A single AI data center consumes more power than a mid-sized city. SHADOWNET examines the regulatory gap, the utility subsidy structure, and who bears the cost when AI’s energy appetite outpaces grid capacity.
The Hidden Infrastructure Cost of AI: Who Pays When Data Centers Outgrow Cities Read More »
An RSF checkpoint turned back a UN food convoy in Darfur. Children died of starvation in a region that hadn’t seen famine in decades. This wasn’t a logistical failure. It was a military decision. And nobody has been held accountable — in Sudan, Gaza, Yemen, or anywhere else.
In 2017, Sri Lanka handed China a port on a 99-year lease. The West called it proof of China’s debt trap strategy. Researchers who examined it said the story was largely wrong — and kept saying so while the narrative spread as fact. Here’s what’s actually happening.
The Debt Trap Debate: Is China Really Colonizing Africa? Read More »
The West froze $300 billion in Russian assets, expelled banks from SWIFT, and imposed the most sweeping sanctions in history. Russia’s economy contracted 2.1 percent — less than America’s 2008 crisis. The war continued. So why does the world keep reaching for a tool that rarely works?
Sanctions Don’t Work — So Why Do We Keep Using Them? Read More »
China signed a deal for $100 billion worth of Congolese minerals in exchange for roads and hospitals. The DRC still has a GDP per capita of $600. The quiet war over Africa’s resources is the most important economic competition of the 21st century — and it’s being fought over your head.
Content moderation workers in the Global South earn as little as $2.20 an hour to train AI systems for major tech companies. SHADOWNET examines the labor economics behind AI development — and why the gap between AI’s winners and its workforce is structural, not incidental.
In 2019, an algorithm flagged a Uyghur man for attending a mosque and contacting a relative abroad. A policeman knocked on his door. The technology that made that possible is now being sold to governments worldwide — and it doesn’t care whether they’re authoritarian or not.
Surveillance States: The Technology Authoritarian Governments Love Read More »
When a drone kills the wrong person, someone is accountable. But when the decision to fire was made by an algorithm — in milliseconds, without human review — the accountability disappears into a legal black hole that nobody in power wants to close.
Autonomous Weapons: Who Is Responsible When AI Kills? Read More »
On October 7, 2023, two wars started simultaneously — one on the ground, one on your phone. Depending on which algorithm was feeding you content, you may have seen almost nothing of one of them. Here’s how platforms shape what you believe about conflict.
How Algorithms Decide What You Believe About War Read More »
A photograph on social media. A scramble in a Pentagon think tank. A budget line that quietly doubles. Nobody voted on the AI arms race — but it is already reshaping who controls the future of warfare, surveillance, and global power.
