Destabilize AI Seminar - Daniel Leufer (Access Now)​

18-Dec-2025 | TU Delft, TPM-Hall H / Online

Should we fight to #keepthechatbotson?

Responding to restrictions on advanced AI tools as a digital rights organisation

Daniel Leufer is the Emerging Technologies Policy Lead at Access Now, a global digital rights organisation whose mission is to defend and extend the digital rights of communities at risk. He has a PhD in Philosophy, and has been involved in critical work on AI for many years, including developing the aimyths.org website. In this lecture, Daniel will unpack the complex process of reconciling the work and mission of an organisation like Access Now with critical academic work on AI. In particular, the focus will be on the trade offs and difficulties in integrating 'destabilising' or even abolitionist approaches into work that is frequently reactive to policy processes but that also needs to be attuned to the actual needs and practices of communities at risk, such as human rights defenders.

One key stream of Access Now's work is the #KeepitOn coalition, which fights for an end to internet shutdowns, as well as working on situations where social media platforms, apps, or other tools are subject to blocks and restrictions. To explore the trade offs involved in civil society work, Daniel will ask the question of how an organisation such as Access Now should respond when general purpose chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude etc) are subject to blocks or restrictions.