A theoretically innovative account of the role of generative AI in transforming the political, visual, and imaginative landscape of our contemporary world
The authoritarian right is using generative AI to blur the boundary between fiction and forecast, anticipating and normalizing acts of colonial destruction. Speculative Violence traces generative AI’s ability to shape actions and beliefs in the present by seizing and rendering our imagination of the future through seamless aesthetics. With its signature photorealistic style, AI helps normalize possible worlds rooted in erasure and domination, presenting them as legitimate beneath their glossy synthetic surface.
Media studies scholar Donatella Della Ratta calls this phenomenon speculative violence: a form of harm that doesn’t rely on overtly visible brutality but works through polished AI-generated images that make the removal of entire communities seem normal.
The “Gaza Riviera” visuals popularized by President Trump in early 2025 are a stark example: shimmering beaches and luxury resorts presented with no trace of the genocidal erasure such a future would require. Yet these visuals do more than simply imagine a future; they make that world thinkable, acceptable, even desirable, transforming vision itself into a tool of politics.
Drawing on examples from the post-October 7 war on Gaza and from the far right in the US and Europe, Speculative Violence elucidates the function of generative AI in a tech industry where resurgent faith-based narratives intersect with abiding military ambition, showing how AI has become a key tool for fueling authoritarian visions and normalizing exclusionary fantasies.
Donatella Della Ratta is a writer, performer, and curator specializing in networked technologies and generative AI, with a focus on the Arabic speaking world. Currently Associate Professor of Communication at John Cabot University, Rome, she is a former Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Donatella is the author of Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria , and a co-editor of The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self: Exploring Networked Identities . From 2007 to 2013 she served as the Arab world community manager for the international organization Creative Commons. She has curated several international art and film programs, including Syria Off Frame in collaboration with the Luciano Benetton Foundation, Venice, 2015. She is co-founder and board member of SyriaUntold, recipient of the Digital Communities Award at Ars Electronica 2014, and a member of the advisory board of the Cinema Futures initiative at Locarno International Film Festival.
ISBN: 9798888908525
Publication date: January 12, 2027
Introduction: What Is Speculative Violence?
1. Gaza Riviera: From Orientalist Fantasy to Synthetic “Ideoshock”
2. “Rendering” the Apocalypse: Prophecy and Program, Faith and Frames
3. The Future Archive: Authorized Futures, Reprogrammed Pasts
4. Speculative Violence Beyond Israel-Palestine
Coda: Imagination Is the Prompt
“Donatella Della Ratta is way ahead of the curve. This perception-shifting book cuts through the Silicon Valley and AI distortion field, enabling us to actually see reality and understand the apocalyptic stakes of tech-enabled far-right authoritarianism. A must-read.”
—Astra Taylor, coauthor of End Times Fascism
"When the truth is an ocean of Western-backed atrocities from Gaza to Lebanon, the rise of Silicon Valley bros pushing AI falsehoods, distortions, and dehumanisation should alarm us all. This timely and insightful book reminds us that reality is now under threat like never before, twisted and served up in pretty videos in the service of conquest and colonisation."
—Antony Loewenstein, independent journalist, filmmaker, and author of The Palestine Laboratory
“If you thought you had a handle on how bad AI is going to be, Donatella Della Ratta has news for you: It's going to be much worse. Speculative Violence reads like a dystopian science fiction novel of the best kind, both scary and intriguing at once, showing how AI is capable of creating convincing images of violence that in turn support ever more authoritarian regimes.”
—Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of To See in the Dark
“Speculative Violence is an unsettling, incisive, and urgent exploration of how AI is being deployed to prompt, render, and realize fascist futures predicated on supremacy and genocide.”
—Alberto Toscano, author of Late Fascism
“A sobering survey of how generative AI is being wielded in pursuit of violent and authoritarian ends, Speculative Violence reveals the historical precedents behind the contemporary far right’s weaponization of novel technologies and urges us to take this threat seriously. An essential read.”
—Wendy Liu, author of Abolish Silicon Valley
“Extraordinary . . . provides the most profound and erudite research on the impact of AI technology on the worst human-made disasters such as the genocide in Gaza. This unique book sends us a powerful wake-up call and warns us about the role of AI in future crimes against humanity, with the danger that this technology will legitimize and conceal such crimes because of its powerful performative capabilities. There is no better guide than this must-read book on how to tame the AI now—before it is too late.”
—Ilan Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
"[A] profound and terrifying study. . . Della Ratta rigorously clarifies an uncanny yet all-too-real threat."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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