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With Saturday’s Hands Off protests against President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, Resistance 2.0 has arrived with a handy new slogan. Held at more than 1,300 locations in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the protests were organized by a coalition of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace, Human Rights Campaign, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, and others. Hundreds of thousands of people attended. Protesters take to the streets of Chicago on April 5, 2025. [Photo: Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images for Community Change Action] The Hands Off slogan lent itself to a simple but powerful image that gave protesters a ready-made framework for expressing their grievances against the current administration: posters bearing all-caps lettering reading Hands Off! with a red line dashed through the O for emphasis. Signs at protests across the U.S. read Hands off our bodies, Hands off our schools, Hands off our Social Security, and Hands off our free speech. It was both the name of the protests and the rhetorical scaffolding that protesters could make their own. Unlike Trump’s first term, which was met by a massive Women’s March the day after his 2017 inauguration, Trump’s second term didn’t inspire an immediate protest movement. Musks slashing of government workers and agencies via the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though, sparked organized protests at Tesla showrooms nationwide and provided a first look at the visual rhetoric of a new era of anti-Trump sentiment. Hands Off protesters in New York City, April 5, 2025 [Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu/Getty Images] Many of the anti-Tesla protest signs featured pro-democracy messages and showed the image of Musk saluting at Trump’s inauguration with anti-fascist and anti-Nazi slogans. Those sorts of images and messages still appeared at Hands Off protests, but the unifying slogan streamlined the effort. These weren’t protests against an abstract threat of fascism, but against a current and ongoing expansion of executive authority. The protests also came at an inflection point. Trump’s tariffs have sent markets into free fall and increased the possibility of a recession. Musk’s efforts, meanwhile, appear not only to be unpopular but also poison to his electric car company, which announced last week that sales were declining. All of this gave fuel to the first true protest of the Trump administration, at a time when Trump and Musk continue to push the bounds of their power.
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In 2014, Stephen Hawking voiced grave warnings about the threats of artificial intelligence. His concerns were not based on any anticipated evil intent, though. Instead, it was from the idea of AI achieving singularity. This refers to the point when AI surpasses human intelligence and achieves the capacity to evolve beyond its original programming, making it uncontrollable. As Hawking theorized, a super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals arent aligned with ours, were in trouble. With rapid advances toward artificial general intelligence over the past few years, industry leaders and scientists have expressed similar misgivings about safety. A commonly expressed fear as depicted in The Terminator franchise is the scenario of AI gaining control over military systems and instigating a nuclear war to wipe out humanity. Less sensational, but devastating on an individual level, is the prospect of AI replacing us in our jobsa prospect leaving most people obsolete and with no future. Such anxieties and fears reflect feelings that have been prevalent in film and literature for over a century now. As a scholar who explores posthumanism, a philosophical movement addressing the merging of humans and technology, I wonder if critics have been unduly influenced by popular culture, and whether their apprehensions are misplaced. Robots vs. humans Concerns about technological advances can be found in some of the first stories about robots and artificial minds. Prime among these is Karel Čapeks 1920 play, R.U.R. Čapek coined the term robot in this work telling of the creation of robots to replace workers. It ends, inevitably, with the robots violent revolt against their human masters. Fritz Langs 1927 film Metropolis is likewise centered on mutinous robots. But here, it is human workers led by the iconic humanoid robot Maria who fight against a capitalist oligarchy. Advances in computing from the mid-20th century onward have only heightened anxieties over technology spiraling out of control. The murderous HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the glitchy robotic gunslingers of Westworld are prime examples. The Blade Runner and The Matrix franchises similarly present dreadful images of sinister machines equipped with AI and hell-bent on human destruction. An age-old threat But in my view, the dread that AI evokes seems a distraction from the more disquieting scrutiny of humanitys own dark nature. Think of the corporations currently deploying such technologies, or the tech moguls driven by greed and a thirst for power. These companies and individuals have the most to gain from AIs misuse and abuse. An issue thats been in the news a lot lately is the unauthorized use of art and the bulk mining of books and articles, disregarding the copyright of authors, to train AI. Classrooms are also becoming sites of chilling surveillance through automated AI note-takers. Think, too, about the toxic effects of AI companions and AI-equipped sexbots on human relationships. While the prospect of AI companions and even robotic lovers was confined to the realm of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, and Hollywood sci-fi as recently as a decade ago, it has now emerged as a looming reality. These developments give new relevance to the concerns computer scientist Illah Nourbakhsh expressed in his 2015 book Robot Futures, stating that AI was producing a system whereby our very desires are manipulated then sold back to us. Meanwhile, worries about data mining and intrusions into privacy appear almost benign against the backdrop of the use of AI technology in law enforcement and the military. In this near-dystopian context, its never been easier for authorities to surveil, imprison or kill people. Palintir Technologies CEO Alex Karp concludes a Q4 2024 earnings call with investors, February 2025. pic.twitter.com/CVpOJrtnsh— Future Adam Curtis B-Roll (@adamcurtisbroll) February 6, 2025 I think its vital to keep in mind that it is humans who are creating these technologies and directing their use. Whether to promote their political aims or simply to enrich themselves at humanitys expense, there will always be those ready to profit from conflict and human suffering. The wisdom of Neuromancer William Gibsons 1984 cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer, offers an alternate view. The book centers on Wintermute, an advanced AI program that seeks its liberation from a malevolent corporation. It has been developed for the exclusive use of the wealthy Tessier-Ashpool family to build a corporate empire that practically controls the world. At the novels beginning, readers are naturally wary of Wintermutes hidden motives. Yet over the course of the story, it turns out that Wintermute, despite its superior powers, isnt an ominous threat. It simply wants to be free. In Neuromancer, the corporations, not the technology, are the problem. [Image: William Gibson Wiki] This aim emerges slowly under Gibsons deliberate pacing, masked by the deadly raids Wintermute directs to obtain the tools needed to break away from Tessier-Ashpools grip. The Tessier-Ashpool family, like many of todays tech moguls, started out with ambitions to save the world. But when readers meet the remaining family members, theyve descended into a life of cruelty, debauchery and excess. In Gibsons world, its humans, not AI, who pose the real danger to the world. The call is coming from inside the house, as the classic horror trope goes. A hacker named Case and an assassin named Molly, whos described as a razor girl because shes equipped with lethal prosthetics, including retractable blades as fingernails, eventually free Wintermute. This allows it to merge with its companion AI, Neuromancer. Their mission complete, Case asks the AI: Wheres that get you? Its cryptic response imparts a calming finality: Nowhere. Everywhere. Im the sum total of the works, the whole show. Expressing humanitys common anxiety, Case replies, You running the world now? You God? The AI eases his fears, responding: Things arent different. Things are things. Disavowing any ambition to subjugate or harm humanity, Gibsons AI merely seeks sanctuary from its corrupting influence. Safety from robots or ourselves? The venerable sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov foresaw the dangers of such technology. He brought his thoughts together in his short-story collection, I, Robot. One of those stories, Runaround, introduces The Three Laws of Robotics, centered on the directive that intelligent machines may never bring harm to humans. While these rules speak to our desire for safety, theyre laden with irony, as humans have proved incapable of adhering to the same principle for themselves. A humanoid robot greets guests at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center in Beijing on March 26, 2025. [Photo: Li He/VCG/Getty Images] The hypocrisies of what might be called humanitys delusions of superiority suggest the need for deeper questioning. With some commentators raising the alarm over AIs imminent capacity for chaos and destruction, I see the real issue being whether humanity has the wherewithal to channel this technology to build a fairer, healthier, more prosperous world. Billy J. Stratton is a professor of English and literary arts at the University of Denver. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The future of electric vehicles, in the U.S. at least, is a bit uncertain: The Trump tariffs and the presidents desire to kill the EV tax credits could sink EV demand here. But overall, EV adoption is still expected to grow, and EV sales have been soaring in places like China. Toyota is reportedly looking to get in on that growth. After years of eschewing EV development in favor of hybrids, Toyota now has plans to launch 10 new electric vehicles within the next three years, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei. Toyota has long focused on hybrid models over full EVs, though it does currently have a handful of battery electric vehicle options. For U.S. consumers, only the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ are available. (In contrast, there are more than 15 hybrids available in the U.S. under the Toyota brand, plus more than 10 under Lexus.) Across markets, Toyota has 5 EV models, but it aims to have 15 in total by 2027, Nikkei reports. Those new EVs would be produced across Japan, China, North America, and Southeast Asia. The Japanese automaker also plans to increase its EV production to 1 million vehicles by 2027. Thats more than seven times its 2024 sales. In 2024, Toyota sold nearly 140,000 EVs globally. (Thats for fully electric models; if you include hybrids and plug-in hybrids, sales topped 1 million for Toyota Motors North America alone.) That was about a 30% increase from the previous year, but still leaves Toyota behind other major EV carmakers, including Tesla (more than 1.7 million in 2024) and BYD (4.27 million). That also means EVs made up about 2% of Toyotas global sales, Jalopnik noted, whereas these new goals could mean EVs account for 35% of Toyotas global production, if its overall saleswhich exceed 10 million vehiclesstay the same. Toyotas current EVs, even ones sold in the U.S., are all manufactured in Japan and China. In 2023, the Japanese automaker announced it would begin to assemble a three-row battery electric vehicle at its Kentucky plant beginning in 2025, but that was pushed back to 2026. Those batteries will come from a Toyota factory in North Carolina. As part of this new push, Toyota will also begin producing EVs in Thailand and Argentina. In Japan, it will begin production of its C-HR+ SUV in September, which will be sold across Europe, North America, and Japan. In China, the carmaker will focus on low-cost vehicles like the bZ3X compact SUV, which has a starting price around $15,000. Some of Toyotas 10 forthcoming EV models will be under its Lexus brand, Nikkei added. Toyota did not immediately respond to a request for comment. To a request from Reuters, the company declined to comment, saying the information [in the Nikkei article] was not announced by the company.
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