AI Resist List

Actions against the empire of AI.<br>See the ListExplore possible futures<br>AI takes many forms. Like the word “transportation”, it refers to a collection of technologies as diverse and distinctive as bicycles to rockets. But today, one version of AI takes all the oxygen: large-scale, generative systems that power products like Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT.

These systems consume an unfathomable amount of data, land, energy, labor, and water. They are rooted in profoundly disturbing ideologies that seek to flatten the world into a “one size fits all” abstraction and to replace humans with machines.

We call the companies leading this form of AI development “empires”. Under the guise of a civilizing mission to "benefit all of humanity”, they use large-scale AI development as cover to consolidate resources, destroy ecosystems, centralize information, hollow out institutions, and gain paramount economic and political power.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As AI researchers, journalists, and critical scholars, we have built, documented, and imagined radical alternatives that do precisely the opposite: center community, celebrate human agency, honor local context and history, and rejuvenate the planet.

Now people around the world are mobilizing to resist the empires of AI and to nourish visions of the future that work for all of us. Amid an onslaught of negative news, this project centers hope.

“We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision… We can change the world because we have many times before.

— Rebecca Solnit, writer and activist, Hope in the Dark

What can I do to resist AI?<br>Nothing about the current trajectory of AI development is inevitable. It was shaped by the thousands of subjective decisions of a tiny elite, and continues its march based on the active participation and tacit consent of people globally.

Inspired by Choose Democracy’s Resist List against authoritarianism, we organized the AI resistance movements we documented based on how they pressure different “Pillars of Support” that uphold and perpetuate the empires.

Our list is not meant to be comprehensive. Rather we selected a sample of movements to show different approaches to resistance and to illustrate how anyone can help shape the future of AI development.

Our nine pillars<br>NarrativeFundingDataData Centers<br>Resource ExtractionLabor<br>AdoptionSurveillancePolicy

The Resist List

View as database<br>Call out the Hype

The empires run on mythmaking and hype about what AI is, what it can do, and what they need to build it. Deflating that hype and countering myth with reality diminishes the empire's influence.<br>Change the language"Microslop"Throughout 2025, people started spreading the word "Microslop" to criticise the flood of low-quality outputs generated by Microsoft’s AI features. The term became viral when the company decided to ban its use on the Copilot Discord server, later on proceeding to shutting down the server itself. Specific initiatives also emerged from this frustration such as the website microslop.com which features a tracker documenting incidents of AI-generated content flooding the internet or corrupting the user experience.<br>GlobalOrganize and participate in protests, campaigns, and interventions

Decenter US tech giantsDI.DAY - Digital Independence DayDI.DAY - Digital Independence Day (#DIDit) is a European grassroots movement from Germany that promotes independence from Big Tech. To celebrate, they hold workshops across Germany and beyond on the first Sunday of every month to help people reclaim their digital lives, including on AI intervention in public life and how to switch to pro-democracy alternatives.<br>EuropeSupport, build, and use alternatives to Big Tech tools

Memes and stickers to challenge through ridiculeMemetivism“Meme-tivism: Rethinking AI’s Environmental Impact” is a series of hands-on participatory workshops, delivered to a range of public and private institutions, that asks its participants to explore the environmental impact of the AI industry through meme-making. Through humorous and creative participatory strategies, the project seeks to make such concerns more approachable and relatable, all the while contributing to a growing online library of memes.<br>EuropeOrganize and participate in protests, campaigns, and interventions

Change visual hype reinforcing AI dominanceBetter Images of AIBetter Images of AI is a global community image library and resource hub with a mission to improve the visual language that is used to communicate about and represent ‘AI’. They curate and maintain a free library of images that more accurately illustrate the capabilities, complexities, and impacts of AI systems, and the humans behind them.<br>GlobalSupport, build, and use alternatives to Big Tech tools

Document when AI failsReport algorithmically facilitated injusticeAlgorithmWatch provides a resource for anyone to report their experience of algorithmically facilitated...