The Invisibility of Discard Through Acceleration: Governance of Generative AI Models (2024-2026)

The disappearance of generative AI models has shifted from an exceptional event to a recurringpattern, yet no proportional body of scholarship examines its social, epistemic, and politicalconsequences. Drawing on 24 months of observation (June 2024–June 2026), this paper documentstwo distinct mechanisms of invisibility in AI model governance. The first is commercial deprecation(n=6): in no analyzed case did official communication include a detailed technical specification of thespecific change, and 100% appealed to vague categories ("optimization," "scalability," "refocus"). Thesecond is state suspension: in June 2026, a US government export-control directive, invoking nationalsecurity without public evidence, forced the global suspension of Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 andMythos 5 models days after their launch; they were redeployed three weeks later without the groundsfor either decision being made public. Following Winner (1980), Rosa (2013), and De Angelis(2017), the paper argues that the combination of acceleration, technicality of justifications, and vagueappeals to security operates as a depoliticization mechanism that excludes from scrutiny not onlynon-technical users but—in the case of state suspension—even the affected company itself.Keywords: generative artificial intelligence; governance; technological obsolescence; socialacceleration; national security; transparency; digital ethnography

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-07-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21121748
Primary Topic
Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

The Invisibility of Discard Through Acceleration: Governance of Generative AI Models (2024-2026)

Sara Sanz Herguedas
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
article

The Invisibility of Discard Through Acceleration: Governance of Generative AI Models (2024-2026)

Sara Sanz Herguedas
article en

Abstract

The disappearance of generative AI models has shifted from an exceptional event to a recurringpattern, yet no proportional body of scholarship examines its social, epistemic, and politicalconsequences. Drawing on 24 months of observation (June 2024–June 2026), this paper documentstwo distinct mechanisms of invisibility in AI model governance. The first is commercial deprecation(n=6): in no analyzed case did official communication include a detailed technical specification of thespecific change, and 100% appealed to vague categories ("optimization," "scalability," "refocus"). Thesecond is state suspension: in June 2026, a US government export-control directive, invoking nationalsecurity without public evidence, forced the global suspension of Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 andMythos 5 models days after their launch; they were redeployed three weeks later without the groundsfor either decision being made public. Following Winner (1980), Rosa (2013), and De Angelis(2017), the paper argues that the combination of acceleration, technicality of justifications, and vagueappeals to security operates as a depoliticization mechanism that excludes from scrutiny not onlynon-technical users but—in the case of state suspension—even the affected company itself.Keywords: generative artificial intelligence; governance; technological obsolescence; socialacceleration; national security; transparency; digital ethnography

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Openalex Percentile: Top 6%
Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
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