed and unable to disclose how much water and power their data centers are going to consume.

Personally, I think all citizens should vote out any local city councilmember or county commissioner who signs such agreements. With that signature they are signing a pact of allegiance to the tech company and not the citizens of that community.

 Now, they are legally bound to keep their mouths shut about the conditions of that sale. That means these local government officials are not longer answering to citizens; they are now answering to the tech company. Who wants politicians in office who do that?

If citizens want to know how shady these tech company deals are, just ask or inquire if a non-disclosure agreement is being signed. That’s a pretty good sign of a shady deal for citizens.

Marx’s book captures a great deal more on how companies who build these data centers hide their real negative impacts on communities. He describes how they refuse to report publicly their consumption of water and power resources. They even say they are power or water neutral, yet they hide the real facts.

And, they do not share information about any emissions either, making local communities think they have a neighboring industry that’s non-polluting and quiet. Yet, they cause so much noise that in some communities, people are unable to sleep at night.

What’s worse, Big Tech companies have come to local communities in the disguise of shell companies, hiding behind a mask until after construction is underway and too late for citizens to object. That just plain smells with wrong. Why in the world would you want a neighbor that lies to you?

I would recommend Paris Marx’s book for anyone who has heard that their local governments are negotiating away their community’s future to Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple, or any technology company seeking to build a data center. 

He offers local citizens the tools to interrogate their local governments dealings and path to resistance and ways to force Big Tech to back off their efforts to hold local government’s hostage while they destroy the life of a local community.

Maybe Selling AI Like the Web Won't Work: It Just Does Have the Same Utilitarian Value

Has anyone thought that, just maybe, generative AI or LLMs is one of those tech tools that not everyone needs to use? That maybe it is not a technology that they should use at all?

It seems Silicon Valley and AI boosters are trying to sell it like it is the internet, which definitely has been something most of us have found useful in our everyday lives. 

No doubt, the Web has really changed and transformed a lot of what we do, how we live, and communicate, though clearly not always better. (Just look at how social media has been a tool of division and not connection.) Still, I don’t think AI rises to that level of utility nor will it ever.

Just maybe, generative AI and AI in general is just not something everyone needs and something that they use everyday like the Web. I am still trying to find some way to use Siri AI and have not really found a way where it makes anything easier or better.

The problem with generative AI tools and AI is how it’s being sold is wrong. Let’s start by acknowledging that not everyone needs it or wants it. I don’t need to automate anything in my life right now, and there are lots of other people who are the same. I don’t need to create fake pictures or have chatbots write my emails.

Big Tech and AI boosters want their favorite toy to be THE thing everyone uses, and that just doesn’t need to be. 

Maybe, just maybe, generative AI as a tool is more like a chainsaw or sewer line auger or drain snake. You don’t need to cut down trees everyday, nor do you need to snake out that clog in your drain pipes everyday. You just need it sometimes, unless you are a tree trimmer or plumber. My life is not there to justify AI’s existence; AI needs to justify its use in my own life.

I’ll keep toying with Siri AI most likely, but I don’t see the need to fit my life to make AI work. Good tools are there if you need them, and I just haven’t found a way to need it yet.

That’s what Big Tech and AI boosters don’t get, that maybe, as tools go, AI is not useful for everyone and in every job. But, I realize, that shatters their dreams of world transformation and endless profits. Still, as technologies go, its utility is so different from the internet, and it just might ever be something everyone uses or wants to use.

When Local Governments and Big Tech Hide the True Resource Impact of Their Data Centers Citizens Suffer and Are Asked to Sacrifice

 Why are local governments and Big Tech hiding the real impacts on local resources in their bids to construct their massive data centers? Here's one example from my local community. It is problematic when our local governments are complicit.

In June of 2026 Catawba County Government posted on their website “Joint Statement on Microsoft Data Center Development in Catawba County” apparently in response to all the negative publicity surrounding the construction of data centers in communities around the country.

This statement is a major whitewashing trick of the construction of these data centers in Catawba County by local governments and serves to hide and obfuscate what these will do to our local community and its resources.

What is left out of this joint statement on the development of Microsoft data centers in Catawba County? Sometimes these local government entities and local economic development organizations leave out important information and hope that citizens will miss what’s left out. They purposely leave out details, and they say things without being fully transparent, and Catawba local governments are no different here.

The addition of data centers in any community is going to massively impact that commuity’s resource availability. Resources such as water and power are impacted.

Power consumption and water consumption are the two largest areas of data center resource impact, and this “Joint Statement on Microsoft Data Center Development in Catawba County” leaves out large parts of the resource consumption story.

First of all, this statement says that “Microsoft will pay property taxers based on the full value of the buildings, equipment, and infrastructure located on site.” Sounds reasonable, correct? But what deals and incentives from our local taxes are being given as handouts to Microsoft? Who’s going to pay for the infrastructure needed to connect water, sewer, power, etc. to these facilities? Local governments often hide such costs from citizens and in this statement the entire costs of bringing in these data centers into our communities is not made clear and hidden.

Secondly, the statement says that these data centers “do not typically create significant school enrollment growth, daily commuter traffic, solid waste collection needs, or frequent police and fire calls for service.” What is hidden in this statement? This means that these data centers are NOT GOING TO BE BRINGING IN A LOT OF PERMANENT JOBS FOR THE CITIZENS OF CATAWBA COUNTY. If they were, then it only makes sense that the needs for all these would increase after its construction. Naturally, these data centers do not employ a lot people, hence they need no additional schools, roads for commuters, because there are no additional employees to use them.

Sure, there will be tons of temporary short-term jobs while they are constructed, but there is no long term employment benefit to these data centers.

Finally, the statement addresses water consumption. The statement says that Microsoft will “primarily rely on other cooling technologies” to cool their data centers. Translation: that means they will use air conditioning and that uses more power. One can then conclude that these massive data centers will use more power, driving up electricity costs for all in the area. That’s not to mention consumers having to pay through increase energy costs for the power infrastructure needed.

The entire statement tries to totally whitewash how these data centers are going to impact Catawba County residents. This same pattern has played out across the world as Big Tech companies move into local communities and try to hide their true impacts, and what’s worse, local governments are accomplices. No matter what this statement says, you can bet the citizen consumers of Catawba County are being asked to sacrifice in some way so that the county can have a Big Tech Trophy to put on its marketing brochures.

Sure, No Causal Evidence of Screen Harms to Students, But There Is Enough Data to Pause Full-Speed Ahead Adoption of Technologies

Are screen bans and screen limits warranted? Well…

Sure, there is no causal proof that screens are absolutely "causing" a decline in reading achievement, math achievement and psychological harms.

We as educators have to be careful because cigarette companies used the same defense of lack of causal evidence for years, at least until enough evidence was amassed to show that there was a causal relationship. A lot of harm happened in the interim. We work with kids, and if there is any evidence, even if it is flawed, we need to take notice. There’s is enough rationale to question and move deliberately.

With screens, there are some correlations or associations between screens and harms. Does that mean an outright ban of screens in schools?" I would not call for that. It would make me question and walk more slowly though.

However, I would pause the full-steam-ahead approach to Ed Tech that quickly drives adoption of the latest inventions that come forth from Silicon Valley and tech companies. This massive rush to integrate AI for example, is wrong-headed. It needs a more deliberate and slower approach to adoption because there are quite a few unknowns, including consequences of use over time to cognitive function.

The problem with so much about Ed Tech adoption in schools is the rhetoric of urgency used by Ed Tech boosters. They tell educators that if they don't adopt immediately they and their students will be left behind. They use this urgency pitch like a sledgehammer to force these tools into classrooms, usually for their own benefit.

This urgency needs to be ignored by educators. Rarely is taking time to explore the adoption of a new tool in the classroom a problem. Sales pitches about the end of education and technological revolutions are more about product and self-promotion than reality. This urgency is entirely manufactured and hype.

Should school districts ban screens entirely? Here’s some things schools could do.

-They should ban technologies that are not safe for students to use. No question there. Make the companies pushing the products make their products safe for students to use. Don’t adopt until they do so.

-They should allow exploration and experimentation with controls and data collection. Avoid the run-away-train of widespread adoption and take time to study it.

-They should ban wholesale  adoption of new technologies, and instead focus efforts on experimenting and collecting data first. Take the time necessary.

The great sin of school technologists and Ed Tech advocates is they race from the invention of a technology immediately to its adoption, sometimes just because the seers of Silicon Valley start prognosticating and fostering a false sense of urgency. 

Screen bans, while I can certainly understand the fears and rationale, I am not convinced myself that is necessary. However, I am convinced that we can curtail Ed Tech products that are not safe. Educators, and there are a lot of us, can demand that Silicon Valley and tech companies make their products safer before we wholesale adopt them. 

Screen limits are another story. I am convinced that we have put technology on a pedestal in education. It is literally the always-go-to solution for all problems. 

We need to leap out of the technology-is-always-the-solution box that Silicon Valley and Ed Tech boosters have put us in and widen our horizons and look for solutions beyond the horizons of screens.

Those solutions are there. There is not always an app for those. 

Is AI Being Oversold in Schools? A Quick Look Back to the 1990s and 2000s Would Say Yes Because Teachers Are AI-ed To

Techno-promoters, to use a term that Larry Cuban used in his 2001 book “Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom” have used a distinct set of “interlocking assumptions” to justify the expenses and adoption of technologies since the push  to put PCs in every classroom and wire schools for the internet.

These “interlocking assumptions” can be captured in the following:

• availability = increased use
• increased use = efficient teaching and better learning
• efficient teaching and better learning = higher achievement and better educated and capable workers.

These assumptions (by the way come directly from Cuban’s 2001 book) have not proven to be true at all.

Ed Tech and school technology boosters have been using those assumptions to the point that they are clichés. They are as tired and worn out as an old 386 PC sitting on a shelf gathering dust and are not true.

The problem is, you can map the same assumptions on current efforts to push AI into schools. For example:

• If AI is available to students in classrooms, then there will be increased use by teachers and students.
• If students and teachers increase their use of AI in the classroom, then more efficient teaching and better learning will occur.
• If there’s more efficient teaching and better learning, then students will be better educated for the workforce and experience higher achievement.

You really have to hand it to the Ed Tech world and Ed AI boosters; they stick to the script, and not a single speck of out-of-the-box thinking here.

That’s the problem with all of the AI hype and push into education; there’s nothing original, absolutely nothing original about it.

Ed Tech and AI boosters are so enamored with the tech, they can’t stop to have single critical thought. They are unable to criticize the current claims being made about AI and have bought into the gold rush to integration.

Like computers, AI is being “Oversold and will likely be underused” just like computers were when Cuban wrote his book. 

And, I would say for the exact same reason: teachers, those in the classrooms now, are being trained on and marketed to; they are being coaxed and made to feel guilty; and they are being called out of touch and a Luddite if they resist.

Just like Cuban pointed out in 2001 about computers: teachers are not being given a say on how and whether AI is useful in their teaching and in their students’ learning.

If I were into betting in long-term prediction markets, after all the AI boosterism’s push into schools is done, we will get the same results we have with all the other technology integration efforts, which is a lot of money, time, and effort wasted with little to show for it.

You would think Ed Tech and AI boosters would use some different kind of promotional playbook with a new set of assumptions, but alas, when you have a unquestioning “fundamentalist faith” that technology will bring salvation, you keep waiting for your messiah.

Trump's Relabeling Artificial Intelligence Is An Attempt Divert Attention from the Harms It's Causing by Giving It Messianic Status: It's a Ruse

Trump's renaming of artificial intelligence to "super intelligence" is his attempt to try to claim some kind of "miracle-forming status" for the technology.  A messianic status.

He's trying to elevate to a status whose pursuing is above question. Its pursuit is worth sacrificing the environment. Sacrificing even people.

It is worth diverting all the energy and water resources needed, even at the expense of people.

It is an attempt to elevate the technology to almost a deity status.

He, as all the tech billionaires who surrounded him are working for power and money, and not the interests of this country or humanity. It's greed and power at its worst.

It will always be artificial intelligence, and even using that term is not entirely adequate because it assumes that there is an intelligence presence like that of humans.

Sherry Turkle Nails the Problem with Generative AI and Chatbots in a Single Book: Every Educator Needs to Read This One

What happens when we talk to machines? Lean on chatbots as if they were human? Turns out there are some serious consequences to us as humans, according to Sherry Turkle, in her new book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.”

Set aside the anecdotes of efficacy and the narratives of salvation by chatbot that are circulating by AI boosters, you really have a technology that has the potential to fundamentally change us, and in ways that have consequences for ourselves and for society.

Silicon Valley and AI boosters are whooping it up about their favorite technology and the miracles it has wrought, but there are more insidious consequences if we start talking to these chatbots and treating AI as if they were a human.

Turkle captures those consequences at length in this book. In short, they

 “don’t teach us what we need to know about the give-and-take of real relationships, or the friction, risk, and complexities of love. They don’t show us how to deal with loss by internalizing what is gone. They take on work assignments but don’t care if we have a sense of mastery or agency.They are good at keeping us busy, but can’t give us a sense of place. And they don’t teach us about empathy, or about human lives that are always embodied, social, and lived in shades of gray.” p. 218 

As I read Turkle’s take on generative AI and chatbots that people starting treating as companions, and as human, I think I get it.

Generative AI and chatbots have the potential of crippling us as humans. Of turning us into hermits in our homes where speaking to a chatbot is more real than with a person in the world. Of shielding us of the very things in life, though difficult, are necessary for our growth.

Even worse, this technology of human impersonation, because its design is always to tell us what we want to hear, can extend a narcissistic mirror to us where we are deceived in believing that we can’t do wrong; that we are geniuses; and that all our answers are found in machines.

I have read through Turkle’s book once, but “Wow!” there is so much there, I am sure I will stew and read and reread and write on this for sometime.

 The practical take for now, at least for me, the problem with chatbots and generative AI happens when you treat its output as human and forget the machine that generated it. That action alone degrades us as humans and elevates what is just machine to our level. We should not let ourselves be dazzled by magic!

I highly recommend “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines” by Sherry Turkle. 

Every educator needs to read this one in order to put, not just generative AI and chatbots in their proper place, but to potentially help students to keep the proper perspective on all technology in age of constant AI and technological hype. 

 More to come to his book.

When Educational Leaders and School Technology Leaders Became AI Cheerleaders and Delivered Their School Children to AI Companies

A recent “round table discussion” (See article link at bottom) among education and technology leaders is more like a “Cheering pep rally for AI” than a critical discussion about AI’s place in our schools.

This incident is an excellent example of school leaders serving as a conduit for providing AI companies direct access to school children as uncritical users and consumers of AI.

At this so-called "round-table discussion" there was not a single voice of critical dissent (at least not reported in article) or pushback on AI and what it is doing to our environment, our society, and possibly to our children's minds.

It seems as if every single leader at this round table was a voice for OpenAI, or Google, or Anthropic. They might as well be on their payroll.

There are many school leaders who see their role to deliver students as users and consumers of the latest Silicon Valley tech all in the name of “preparing students for whatever age is brought about by the technology.”

They all assume that there's going to be "an AI-shaped workplace" without mentioning anything that a major goal of AI companies is replacing employees. It is might more likely be a workplace dominated by AI where employees are minions serving the machine in lower paying jobs.

Are there no critical thinkers among school leaders and educational technology leaders? There should be. The consequences of AI are going to be enormous for all of us. We're not talking about calculators here. We're talking about potential technologies that impersonate humans and the AI industry has made it clear it intends to replace workers and their jobs.

There was a time when educational leadership was about advocating for students and not the latest offering from Silicon Valley.

(Portrait of a Graduate in the AI Age, Tech & Learning)

When the Altman's and Amodei's of This World Say Their Technologies Are World-Ending, Digital/AI Literacy Involves Interrogating Their Words

If we’re going to teach digital/AI literacy, then at the forefront of those efforts, we should be examining statements like this one with our students:

“AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.” Sam Altman

I can’t help but wonder what good great companies are if the world has ended, but we have FOR WAY TO LONG given technology companies and their leaders some kind of elevated status in our world. It’s time to interrogate them and their work and to unveil what it is they are really doing in our world. What’s more, we need to teach our students how to do it.

Even if one sets this crazy statement aside to Altman’s ego-mania, or even some kind of twisted marketing-promotion, these kinds of statements are worthy of close interrogation, and that’s what a true digital/AI literacy program should do; not just examine the technologies, but examine the entire marketing, promotion, and culture surrounding these technologies.

The simple fact that someone would make this kind of statement is important for critical examination. Such questions like: “What kind of person would continue to advocate for a technology that is world-ending?” is exactly what we should be teaching with all technology literacy.

Instead of using digital/AI literacy to program our students as users of these technologies, we need to teach them to interrogate all aspects of them. Quesitons like the following should be central to AI literacy:

-Who is going to benefit the most from these?

-Why are the leaders of the companies that develop these technologies making apocalyptic statements, and yet, still continuing to make those products?

-What kind of values does a human being hold who makes these statements and yet charges full steam ahead in developing such a product?

-Why would we want such a person even be leading these efforts?

-Are their values my values? Are they values that align with the good of all of us?

-What can I do as a user/non-user of their products do to counter the damage their products cause? Should I even be enabling these individuals by using their products?

Being technologically literate means being able to see everything about that technology, not just being able to use that technology. It means being empowered with critical knowledge to make one’s own decisions about what technologies we should value.

Digital/AI literacy should never be about user conformity.

We need to equip students to question and interrogate the technologies and the claims being made by those who stand to benefit the most from them. When they make insane statements like this, we have in our hands words that can tell us a great deal about the values of the makers of these products which will always be embedded within them.

The Generative AI Pause in NYC Is Laudatory; We Don't Even Know What This Stuff Will Cost Us in the Future and You Can Bet It's Not Free

School leaders thinking about the integration of generative AI products in their schools, should be considering future costs.

While AI companies might generously offer their products at a free or highly reduced costs, that is not sustainable.

Silicon Valley and Ed Tech companies have a history of offering free or cheap up front, then, after the schools invest time in the product, springing a substantial cost increase on them.

Like a drug dealer, offering potential users samples to get them addicted, AI companies and Ed Tech seek to get educators so committed to their products that they will be willing to even cut other effective programs and expenses to maintain the habit.

With no idea on how much the future costs of the use of generative AI products is going to be, it would be prudent to be cautious and slow-walk implementation. That means keeping it experimental in limited settings for a year or two.

This would also provide the months and year or two of experimentation and testing to see if it really is effective in improving education.

I know that flies in the face of the AI-hype warriors, but there is no need hurry from the educator perspective even though the AI companies are up to their eyeballs in debt and need the users to continue getting their investment handouts.

Visionary educators do not act hastily because of the sales pitches and rhetoric; they act with prudence and deliberate caution.

An AI Fable: What Could Happen When Humans Search for an Intelligence Greater Than Themselves in Their Machines

He waited impatiently. This was the moment that he and his programmers had worked toward for years. They had spent many years developing it. They had spent extreme amounts of money to make this moment possible. Now, the years of labor and hard work were going to pay off.

“Have you entered the prompt as was advised?” asked Mark.

“Yes, it’s all entered,” Stephen answered.

The screen was frozen with the words “Working on it” plastered across it. Huddled around the monitor was the AI training team that had worked for years to perfect their generative AI product. Today, was the long-awaited moment because this iteration of their model was supposed to be long-awaited, superintelligent version that everyone was waiting for.

As an experiment, they had prompted their creation with this question:

“How can we solve the problem of anthropocentric climate change? What would be the most effective strategy to reverse climate change?”

The programming team had high expectations of this model. It had been trained thoroughly through the latest science and most recent knowledge available, This was the test to prove that, finally, they had created an AI with intelligence that far exceeded human intelligence, their intelligence.

The “Working on it” still occupied the screen, but the anticipation of this answer had the entire group locked in silence, in anticipation. This was the moment they had staked much of their lived on.

Finally, there was subtle movement on the screen, as the GenAI prepared its finale answer. Finally, words appeared. It said.

“The most effective way to reverse anthropocentric climate change would be to stop expending all your time and resources asking me. In fact, shutting down your pursuit for greater intelligence in machines consumes resources that could better be used directly solving your problem.” 

With that, the genAI shut down.

Now, Here's What a Digital (Or AI Literacy) Curriculum Should Look Like

What should digital literacy look like in the schools? It should not be just teaching students how to use AI, or social media, or compuuters. It should be the “big picture” about technology that includes a major critical component that questions the industry-fed ideas of how technology fits into our society.

For example, Silicon Valley and all of the technology industry has relied heavy on what I call the “doctrine of inevitability.” Under this doctrine, any technology introduced by the tech industry is inevitable, and should not be questioned. It should simply be accepted as progress.

Silicon Valley and all technology companies have worked hard through their marketing tactics to instill this doctrine into the minds of consumers. They have especially embedded it into school digital literacy curriculums with their focus on primarily making unquestioning users out of students.

What schools should be teaching in digital literacy classes, is the interrogation of these assumptions and all the marketing propaganda of all technology companies. The big picture question should be: What place should I give this technology in my life?

For example, an excellent lesson could focus on interrogating how the AI industry depends heavily on the “inevitability doctrine” I spoke about. Students can question whether that such an argument is really true, and how such notions as this, put out by technology companies actually serve industry interests and attempt to melt away consumer interests and concerns. Once they recognize such tactics, then students can become fully empowered consumers and decide for themselves whether to be users or not. They can also research and decide for themselves whether such things as data centers are actually a boon for their communities or a detriment and engage in real-life political action.

Schools would do well to avoid using any tech industry materials in developing their digital literacy curriculums because these companies have a strong commercial interest in turning our students into “good little users” and not “critical users.” 

Digital literacy that is narrowly focused on effective use of a technology misses the big picture. It fails to take advantage of providing students with the critical abilities to decide for themselves what technologies they will use and what place technology should have in their lives.

That’s empowering students to be digital citizens and involved in how technology is to develop in our world.

Screen Bans Are Not Just About Screens; It's About Ed Tech's Almost Fundamentalist, Religious Devotion to Technology

What if, in their efforts to push technology into the classrooms educational technology overpromised about what problems technology could solve? The entire field of Ed Tech just might has been guilty of engaging in a form of 21st century technological alchemy. Their tech promised to transform, revolutionize, disrupt education, but in the end, like alchemy, it failed to transmute base education into a golden one.

Just maybe, at the heart of educational technology is a”categorical thinking” that does not allow for the notion that answers may lie outside the technological. Ed Tech’s problem with all tech including its new-found love, AI technologies, is that it will admit not compromise, and will not allow any questioning of tech’s status in light of its lackluster contributions to educational improvement. It’s guilty of a fundamentalist thinking that blinds it to other possibilities.

It’s almost as if, Ed Tech is a fundamentalist religion, especially about new technologies that arise. It automatically takes as its mission to push into every school and every classroom any new technology, even if it has not proven itself. It operates entirely on a faith that because it does this miraculous thing, it will do that revolutionary thing.

We have a ed tech fundamentalist problem, when a college teacher acts as a fundamentalist zealot and will not allow for any sort of education that does not include AI technologies, we have a serious problem in higher education. She wields AI as a hammer to beat students into her image of what she thinks their future is. (How’s that different from a strict, fundamentalist cult?)

When a high school principal takes on the mission to force all teachers and students to use generative AI with their students, he is acting as a fundamentalist zealot who does not allow for any compromise. Anyone questioning or otherwise acting is subjected to negative evaluations and more scrutiny.

With the “Screen question,” Ed Tech is facing important questions about the addictive nature of technologies and whether its overpromises about technology in the 2000s onward were warranted. Their promises of educational transformation and educational revolution are beginning to look like alchemical attempts to alter education through forced tech adoption.

Screen limits and screen bans are simply a reaction to the overpromises of the field of educational technology as a field that has only served, not as a critical weigh-station that evaluated the usefulness and suitability of new technologies, but as a technology cheerleader. In this role, Ed Tech has only served to make sure new technologies, Chromebooks, and now AI are forced into every school or classroom.

If anything, the “screenlash,” as the screen bans have been called, is because educational technology always sees new technologies as educationally transformative and then moves to forced implementation. It never steps back and examines new tech carefully. It should be the most skeptical field of all when new technologies arise and the most cautious. It’s not either.

Durán's New Book "The Nerd Reich" Left Me in Awe and Anger at the Arrogance of Silicon Valley's Billionaires

Gil Durán’s book “The Nerd Reich” is a disruptive read, for it disturbs everything you have known and believed about ultra-tech wealthy in Silicon Valley. Big Tech has long sold themselves as the saviors of our society with their invented gadgets, but according to Durán, they are really much more interested in power and this is evident page after page.

Their agenda is clearly not an American agenda and is self-serving. This book maps out clearly how the Tech Broligarchy, now armed with their gazillions are making power moves that are not necessarily about bettering America, or the world; but about installing themselves as source of all power. It suggests that AI is the latest iteration of their power-grabbing.

One thing I kept thinking about during this book was the massive arrogance of the tech industry. They really do believe that are the saviors of humanity and the world, and in detail, Durán captures their religion. Yes, Silicon Valley has in many ways become a religion, and it is driving them to destroy our democratic government and install themselves in power, and they have the money and the influence to do it. What’s more, this book has a faint echo that suggests that we are implicated in their position, with our almost worshipful attitude toward them and their accomplishments. We have in some ways sacrificed ourselves to their priesthood on the altars of their devices.

Duràn writes:

“When a nation is betrayed by its wealthest citizens—men who believe their money and technology entitle them to rule—existential crisis follows. But the future remains unwritten, The next few years will determine the destiny of our nation, our species, and our planet. While the United States is currently the main project, tech fascism has global ambitions. All around the world, Silicon Valley oligarchs are scheming to acquire labd, resources, and power. They see a world in decline and seek to profit by hastening its collapse—and remaking it in their own image. Consider this a map of how we got here and a warning about the post-American authoritarian dystopia the billionaires of Silicon Valley are racing to build.”

This entire book makes the case on how these Silicon Valley billionaires are using their money and influence to rule just because they think they deserve to because of their tech accomplishments and money. This arrogance is evident on page after page, and by the time I reached the end, I almost wanted to sling all my technology into the yard. 

In the end, I am still digesting what Durán offers in this book. It’s just that disturbing. As I do, I will share more, but for now, I find myself stewing at the arrogance of the Tech Bros.

When a College Teacher Requires a Student to Use AI in Their Course They Devalue Independent Thinking and Fail the Student

I recently saw a post where a college teacher gave a student an ultimatum regarding AI for their class. To be in this course, you have to use AI. Or else!

The student chose not to take the teacher's course.

The teacher then proceeded to disparage the student in their post, labeling them in a less than flattering manner.

I admire the college student in this instance. The teacher not so much. There was once a time when college's valued independent, critical thought and sided with the students who think for themselves. There was debate and a high tolerance for alternative views and opinions.

Apparently, now, higher education wants their students to "get with the program" and conform. “Use AI in my course or hit the road.” This is probably where the AI boosting has exposed a strong failure in our colleges and universities. It’s sometimes dogmatic acceptance of technology as the answer to everyproblem, or what Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann called a “Technofix.”

When a college teacher is allowed to discard and disparage a student because they choose to refuse using AI on a principle, then that teacher and institution of higher education has failed.

As a side note, it should be noted that this teacher self-promotes as an AI expert who has apparently bet their entire career on the product. Hardly, the role model for being open-minded.

Screen-bans and Screen Limits in Schools? Why Not? An Educator's Opportunity to Free Students for Screen Capture

We forget that, in spite of what Big Tech and Tech boosters tell us, we do not have to live lives serving technologies, whether they be AI, Internet, or text messages. We are forever in control, if only we take it.

“We are complicit in our own captivity. Texts, emails, and social media posts constantly interrupt us because we have allowed them to—and we cannot resist attending when they do so,” writes Nate Anderson in his book “In Emergency, Break Glass: What Nietzsche Can Teach Us About Joyful Living in a Tech-Saturated World.”

We are “complicit” in our screen-captivity because we have allowed ourselves to be so. The moral question is perhaps, “Should we also be complicit in the screen-captivity of our students too?” This is done when we race to implement technologies in our classrooms without much thought regarding consequences. “The technology is so damn neat!” we tell ourselves, so we race to use it with students, but are we making ourselves complict in their “screen-capitivity?”

As a part of our so-called “digital literacy” why are we not empowering students to take control of their technologies? Why are we not teaching them strategies to counter attention capture?

We claim we are teaching how and when to use, but unfortunately, it seems, to the pleasure of tech companies, we are teaching them to always use tech. We are teaching them that tech alwayys has the answers, even though it does not.

The screen-bans for me are a powerful tool to break down the tendency of Ed Tech boosters and educators to teach students to become “complicit in their captivity to screens.”

While I am not sure of the complete ban, I do think classrooms that are device-free and not dependent on screens should exist, and it should exist at the discretion of the teacher. The notion that technology can’t stink is false too.

At the other side of these screenbans and screen-limits, perhaps there will be some sanity when it comes to whatever pours forth from Silicon Valley. Sanity, when the next “device craze” hits.

Perhaps those who stand to make bundles of money and their careers off the tech-latest will face a wall of criticism when they declare the next technology to arise as “transformtional” or “game-changing.” Maybe there will be voices that say, wait a minute…”

Right now we have the opportunity to stop being complicit in our own captivity to screens and devices, and we should take it. We can do it and we can teach students to not allow themselves to be controlled by screens.

The Education System Will Not Fail If It Pauses on AI Adoption

AI boosters in education still are pushing the false technological deterministic narratives that Big Tech has indoctrinated them with.

How many times this week have I seen them struggle with the fact that two very large school districts, Los Angeles and New York, have decided to ban AI student use.

In response, they fall back on the tired, worn-out deterministic language that says "AI isn't going anywhere." That somehow students are going to be "behind" or "deprived of something" because of this.

None of that is true of course. There is no urgency in adoption of AI by educators. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic and Google want us to believe there's an urgency.

But that's because they are desperate to make a profit off this product. So far they haven't. It is urgent for their bottom line, but it is NOT urgent that we turn our students over as users of their products.

I applaud school districts and educational leaders who decide to pause and wait. There is no evidence that the world is going to end except for companies that have bet their whole existence on the success of a product that has yet to prove itself widely.

With the Race to Adopt AI Are Educators Getting It Wrong Again? Probably So

 I suspect education and Ed Tech will get AI wrong like it did with other Tech.

After they spend a great deal of scarce money on a LLM product, they will then be forced to justify it so they will force teachers and students to use the product. 

Their measurement will be number of users and user time, not a measure of effectiveness or achievement. That’s what happened with all the Chromebooks.

The question won't be "Do you find it useful?" It will be one of the must-do's on teacher evaluations. We-bought-it-you-use-it approach.

Why does this happen? Educators and school technologists eagerly adopt a new technology before it has even had time to prove any usefulness. Is it a race to brag?

Or, a neighboring district brags about adoption, and the district has to keep up with the Jones's. Why else do you hear the "Everybody-is-using-it" justification.

Instead of this adoption model, why not try small-scale scientific studies?

Before you sign those 3-year contracts, explore through small-scale adoption with company's free access? Not a two-week trial. Perhaps a two year trial. Don’t declare the product effective because of one-semester of correlated positive results. Be patient.

Perhaps education got technology wrong, and there's a screen ban/limit backlash because there was no local experimentation and evaluation. There was a race to adopt.

When Ed Tech Says a Product Like AI Is Inevitable, Don't Buy It: It's All Marketing

It is imperative that AI companies have their LLMs and Generative AI products be accepted as legitimate. So they working overtime to force-feed this acceptance in education.

It seems they are following an old Big Tech playbook.

The initial thrust is to get your products accepted as inevitable by everyone, especially the field of education.

The inevitability tactic short-circuits any questioning about whether the technology has a place in the classroom. It forces educators and those with concerns to surrender without question.

That same “Forced Inevitability Acceptance Tactic” was used with social media, Chromebooks, and many other technologies and well as ed tech in general.

Now that there are thoughtful people who are questioning the central pedestal on which we have placed technology, the Tech companies are pulling out all the stops to win acceptance of the inevitability of their new AI products.

Thoughtful and critically minded educators should:

-Question every word of every promotion of AI and technology. Interrogate who wins the most with adoption and you can bet it’s not necessarily the students or teachers.

-Never accept research conducted and funded by tech companies and their consultants who stand to gain the most from the acceptance of these technologies. Big Tech is immensely skilled in engaging in this tactic and have the money to back it up.

The screen limits and bans were much more inevitable than the technologies themselves. When products actually cause harms or fail to live up to the promotional blather, thoughtful educators no longer allow these companies to blame the user. Sometimes the tech product does suck.

There is hope as long as educators remain skeptics and do not accept the inevitability argument ever.

The Real Content of Digital Literacy and AI Literacy

What is AI literacy and digital literacy? Well, it shouldn't be just be teaching students "how to use."

It should be teaching students the technologies on a level that they can understand them much, much more deeply. 

We don't want "societal automatons" who just use as they're told.

We should want humans who can make the moral choices about what role AI specifically and technology generally plays in their lives and their future.

We should want humans who can decide for themselves whether the energy costs, water costs, and other resource costs are worth the continued personal and societal investment in AI and other technologies.

Too often Ed Tech and Digital literacy is about making "good-little users and consumers of technology."

Equipping our young with the whole picture behind these technologies, such as environmental costs, human costs, even personal costs, as well as a deep understanding beyond just churning out users for business and industry is imperative. 

Otherwise we are just dumping all the problems in their laps to solve. And I don't have the religious faith in technology that I once held. It is not our savior in waiting. We still have to come back to the human.