Patrick Brian Smith

New piece for @digitalwarjnl.bsky.social, arguing that we shouldn't treat AI as a discrete, technical tool, rather we must more systemically and systematically focus on the dispersed material infrastructures and political forces underpinning AI militarism link.springer.com/article/10.1...

"The president [of Israel], Netanyahu, & the former minister of defence should be put on trial" Nobel peace prize winner Navi Pillay.

Pleased to share the recording of yesterday's talk with Chris Hables Gray, where he examined how AI intertwines military technology, religious ideology, and perpetual war www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJve...

Three upcoming events at the Emergent Nonfiction Lab, you can register through the links here: emergentnonfictionlab.com

Upcoming talk with Chris Hables Gray on his book AI, Sacred Violence, and War—The Case of Gaza and essay "AI Cannot Win the Iran War." You can sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-iran-...

New piece for @opiniojuris.bsky.social opiniojuris.org/2026/07/02/u...

Presenting at #CSA2026. Drawing on Israel's Project Nimbus, the paper examines how cloud computing and AI are becoming increasingly embedded in contemporary architectures of warfare, and what this reveals about the evolving relationship between Big Tech, militarisation, and imperial power.

Interested in learning about how to protect civilians impacted by digital warfare? Join us virtually on June 4 for a panel with HRC's @betsypopken.bsky.social, @marwasf.bsky.social from @accessnow.org, @7amleh.bsky.social & others! 📅 6/4 ⌚ 9 AM PST 📍 Zoom berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

STATEMENT: The façade has crumbled. GLAN responds to reports that the UK’s Foreign Office unit tracking potential breaches of international law by #Israel in #Gaza and #Lebanon has been closed: glanlaw.org/news/glan-st...

Looking forward to presenting this paper on the militarisation of big tech and its roles in global genocide and ecocide at the CMSSP conference on Sunday

I have recently joined @unidir.org 's Security & Technology Programme as a fellow to lead a project on decommissioning military AI systems. You can learn more about the project here 👉🏼 unidir.org/decommission...

This month’s Docalogue features 2 excellent pieces on The Perfect Neighbor - check out what @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social and Kelly Gates have to say about the film: docalogue.com/the-perfect-...

Pleased to share this recording of Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud's book talk on The World According to Military Targeting www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWm2...

Check out the MST SIG's new spotlight in @jcmsjournal.bsky.social! Gary Kafer @gkafer.bsky.social and Patrick Brian Smith @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social take us through the history and future of @scmsmst.bsky.social. Read more here: quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/i...

Pleased to share this recording of Matthew Ford's @warmatters.bsky.social book talk on War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity and the Crises at Our Fingertips, with respondent Miglė Bareikytė www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDs...

🔴 Nigel Farage’s Reform is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history 75% of *all* Reform donations *ever* have come from just three rich men Is this what democracy looks like? New on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

Upcoming event at the Emergent Nonfiction Lab, Nadia El-Shaarawi will present her recent book Collateral Damages: Tracing the Debts and Displacements of the Iraq War! You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collateral...

Recording of recent talk with @byrontau.bsky.social on "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State" (2024). Discussion bridges investigative journalism, critical media studies, + surveillance studies! www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3s...

Just a reminder that this event with @byrontau.bsky.social is coming up soon: Wednesday, October 15 at 3pm GMT

Pleased to announce this talk with @byrontau.bsky.social on his recent book "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State." You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/means-of-c...

Pleased to share the introduction from this special issue! More articles to follow in the coming weeks! worldrecordsjournal.org/just-evidence/

"The US was born in war and has waged a war of some sort in every year of its existence. Silicon Valley knows that war is good for business. And many of its most powerful people want us to stop worrying about frivolities like ethics or ecology and love the bomb" www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Sasha Crawford-Holland, @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social, and Andrew Williams look at open-source investigation and propose tactics to counter epistemic injustice aimed at fostering pluralistic, decentralised, and solidarity-based OSI practices. academic.oup.com/lril/article...

Our new issue of the London Review of International Law is out with articles by Tanja Aalberts, @ingovenzke.bsky.social, Gavin Sullivan, Wouter Werner, Sasha Crawford-Holland, @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social, Andrew Williams, and the Medellín Group. academic.oup.com/lril/issue/1...

New article that critiques dominant narratives in “media forensics," arguing for a decolonial reorientation grounded in Indigenous epistemologies. Examining the work of NRO, it calls for counter-hegemonic practices that challenge settler-colonial evidentiary regimes... csalateral.org/issue/14-1/f...

'Human rights OSI frequently privileges technoscientific and criminological modes of investigation over alternative methods of identifying or tracking violence and harm.'

Interesting new piece challenging some of the assumptions on OSI contributions to atrocity accountability, particularly relating to the privileging of legal deference: there is a growing risk of excluding accounts of suffering in order to appease legal practices and norms - tinyurl.com/yc4v6y9z

"We were excited to have a panel accepted on the role of technology in genocide in Gaza at this year’s Computers, Privacy & Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels. However, CPDP then requested that Access Now & others remove the word “genocide” from panel titles & descriptions. We declined."

This event is coming up next week! With Mark Griffiths (@casesofyou.bsky.social) and Kali Rubaii. You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/late-moder...

A new co-authored piece that critically examines open-source investigation’s increasing reliance on—and deference to—the law. Written with Sasha Crawford-Holland and Andrew Williams. doi.org/10.1093/lril...

Those exploring the environmental consequences of conflicts throughout their lifecycle may well be interested in this event on 29 May.

Pleased to share details for this forthcoming event at the Emergent Nonfiction Lab. You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/late-moder...

Over the course of the summer, pieces from the forthcoming issue of World Records, titled "Just Evidence," co-edited by LaCharles Ward, Sasha Crawford-Holland, and myself, will be released. The full issue with introduction will be available late summer! worldrecordsjournal.org/category/vol...

Had a great time presenting this paper, cowritten with Sireesh Gururaja and Lucy Suchman! Paper draft here: arxiv.org/abs/2411.17840

This talk was such a joy to do! If you'd like to read the paper, it's here: arxiv.org/abs/2411.17840. Thank you for having us, @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social!