UVA DTD Lab Publishes Book Resisting AI Techno-Solutionism

The University of Virginia's Digital Technology for Democracy Lab has released "Digital Democracy from Below: Resisting AI and Techno-solutionism", an open-access edited volume dated October 22, 2026 that argues the handles for democratic pushback on AI are hiding in places most policy debate ignores.

Editors Jess Reia, Jonathan van Geuns and Nicole Bassoff frame the premise plainly. "AI is becoming pervasive in everyday life," they write, deployed "without any serious reflection on the social and political consequences." Yet "the situation is not hopeless or settled," they argue, and the openings for change sit "in procurement, in a watershed boundary, in a tax treaty almost nobody knows exists."

The collection is organized into five parts: seeing through the fog, recognizing the limits of infrastructure, fighting erasure, practicing everyday democracy, and resisting, organizing and re-building.

The editors treat democracy as "a way of living, and as a skill that can be practiced," and close the book with a roadmap for organizing participatory workshops. Named contributors include Rafael C. Alvarado, Mar Hicks and David Nemer; the volume is published under a Creative Commons license.