AI and the Ecocidal Hubris of Silicon Valley: A 4-Part Series
Bioneers | Published: July 10, 2025 Eco-NomicsJustice Article
As artificial intelligence rapidly embeds itself into nearly every sector of society, its unchecked expansion is triggering urgent questions about power, accountability, environmental cost, and the future of life on Earth. While some applications of AI may offer meaningful insights or tools, our new four-part series—adapted from the 2025 Bioneers Conference panel AI and the Ecocidal Hubris of Silicon Valley—focuses on the darker undercurrents: corporate overreach, surveillance, digital colonialism, environmental exploitation, and the erosion of sovereignty.
While Bioneers is not an advocacy organization with a singular platform, one of our core missions is to provide a dynamic forum for diverse, life-affirming ideas. The thinkers and changemakers we feature don’t always agree on every issue—and that’s by design. Because AI is such a complex and rapidly evolving topic, we want to be clear: the views expressed in this series are those of the authors, as is always the case with Bioneers content.
Some in our community see potential in AI’s selective use, such as its role in decoding whale communication, recently featured at our conference, and various other applications. But the broader context cannot be ignored. The explosive growth of AI, fueled by corporate ambition and massive investment, carries sweeping risks across every sphere of life. The four long-time activists and technology watchdogs featured in this series bring urgently needed perspectives to a conversation often dominated by hype. Their insights help us ask better questions about the world AI is shaping—and who it’s leaving behind.
The Series
Essay 1: Progress at Any Cost? The False Promises of AI
By Koohan Paik-Mander
A sweeping critique of AI as a force multiplier for climate collapse, authoritarianism, and capitalist control. Paik-Mander draws connections between militarization, planetary destruction, and the seductive myth of techno-salvation.
Essay 2: The True Cost of AI: Water, Energy, and a Warming Planet
By Paris Marx
A look under the hood of AI’s infrastructure, revealing the massive and often hidden environmental toll of data centers, energy use, and water consumption fueling the tech industry’s AI ambitions.
Essay 3: The Illusion of Control: Deregulation, Legal Loopholes, and the Rise of AI
By Claire Cummings
Legal scholar Claire Cummings explores how weak regulatory frameworks, corporate lobbying, and familiar patterns of industry capture are shaping the AI frontier, often to the detriment of democracy and human rights.
Essay 4: Farming in the Dark: The Black Box of AI and the Erosion of Food Sovereignty
By Soledad Vogliano
Anthropologist and agroecology educator Soledad Vogliano unpacks how AI is quietly infiltrating food and biodiversity systems. Her piece explores the dangers of opaque algorithms, digital colonialism, and corporate consolidation in agriculture, and makes a compelling case for bottom-up resistance.