AI and Feminist Worldmaking in Technofascist Times

Abstract

Drawing on her forthcoming book, 10 Ways to Stop Technofascism (MIT Press, 2027), D'Ignazio will contextualize the rise of ''technofascism'' – the collusion of large technology firms with authoritarian, extractive, and anti-democratic political agendas. While we can see technofascism manifesting globally, it is not inevitable and we do not have to accept a future predicated on accumulation, violence, and exclusion. To that end, D'Ignazio will highlight the importance of feminist worldmaking through technology. Drawing from the large-scale participatory AI project described in Counting Feminicide (MIT Press, 2024), she will describe how the research team built technology with data activists and journalists to enact alternative epistemological approaches to information science that center care, memory and justice. These and other experiments in ''solidarity technology'' (Souza De Alvear et al. 2026) place knowledge and information in the service of informatic futures that foster life, living, and vitality.