Paris Marx
Journalist, author of Road to Nowhere and Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires and host of Tech Won’t Save Us
Watch Paris’ presentation Where is AI taking us? at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit.
Dr. Abeba Birhane
Dr. Abeba Birhane is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher whose work focuses on AI, data, ethics and accountability. She is the Director of the Trinity College Dublin AI Accountability Lab
Watch Abeba’s presentation Frontier AI is human through and through at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit
Sonia Fereidonni
Sonia Fereidooni is a member of No Tech for Apartheid (NOTA) and United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), and a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge.
Watch Sonia’s presentation Unionising for Ethical Tech at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit.
Civil Society Panel
Watch Misa Norigami of SOMO, Bárbara Simão of Article19, Dr. PAtrick Bresnihan of Maynooth University and Mia Marzotto of Oxfam at Workers’ AI Counter Summit for the panel “AI boom, power for whom? Recentering fundamental rights and people’s voices in AI governance,” exploring how human rights and people’s voices can shape the governance of AI.
AI and Translation Discussion
Trish Van Bolderen is Chairperson of the Association of Translators and Interpreters Ireland (ATII). She has a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Ottawa. Nick Bennett has 28 years of experience as a translator before the effects of AI led him to shut down his business and work for Covalen as a generative AI data annotator.
Watch Nick and Trish at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit for an AI and translation discussion.
Organising Against the AI Hype Panel
Watch Paris Marx, Dr Abeba Birhane, Sonia Fereidonni and Layla Wade of the Balanced Economy Project at the Workers’ AI Counter Summit on the Organising Against the AI Hype panel
GenAI Use in Work Study
Watch Dimitrios Argyos, a PHD student of UCD present a study he co-authored GenAI Use in Work: its reach, effects, risks and limits: Findings from the Working in Ireland Survey
Art in Anti-Generative AI Resistance Workshop
Arkadia Jacob has worked alongside unionised workers in the Covalen AI annotator campaign, supporting worker-led organising, protests and strikes through creative campaigning and communications.
Watch Arkadia’s workshop on “Art in Anti-Generative AI Resistance”
Useful Links
1. Paris Marx – Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires – Podcast: Tech Won’t Save Us (x)
2. Abeba Birhane – Artificial Intelligence Accountability Lab (AIAL), Trinity College Dublin (x)
3. The Distributed AI Research Institute – Dair Luddite Lab resource hub
4. Karen Hao – Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
5. AI resist list
6. Brian Merchant- Blood in the Machine (book and podcast)
7. Cory Doctorow – Enshittification & The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI
8. Valerie Veatch – Ghost in the Machine Documentary (x)
9. United Tech & Allied Workers (UTAW)- AI Workers’ Inquiry 2026 (x)
10. Fearon, Seán, Bresnihan, Patrick and Brodie, Patrick – How we all pay for Big Tech: The social, economic, and environmental costs of data centres in Ireland
11. SOMO – Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations
Better Images of AI
All of the images used in the artwork for the Workers’ AI Counter Summit came from Better Images of AI. Better Images of AI is a non-profit collaboration researching, creating, curating and providing Better Images of AI. They have a growing gallery of images, which is the start of a new alternative repository of stock images. They are available for anyone to use for free under CC licenses, or just as inspiration for more helpful and diverse representatives of AI.
Image credit for our Workers’ AI Counter Summit programme goes to Marcin Wilkowski / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Deborah Lupton / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sinem Görücü / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Hanna Barakat & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Emily Rand & LOTI / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Simon Kenny's Machina Totalis, Or The Interpassivity of Automation References.
[1] — Ereson. “Having ‘The Radical’ character in the game is dumb.” Steam Community, 31 Oct. 2025 As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[2] — Crawford, Chris. Chris Crawford on Game Design, New Riders, 2003, pp. 75–7.
[3] — Žižek, Slavoj, 1997. The Plague of Fantasies, Verso, 2008, pp. 144–5.
[4] — Žižek, 2008, p. 141.
[5] — Bigl, Matthias. “Claude Code Is a Game Engine for Text: How DX Bloat Consumed the Terminal”. Bigl’s Blog, 11 Feb. 2026, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[6] — Kim, Gene, Steve Yegge. “The Value Of Vibe Coding (or, the Good FAAFO).” IT Revolution, 4 Aug. 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[7] — Cooper, Anderson, Rick Rubin. “In Shangri-La with music producer Rick Rubin”. 60 Minutes, 15 Jan. 2023, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[8] — Rubin, 2025.
[9] — Ranganathan, Aruna, Xingqi Maggie Ye. “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work — It Intensifies It”. Harvard Business Review, 9 Feb. 2026, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[10] — Rubin, Rick. The Way of Code, 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[11] — Žižek, 2008, pp. 144–145.
[12] — “my 10 favorite books of all time”. YouTube, uploaded by Man Carrying Thing, 31 July 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[13] — “Self-help is dead. It’s time to read fiction.” YouTube, uploaded by Man Carrying Thing, 22 Nov. 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[14] — Jones, Ralph. “‘Not second screen enough’: is Netflix deliberately dumbing down TV so people can watch while scrolling?” The Guardian, 17 Jan. 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[15] — Eco, 2017. The Paris Review, 2 Nov. 2017, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.
[16] — “Why we are getting more stupid | Slavoj Žižek FULL INTERVIEW”. YouTube, uploaded by The Institute of Art and Ideas, 18 Oct. 2025, As my desires are tended to for me by Machina Totalis, my tea is getting cold.