Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

12:00pm CDT

AI Extractivism: Global Systems, Local Processes

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

From colonial cattle economies to gold, critical minerals, and data centers, this session presents AI as an evolving extractive regime of global capitalism that reorganizes governance frameworks. It examines how system logics within emerging geopolitical structures translate into local politics and collective responses, exploring possibilities for transnational resistance and solidarity.

Speakers

Shiera S. al-Malik

Shiera S. el-Malik is Professor of International Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. She teaches and writes on themes of coloniality, politics, and theory. Her research is guided by an interest in the intersection of politics of knowledge and lived experience, particularly in... Read More →

V'cenza Cirefice

Marta Cook

Marta Cook is a researcher, writer, and widely recognized as one of the foremost harpists in Irish traditional music. Her article Subjects of Tradition: Cultural Construction and Irish Comprador Capitalism appeared in Irish Studies Review Volume 32, 2024. Her work on cultural extractivism... Read More →

Fawn E. Pochel

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Science and Tech

3:00pm CDT

How the Left Takes on AI Will Determine the Future

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

How we respond to AI may define the next decade of organizing. This debate, originally featured at Take Back Tech III, stages opposing perspectives on whether to seize control of or abolish AI systems. Designed to model principled disagreement and sharpen strategic thinking on technology, ownership, and power.

Speakers

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sasha Costanza-Chock (she/they/ella/elle) is a researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, dismantle the matrix of domination, and advance ecological survival. They are a nonbinary trans* femme. Sasha is known for their work on networked... Read More →

Sarah Hamid

Sarah T. Hamid is Director of Strategic Campaigns at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She brings over a decade of experience as a community organizer working at the intersection of technology, warfare, and punishment-based criminal and border systems. In 2018, she co-founded the... Read More →

Tawana Petty

Tawana Petty, also known by her poetry stage name Honeycomb, is a mother, social justice organizer, poet, author, facilitator and keynote lecturer.

Petty is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, Inc., an artist incubator which leverages poetry, literary and literacy workshops, anti-racism facilitation, political education and community-centered initiatives in pursuit of data and digital justice and racial and environmental... Read More →

Edith Romero

Edith Romero is originally from Honduras; she grew up in a banana town in the north coast of Honduras and moved to New Orleans to begin her higher education. Edith holds a Master’s in Healthcare Management and has experience in community health, Latinx health, reproductive justice... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Science and Tech

10:00am CDT

From Exploitation to Replacement? Workers in the New Political Economy of AI

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

In this workshop, we’ll use Marx’s analysis of political economy to understand how "AI" technologies—such as chatbots and image generators—rapidly accelerate worker exploitation and shift the relations of production between capital and labor. Participants will discuss how "AI" is reinscribing the conditions for technofeudalism and how workers are resisting the harms of automation, workplace surveillance, and algorithmic management.

Speakers

Alex Hanna

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

Nathan Kim

Nathan Kim is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. He’s interested in the political economy of tech production, and in particular Silicon Valley’s relationship to state violence after the Cold War.

Thomas Mariadason

Thomas Mariadason is the Executive Director of the Center for Political Education

Chika Okoye

Chika Okoye is the Lead Educator for the Center for Political Education

Sponsors

Center for Political Education

Distributed AI Research Institute

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Science and Tech

10:00am CDT

The Deadly Tech Exchange: How Tech Companies are Profiting from Genocide and Anti-Immigrant Violence

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

In this workshop we will map the network of US and Israeli companies and investors fueling the world’s first AI-powered genocide in Gaza, and delve into the revolving door of tech and capital between Silicon Valley and Israel’s “Silicon Wadi.” We’ll discuss the destructive impacts of the Deadly Tech Exchange for communities in the US, Palestine, and beyond, and offer action steps for fighting back through cross-movement campaigning.

Speakers

Izzy Mustafa

Izzy Mustafa is the Co-Executive Director at Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian-led organization focused on campaigns that challenge militarism, big tech, and systems of oppression while supporting labor organizing and building broad coalitions for justice and liberation.

Edith Romero

Eric Sype

Eric Sype, US National Organizer, 7amleh. Eric fights for Palestinian human rights as 7amleh’s National Organizer in the U.S. He holds a Master of Development Practice from the University of California, Berkeley, where he researched the impacts of technological advancements on decolonizing... Read More →

Sponsors

Adalah Justice Project

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Science and Tech

12:00pm CDT

Socialize the Grid: Data Centers and Translocal Organizing

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

Data centers have become a ubiquitous element of the political and social lexicon. While local wins are encouraging and inspiring, the need for translocal organizing models is necessary to fully socialize grid networks as part of the larger push for 100 percent publicly owned power and stopping data center proliferation.

Speakers

Socialism 2026

12:00pm CDT

Shiera S. al-Malik

V'cenza Cirefice

Marta Cook

Fawn E. Pochel

3:00pm CDT

Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sarah Hamid

Tawana Petty

Edith Romero

10:00am CDT

Alex Hanna

Nathan Kim

Thomas Mariadason

Chika Okoye

Center for Political Education

Distributed AI Research Institute

10:00am CDT

Izzy Mustafa

Edith Romero

Eric Sype

Adalah Justice Project

12:00pm CDT

David Cobb

Johanna Epke

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright

India Willi

Black Alliance for Peace

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