From Draft NOtices, October‐December 2026
— Lauren Reyna Morales and Simeon Man
Just some short years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) seemed like a promising technology of tomorrow for most people. Mainstream conversations around AI developments were typically met with enthusiasm from lay people and tech professionals alike. Maybe AI can cure cancer! It can at least give me a funny picture to upload to my Instagram story! Only scattered murmurs warning of AI’s potential dangers were reported by conventional media outlets. That’s not true anymore.
In September, former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxin appeared on virtually every legacy media broadcast to share a doomsday prediction: there is a 10% chance AI will extinguish the human race by the end of the decade. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reinforced Coxin’s perilous forecast by simultaneously issuing their own calls for caution just days later. Altman published “We Must Pace the Frontier,” an open letter urging for a deliberate pacing of AI development to ensure public safety. Altman declared that AI could go “very badly” if the technology develops too quickly without proper protections.
It’s naive to believe that the capitalist giants who own AI companies would warn about their products or abandon the interest of those that they serve. Promoting this narrative feels like an intentional diversion from the fact that there is no ethical use of AI.
Since its inception, AI technology has been developed for surveillance and warmaking. Silicon Valley itself “was made by — and in the service of — a U.S. government eager to establish dominance over its adversaries in the Cold War and beyond” (https://responsiblestatecraft.org). In just the last few years, the tech industry’s relationship with the Department of War has become increasingly intimate and brazen. The Pentagon is strengthening its partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Palantir. Leading officials from both the tech world and the military have insisted that this alliance be cemented to ensure the survival of U.S. security and supremacy in the world.
The Defense Innovation Unit (“DIU”) is a clear example of the close-knit bonds between militarism and AI companies. Established in 2015, the DIU is a subset agency of the Department of War. The unit’s entire function is to facilitate the U.S. military’s capacity to rapidly adopt and use advanced commercial technology made by Silicon Valley titans. The unit groups its work into four key fields: autonomous warfare, kill web, 10x portfolios, and cross-cutting AI. The most recent National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision to establish the first DIU office outside of the United States — in Israel. This legislation further sanctions Silicon Valley’s support of catastrophic terror wrought on humans and the Earth, and demonstrates that facilitating mass murder is Silicon Valley’s very business.
AI-enabled data processing systems like Lavender and Where’s Daddy? have played unprecedented roles in Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people. They have facilitated shocking levels of mass surveillance and extermination, consequently leading many to consider this onslaught an “AI-powered genocide” (https://www.palestine-studies.org). The Israeli military has given blanket approval for its officers to accept kill lists created by these types of technologies with “no requirement to check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based” (https://www.972mag.com). Big tech’s stake in militarized capitalism is also evident in their partnerships with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In April 2025, Google announced “significant investments in advanced cloud technology” in the UAE despite widespread accusations that the Emirati government is supplying weapons and technology to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group committing genocide in Sudan (https://prismreports.org).
It is well-documented that the U.S. military is the largest institutional polluter on the planet, with little to no accountability to international climate agreements. The accelerated use of AI for U.S. military operations will mean the continued lack of accountability while further fueling environmental catastrophes and the climate crisis. One place to look is the data centers that are proliferating across the U.S. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a single hyperscale data center (built for cloud computing and AI) can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water per day, roughly equivalent to the daily water usage of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 residents. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists also found that data centers’ demands on local electric grids can lead to increased emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide pollution, exacerbating environmental harms to local communities, many that already experience multigenerational environmental racism.
In response to the White House’s 2025 executive order “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” the Pentagon has begun soliciting contract bids from tech companies to build data centers on Army and Air Force installations. In March 2026, the Army signed the first two agreements with the investment firm Carlyle Group and the data center developer CyrusOne to build hyperscale data centers at Fort Bliss, Texas, and at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, respectively. These so-called commercial data centers are being built through “enhance use leases,” which allows for underused federal land to be used for national defense under fifty-year leases. According to Mother Jones, “placing data centers on federal land may be a workaround for rising backlash over potential environmental harm,” since military bases have historically been exempted from pollution regulation because of the overriding concern of “national security.”
The quest for America’s military AI dominance means dominance of the entire AI supply chain, which will accelerate colonial-capitalist plunder around the globe. In December 2025, the U.S. launched Pax Silica, with the explicit aim of countering China’s strength in rare earth mineral processing and advanced chip manufacturing. The State Department calls Pax Silica its “flagship effort on AI and supply chain security,” mobilizing a coalition of 24 states that includes Japan, South Korea, UAE, Israel, and the Philippines. The Philippines will host Pax Silica’s first major infrastructural project: a 4,000-acre industrial hub at the former Clark Air Force Base to serve as the primary base for chip assembly, testing and packaging capabilities. As reported by Rappler, critics have argued that Pax Silica — and the broader Luzon Economic Corridor (LEC) of which it is a part — reinforces a colonial relationship of dependency and exploitation, in which the Philippines exports raw materials and performs low-value manufacturing while higher-value technology, control, and profits remain in countries like Japan and the U.S.
The environmental cost will be massive. The Pax Silica hub is expected to consume 130 million liters of water a day and 3 gigawatts of electricity, straining Central Luzon’s water and energy systems and impacting agriculture; it will also expand mining in the provinces and result in another round of dispossession of indigenous Aeta peoples from their ancestral lands. Its designation as an “economic security zone,” according to World Socialist Web Site, aims to secure U.S. extraterritoriality, which continues a longstanding practice of legal immunity for crimes committed by U.S. servicemembers as well as the lack of accountability for environmental pollution from U.S. bases.
In a previous Draft NOtices article, I (Simeon) wrote about the remilitarization of the Philippines through the establishment of joint-use (i.e. U.S. and Philippines) and multi-use (i.e. military and commercial) facilities; the Pax Silica hub and LEC further exploits these blurry concepts, allowing for what the Filipino organization Bayan has called “war production disguised as development.” The language of development and economic growth is meant to obscure how this massive AI infrastructural project only serves to further embroil the Philippines in the ever-expanding U.S.-led war against China.
Tech fascists would like us to believe that AI is inevitable and resistance to it is futile, but the future is far from written. We need not accept the narrative of inevitability and fall into the trap of merely advocating for more “regulation” or “ethical uses.” Instead, we should demand an end to militarism and endless wars and strive for racial and environmental justice for all. In future issues of Draft NOtices, we will report on the grassroots struggles against AI and militarism taking place around the country and the world. Stay tuned!
Information sources:
https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/silicon-valley/
https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
https://www.congress.gov/index.php/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1229/text
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
https://prismreports.org/2025/07/28/google-cloud-ai-uae-sudan/
https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1656285
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/data-centers-us-military-bases-public-lands/
https://www.state.gov/pax-silica/
https://www.rappler.com/technology/features/things-to-know-pax-silica-philippines-goals-concerns/
https://bagongalyansangmakabayan.org/pax-silica-war-production-disguised-as-development/
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (https://www.comdsd.org/).