This Machine Kills

In our first recording back from holiday, we get into the Silicon Valley Election and go through the relationship between Trump and Musk. What can we expect from the President and his First Buddy — personally and politically, institutionally and financially? Beyond Musk, how might the tech elite behave and benefit in another Trump administration? There’s a lot of potential and speculation and promises and hype at this point—and a lot of open questions that remain to be seen—but we set the scene and put the players on the board for what’s shaping up to be an exciting (and stupid) new season of TMK. Pre-order Jathan’s new book! https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Why Is Elon Musk Really Embracing Donald Trump? https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/why-is-elon-musk-really-embracing-donald-trump ••• Elon Musk may already be overstaying his welcome in Trump's orbit https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-trump-donald-mar-a-lago-appointment-position-rcna179826 ••• The cult of the founders https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-cult-of-the-founders ••• Musk Wants to Slash $2 Trillion in Federal Spending. Is That Possible? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/us/politics/dept-government-efficiency-explainer.html ••• US commission proposes ‘Manhattan Project-like’ initiative for AI https://www.computerworld.com/article/3609516/us-commission-proposes-manhattan-project-like-initiative-for-ai.html ••• Tech companies will have it easy under Trump. Just like they did under Biden https://www.fastcompany.com/91224437/tech-companies-will-have-it-easy-under-trump-just-like-they-did-under-biden Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

[This interview was recorded before the election; we’ll talk about that in the next premium episode] We are joined by Susan Li and Alec Karakatsanis who work at Civil Rights Corps to talk about their important legal work against the prison tech industry—an extraordinarily predatory, extractive, and profitable industry dominated by private equity firms which control (and surveil and commodify) all communications between prisoners and their families. These firms charge exorbitant rates per minute for access to telephone use, video calls, emails, ebooks, and more—and then use that data to create and sell bogus AI surveillance products. We also talk about the corruption at the heart of this industry—such as the lucrative contracts between industry and prisons where sheriffs get a cut of corporate profits—and how these financial incentives have caused jails and prisons to restrict, or even eliminate, in-person visits between prisoners and their families. This is the basis of Susan and Alec’s work for the Right 2 Hug project, which is advocating for the legal right to physical, face-to-face contact between prisoners and their families. ••• Right 2 Hug https://www.right2hug.org/ ••• Do Children Have a “Right to Hug” Their Parents? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/the-jails-that-forbid-children-from-visiting-their-parents ••• Michigan Counties Ban Jail Visits to Profit From Videochat Fees, Lawsuits Say https://theappeal.org/michigan-counties-allegedly-ban-jail-visits-to-profit-from-videochat-fees/ ••• Prisons Across the U.S. Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints https://theappeal.org/prisons-across-the-u-s-are-quietly-building-databases-of-incarcerated-peoples-voice-prints/ ••• The Prison Industry | Worth Rises https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58e127cb1b10e31ed45b20f4/t/621682209bb0457a2d6d5cfa/1645642294912/The+Prison+Industry+How+It+Started+How+It+Works+and+How+It+Harms+December+2020.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

Just a quick note – TMK is on holiday for a couple weeks! Jathan is enjoying his honeymoon totally disconnected from all work, while Ed and Jereme are taking a much needed break. We'll back later in November with more exciting episodes. Until then – later!

We bullshit about ICP, the Joker, and Megalopolis for the first 33 minutes. So jump a bit into the episode if you wanna skip the verbal shit posting and get to the analytical discussion of BYD. We chat broadly about the background and rapid rise of BYD, the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. We explain why BYD is such a fascinating company that is worth keeping a close eye on because it sits at the intersection of multiple TMK interests: industrial policy, geopolitics of technology, political economy of green innovation, and the economic Cold War between the US and China. ••• BYD Is Winning the Global Race to Make Cheaper EVs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-16/electric-car-brand-byd-leads-race-to-make-cheap-evs-despite-tariffs ••• The Electric Vehicle Developmental State https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/byd/ ••• Apple Secretly Worked With China’s BYD on Long-Range EV Battery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-16/apple-secretly-worked-with-china-s-byd-on-long-range-ev-battery ••• China’s Economic Growth Is Good, Actually https://jwmason.org/slackwire/chinas-economic-growth-is-good-actually/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

First we have an update on an old startup as Worldcoin changes its name to World and redesigns its Orb to be more than just an eyeball scanner but also now an identification service called Deep Face. Repeat the satanic mantra after me: World, Orb, Deep Face. We then sit back as Prof Ed walks us through an in-depth investigation into how Uber and Lyft used driver lockouts—preventing them from logging on, seemingly at random and for long periods—as a cynical response to minimum pay laws in New York City. This regulatory arbitrage and brutal optimization resulted in significant impacts on drivers and major savings for the companies. ••• Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Gets a New Name, and New Hardware https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-17/sam-altman-s-worldcoin-gets-a-new-name-and-new-hardware ••• How Uber and Lyft Used a Loophole to Deny NYC Drivers Millions in Pay https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-uber-lyft-nyc-drivers-pay-lockouts/?srnd=phx-technology Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We chat about a great investigation into the powerful networks of political influence and intimidation that tech companies are bankrolling to ensure that politicians at local, state, and federal levels advance the interests of Silicon Valley—or at least not stand in their way. For example, one recently created pro-crypto super PAC has $170 million in its war chest, which it has used to influence Senate and House seats this election cycle. We also talk about the political strategist, Chris Lehane, who has been the driving force behind the tech sector’s realpolitik strategy—from Airbnb to Coinbase to OpenAI. ••• Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley-the-new-lobbying-monster Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by a dear friend of the show, Paris Marx, to talk about his new series on Tech Won’t Save Us called “Data Vampires” – which provides an excellent deep dive into the politics, ideologies, and consequences of the global expansion of data centers by big tech giants. Data Vampires is full of original research and interviews, plus excellent production. We touch on some of the series’ major themes before going down our own rabbit holes discussing the geopolitics of data centers as a form of imperial infrastructure for techno-capitalism. ••• Listen to Data Vampires on Tech Won’t Save Us by Paris Marx: https://techwontsave.us/episodes Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

Bringing together a few news items, we analyze the politics of scale in AI. First, OpenAI has one of the largest funding rounds ever at $6.6 billion raised for a valuation of $157 billion—with our boy Masayoshi finally getting his taste of OpenAI by investing $500 million. Second, CA Governor Gruesome Newsom vetoed an AI safety bill, which would have put stricter regulations on the largest class of AI models. Third, an excellent new paper offers a blistering critique of the bigger-is-better paradigm in AI. ••• SoftBank to invest $500mn in OpenAI https://www.ft.com/content/b1efdc2a-4dbc-40cc-920e-2cf389d261e8 ••• In California, no AI bill is safe https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/in-california-no-ai-bill-is-safe ••• Hype, Sustainability, and the Price of the Bigger-is-Better Paradigm in AI https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.14160 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We chat with Marijam Did, author of the new book Everything to Play For, which bridges radical leftist politics and video games through a real material analysis of video games as an industry, art form, and social space. Marijam lays out the case for why these two communities of radical leftists and gamers—which have largely been distinct and even antagonistic to each other—need to be brought together for the betterment of both sides. Leftists and gamers have a lot to learn from each other. Indeed, as we argue, they need each other. Marijam’s new book – Everything to Play For: How Videogames Are Changing the World https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3086-everything-to-play-for Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

With the news of interest rates dropping again, we refocus our attention on Masayoshi Son, the man who perhaps most embodies the pathologies of technological capitalism. Thanks to a new biography, we learn fascinating color about Masa’s character which further support what we already to know to be true: he is an ambitious disrupter who is burdened with delusions of grandeur, a degenerate gambler who has turned his addiction to leverage into a personal mythos, and a gifted intermediary who knows how to engineer debt and extract fees. ••• The mystery of Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s great disrupter https://www.ft.com/content/424eb5f8-efb4-4fc8-b86a-0359f6fac9eb Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

Jumping off a spate of recent reporting, we revisit the deep relations between the tech sector and fossil fuel industry and discuss how companies like Microsoft are turning to oil and gas companies as a solution for AI’s profit problem. How are tech companies going to offset their trillion dollars of capital investment into AI infrastructure? One revenue strategy: selling bespoke AI systems to companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron which make fossil fuel extraction even more efficient, thus optimizing the process of socio-ecological collapse. Gotta capture those profits while there’s still time! ••• Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/microsoft-ai-oil-contracts/679804/ ••• AI Boom Is Driving a Surprise Resurgence of US Gas-Fired Power https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-16/us-natural-gas-power-plants-just-keep-coming-to-meet-ai-ev-electricity-demand ••• The U.S. Has a Methane Problem. A.I. Is Making It Worse. https://newrepublic.com/article/186213/methane-emissions-ai-flaring-court ••• Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech ••• Three Mile Island Plans to Reopen as Demand for Nuclear Power Grows https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/climate/three-mile-island-reopening.html ••• AI is revitalizing the fossil fuels industry, and big tech has nothing to say for itself https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-is-revitalizing-the-fossil-fuels ••• AI is fueling a data center boom. It must be stopped. https://disconnect.blog/ai-is-fueling-a-data-center-boom/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We dive into a weird but revealing article about the phalanx of private security that Elon Musk has amassed around him, spending a small fortune on ex-operators who plan escape routes for his events, clear rooms before he enters, and assess (perceived) threats to his personal safety. His “mushrooming security apparatus” has caused a feedback loop or paranoia and isolation as he becomes further removed from any social connections to other people. We relate this to a broader zeitgeist of fear in American society that has given rise to—and is fuelled by—the explosion of growth in private security firms. ••• Inside Elon Musk’s Mushrooming Security Apparatus https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/technology/elon-musk-security.html ••• The Thin Purple Line https://harpers.org/archive/2024/09/the-thin-purple-line-jasper-craven-private-security-guard/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Gaby Del Valle who has written a great—and distressingly relevant—essay for The Baffler, which reports on the “eugenic foundations of the war on woke.” We dig into the beliefs of innate biological hierarchy and genetic superiority that underpin so much of mainstream right-wing politics. Whether it’s the convergence of Christian nationalist and tech rationalists around issues like declining birth rates and embryo engineering, or its the resurgence of blood libel with JD Vance’s fascist fairy tale about Haitian migrants, or its the cultural war against woke universities and DEI committees—these various sects are all unified by their use of biological essentialism to justify social domination. ••• Live Free or DEI https://thebaffler.com/salvos/live-free-or-dei-del-valle ••• Follow Gaby: https://x.com/gabydvj Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

Keeping with our recent theme of exploring the relations between the military and tech sector, we jump off a great essay in The Baffler to discuss a crucial part of this complex: university research. Universities – especially, academics in STEM faculties – must be understood as defense contractors who are partners with the military (and adjacent agencies); they advance the military’s goals and are dependent on the military’s cash. You can call them “research grants,” you can say their purpose is to “advancing knowledge,” you can extoll the benefits of “supporting academics and higher education,” but those are just euphemisms for the realities of the military-industrial-university complex. ••• War Machine Learning https://thebaffler.com/salvos/war-machine-learning-mccarthy Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

To mark the occasion of his new best selling airport book, we take a deeper look at Yuval Noah Harari’s impoverished thought and intellectual style via a great review essay by Daniel Immerwahr. We see how Harari’s doomsday scenarios are based on an extreme form of technological determinism + a romanticized humanism-as-critique + a disinterest in material analysis of political economy + an ironically chatbot-esque style of intellectualism. ••• Yuval Noah Harari’s Apocalyptic Vision https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/yuval-noah-harari-nexus-book/679572/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We do a deep dive into Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism Strategy and Little Tech Agenda, which together lay out a clear ideology of how tech startups are integral to the American empire. All this venture capital firm asks for is your belief in a16z as a conduit for the spirit of innovation, your trust in America as a vessel for the progressive spirit, and your optimism in a future led by a16z’s vision. Oh yeah, and also billions of dollars to invest in bringing about “the glory of a Second American Century.” ••• Blackstone set to acquire Australian data centre business AirTrunk https://www.ft.com/content/d7399891-15a4-47fb-b8f3-47970e156956 ••• American Dynamism https://a16z.com/american-dynamism ••• Building American Dynamism https://a16z.com/building-american-dynamism/ ••• The Little Tech Agenda https://a16z.com Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We chat with friend of the show Michael Richardson—author of the new book Nonhuman Witnessing—about the ongoing, deepening relationships between Silicon Valley and the US military. We check up on new activities from old enemies—Y Combinator, Anduril, Palantir, among others—and get into the changing cultures on both sides as they converge around defense innovation as a solution for Silicon Valley’s problems of needing another endless pool of capital and the Pentagon’s problems of needing to maintain a dying empire and beat China in an arms race. ••• Michael’s new book – Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World https://dukeupress.edu/nonhuman-witnessing ••• Start-up incubator Y Combinator backs its first weapons firm https://www.ft.com/content/17f16071-87e0-4675-a152-6d6285b97fd5 ••• Anduril now valued at $14 billion, set to build autonomous weapons factories https://www.axios.com/2024/08/08/anduril-14-billion-autonomous-weapons ••• Army chooses Palantir to build next-generation targeting system https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2024/03/06/army-chooses-palantir-to-build-next-generation-targeting-system/ ••• Palantir Ontology https://www.palantir.com/docs/foundry/ontology/overview/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We chat about a heinous crossover as Axon – major police tech firm, maker of tasers and body cameras – creates a new AI product with ChatGPT that automates police reports using audio recordings from body cameras. We get into this whole political economy of cop power and carceral tech. Then we talk about how all the economists are Big Mad because of proposed bans for price gouging of food. ••• Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court? https://apnews.com/article/ai-writes-police-reports-axon-body-cameras-chatgpt-a24d1502b53faae4be0dac069243f418 ••• The Body Camera: The Language of our Dreams | Alec Karakatsanis https://campuspress.yale.edu/yjll/volume-4/3/ ••• Sometimes You Just Have to Ignore the Economists https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/economists-kamala-harris-price-gouging/679547/ ••• Kamala Harris and America’s broken capitalism https://www.ft.com/content/41d31b4b-b0bd-4971-9f0f-543990a27103 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

{Producer’s note: this episode has an electronic buzz in parts due to a dying microphone. I cleaned it up as much as possible, but it couldn’t be totally removed. So it goes!} We go deep on the recent federal antitrust case against Google, which ruled that the company is a monopoly (obviously). We get into the details of the case, before spinning off to talk more broadly about market domination and disaster capitalism, then get back to the potential remedies for addressing Google’s power over search and the implications for techno-economic regulation. ••• Disaster Capitalism Revisited https://theideasletter.substack.com/p/disaster-capitalism-revisited ••• Will Google’s Monopoly Be Vanquished? https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopoly-be-vanquished/ ••• Google as monopolist https://www.ft.com/content/1d01b2d1-fc70-4d4a-823a-13fb24c9a7ef ••• Monopoly Money https://www.wheresyoured.at/monopoly-money/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We get into a new profile of Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, which is written by Maureen Dowd, one of the NYT’s most credulous opinion writers, and thus the perfect person to coax Karp into being as weird as he wants to be. This piece reveals a lot of core lore about Karp and shines light on a man who is riddled with contradictions and has turned that affliction of the soul into a superpower. ••• Alex Karp Has Money and Power. So What Does He Want? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/style/alex-karp-palantir.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Brian Merchant to chat about his reporting on the frontlines of labor exploitations in video games development and animation studios where companies are using AI to replace and degrade jobs, fracture and disempower the workforce, and push the quality of artistic works down even further. When executives explicitly say they are going to use a technology to destroy your livelihoods, then you should believe them and act accordingly. The collective response by workers – especially in the highly unionized animation industry – has been strong and swift. Their message is clear: “AI can fuck right off.” ••• AI Is Already Taking Jobs in the Video Game Industry https://www.wired.com/story/ai-is-already-taking-jobs-in-the-video-game-industry/ ••• He Made a Movie About Humans Rising Up Against AI. Now He’s Doing the Real Thing https://www.wired.com/story/hollywood-animators-fight-artificial-intelligence-labor-mike-rianda/ ••• Brian’s newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.x.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.x.com/braunestahl)

We get into the collapse of investor confidence in the AI boom, then turn to the thriving black markets for smuggling vast quantities of AI microchips into China and the geopolitics of technological progress and economic sanctions as AI becomes a site of proxy wars by other means. ••• Burst Damage https://www.wheresyoured.at/burst-damage/ ••• With Smugglers and Front Companies, China Is Skirting American A.I. Bans https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/technology/china-ai-microchips.html ••• How four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2024/us-sanction-countries-work Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Danya Glabau and Laura Forlano, authors of Cyborg, a new book that explores how this archetype of sci-fi stories is also a critical theory for understanding the tangle of socio-technical relations that constitute our lives. The cyborg helps us think in terms of embodiment and environments, break down boundaries and barriers, and trace the dialectics of control and freedom that come with being cyborgs. ••• Cyborg | Danya Glabau, Laura Forlano https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262547550/cyborg/ ••• Danya on Twitter: https://x.com/allergyPhD ••• Laura on Twitter: https://x.com/laura4lano Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We first get an update on regulatory arbitrage in the weed vape industry, then discuss how the benchmarks used to rank AI models—and make claims about their "intelligence" relative to humans—are largely low quality, out-of-date, not fit for purpose, or just meaningless and deceptive. Yet they are widely treated by industry as authoritative standards. Then we talk a bit about yet another case of a risk scoring algorithm resulting in devastating consequences. ••• Everyone Is Judging AI by These Tests. But Experts Say They’re Close to Meaningless https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2024/07/17/everyone-is-judging-ai-by-these-tests-but-experts-say-theyre-close-to-meaningless ••• An Algorithm Told Police She Was Safe. Then Her Husband Killed Her. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/18/technology/spain-domestic-violence-viogen-algorithm.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We first talk about how all news stories, even the most world historic ones, feel ephemeral and disposable, and how this is the perverse effect of a (news/social/cultural) media ecosystem that is designed around logics of optimizing for content production and audience attention. Then we get into the CrowdStrike outage and how it reveals (and requires) a more fundamental, systemic critique of IT infrastructure and its techno-politics. ••• The Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage shows the danger of monopolization https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/20/the-microsoftcrowdstrike-outage-shows-the-danger-of-monopolization ••• CrowdStruck https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/20/the-microsoftcrowdstrike-outage-shows-the-danger-of-monopolization%20https://www.wheresyoured.at/crowdstruck-2/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about that paragon of capitalism, car dealerships, and the deceptive, manipulative, extractive tactics they have perfected to make the experience as hellish as possible — particularly by turning the dealership’s finance and insurance department into an engine of 100 percent pure parasitic profit. ••• Escape From the Box https://prospect.org/power/2024-07-08-car-dealership-fee-financing-scams Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are a bit ahead with recording, but we had to talk about the Trump assassination attempt and JD Vance being tapped for vice president (for like the first 30 minutes). Then we get into a great essay on how private financial markets — or the shadow finance system that is unregulated, unaccountable, and undemocratic — have become the dominant form of finance in society, thanks in large part to trillions in capital allocated from public pension funds. It’s a classic case of private parasites feeding on public hosts. ••• Private Financial Markets Are Eating The World https://lpeproject.org/blog/private-financial-markets-are-eating-the-world/ ••• Why an ‘AI health coach’ won’t solve the world’s chronic disease problems https://theconversation.com/why-an-ai-health-coach-wont-solve-the-worlds-chronic-disease-problems-234369 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a look at recent reports where venture capitalists like Sequoia and the investment banks like Goldman Sachs are starting to wonder out loud whether AI will ever be able to generate enough revenue and consumer demand to make the bubble feel solid. The returns on AI necessary for this massive infrastructure buildout to make sense are looking increasingly fantastical. It was only a matter of time until capital finally came around to our skepticism of generative AI. ••• AI’s $200B Question https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/follow-the-gpus-perspective/ ••• AI’s $600B Question https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/ ••• Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit? https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit/report.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We refocus on the war in Ukraine and the country’s pivot toward being the “Silicon Valley for autonomous drones and other weaponry.” Thanks to a combination of foreign investment, entrepreneurial governance, DIY scrappiness, and a ‘by any means necessary’ attitude, the future of cheap, lethal, autonomous warfare is being forged and tested in Ukrainian war zones — before inevitably being deployed everywhere else in some form. ••• A.I. Begins Ushering In an Age of Killer Robots https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/technology/ukraine-war-ai-weapons.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We chat about an interesting case study in technology governance: the rise of vapes and the return of cigarettes. How do you create new markets for a product that is highly addictive but also extremely regulated (even banned)? The answer is to flaunt regulation, disrupt competitors, and create an image of coolness using social media influencers. Platforms like Uber learned their strategies from industries like big tobacco, and now the new crop of nicotine dealers are deploying the strategies of platforms like Uber. ••• The Vapes of Wrath https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197959345 ••• Juul Is an Easy Target—Let's Ban More Tech Products That Harm Us https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjk4q5/juul-is-an-easy-targetlets-ban-more-tech-products-that-harm-us ••• Why Uber and Lyft are taking a page out of big tobacco’s playbook in labor law battle https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/11/why-uber-and-lyft-are-taking-a-page-out-of-big-tobaccos-playbook-in-labor-law-battle ••• Government waters down vaping ban to win support of Greens https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-24/vaping-ban-watered-down-greens-support/104016012 ••• How Big Tobacco enlists Black activists to fight menthol, vaping bans https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/06/21/menthol-ban-vaping-black-lgbt-activists/ ••• Big Tobacco Heralds a Healthier World While Fighting Its Arrival https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/health/tobacco-fda-menthol-ban-nicotine.html ••• A Viral Cigarette Brand? In 2023? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/style/hestia-cigarettes-downtown.html ••• That Cloud of Smoke Is Not a Mirage https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/style/smoking-cigarettes-comeback.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get into how the massive global expansion of data centres — thanks largely to demand from training and operating AI — is putting major strain on energy systems and requiring the generation of more electricity. How’s all that new energy demand being met? Some renewables, a lot of fossil fuels, but also maybe futuristic magic technology? Big tech firms like Micorosoft and their nuclear tech partners—including startups backed by Sam Altman and Bill Gates—say they expect to harness fusion by 2028. This prediction is totally unserious and fantastical, while also hiding the fact that the expansion of AI is powered largely by fossil fuels. ••• AI Is Already Wreaking Havoc On Global Power Systems https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-data-centers-power-grids/ ••• AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/21/artificial-intelligence-nuclear-fusion-climate/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We chat a bit about some upcoming international travel, then do a reading series by a data scientist who wrote a great blog post about how most of the work done by data scientists in large organizations feels totally worthless, pointless, unfulfilling, and unnecessary — in other words, the definition of bullshit. And yet data science is valorized and mythologized in ways that are disconnected from material reality. ••• I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/ ••• Most Data Work Seems Fundamentally Worthless https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/most-data-work-seems-fundamentally-worthless/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by David Dayen (editor, American Prospect) and Lindsay Owens (director, Groundwork Collaborative) to discuss the special issue of the American Prospect they put together on “how pricing really works.” We drill down into why pricing is the perfect window for seeing how power works in the economy. We explore the great many tactics and technologies that companies have devised to make pricing into a major source of profits by enforcing a system of unfair, deceptive, and aggressive strategies designed to exploit each person based on what they are willing to pay and what they are willing to accept. We wrap up by talking about what can be done by legislators, regulators, and the court of public outrage to push back against the weaponization of pricing. ••• How Pricing Really Works https://prospect.org/pricing ••• Groundwork Collaborative https://groundworkcollaborative.org/ ••• David Dayen https://x.com/ddayen ••• Lindsay Owens https://x.com/owenslindsay1 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined once again by Evgeny Morozov to discuss his new podcast series, A Sense of Rebellion, which tells the story of a wild bunch of eccentric hippies who had grand ideas for how to design interactive technologies and intelligent environments and cybernetic systems that are radically different from today’s smart tech and AI. Morozov takes us deep down the rabbit hole of Cold War counterculture and technoculture, and deep into the life and mind of Warren Brodey, a now largely forgotten giant of early cybernetics. This new podcast series is the second in a trilogy on “tech rebels who failed.” ••• A Sense of Rebellion: https://www.sense-of-rebellion.com/ ••• Evgeny Morozov: https://x.com/evgenymorozov ••• The Boston hippies who developed technologies that Silicon Valley wouldn’t dare to make https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/06/15/opinion/warren-brodey-environmental-ecology-lab/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We keep rolling with our discussion about the Insulin Empire with Athena. ••• The Insulin Empire https://thebaffler.com/after-the-fact/the-insulin-empire-ongweso-jr-sofides ••• Mutual Aid Diabetes https://mutualaiddiabetes.com/ ••• T1International https://www.t1international.com/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Athena Sofides who co-wrote (with Ed) a brilliant essay in The Baffler, which provides an in-depth analysis of insulin, the social health factors of diabetes, and the global oligopoly of pharmaceutical corporations that exert total control over – and extract max profits from — this medicine that many millions of diabetics depend upon everyday and are unable to access. We go deep on how this insulin cartel is waging, as they write, “a war to remake insulin into a more profitable form, its patients into a more profitable demographic, and its market into a noncompetitive oligopoly.” ••• The Insulin Empire https://thebaffler.com/after-the-fact/the-insulin-empire-ongweso-jr-sofides ••• Mutual Aid Diabetes https://mutualaiddiabetes.com/ ••• T1International https://www.t1international.com/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We do a reading series on a major anti-trust lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice against Live Nation / Ticketmaster and the absolutely wild tactics the company used to intimidate competitors, enforce market domination, and totally lockdown the live entertainment industry. Then we wrap up with the new licensing deals between OpenAI and The Atlantic, Vox Media, News Corp – and what they portend for the hollowed out future of news media. ••• How Live Nation’s Monopoly Works https://prospect.org/power/2024-05-24-how-live-nations-monopoly-works/ ••• The Monopoly Case Against Ticketmaster, Explained https://www.404media.co/the-monopoly-case-against-ticketmaster-explained/ ••• Exclusive: The Atlantic, Vox Media ink licensing, product deals with OpenAI https://www.axios.com/2024/05/29/atlantic-vox-media-openai-licensing-deal ••• Former OpenAI board member explains why CEO Sam Altman got fired before he was rehired https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/29/former-openai-board-member-explains-why-ceo-sam-altman-was-fired.html ••• America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in with an old enemy of the show, Uber, to discuss it’s recent battles with states over wage floors and worker rights, and get a masterclass on how Uber weaponizes complexity through it’s platform to abuse workers and avoid regulation, while also wielding the threat of capital flight to great effect against politicians and governments. ••• Minneapolis just called Uber’s bluff — other cities must follow their lead https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/4550102-minneapolis-just-called-ubers-bluff-other-cities-must-follow-their-lead/ ••• Uber’s and Lyft’s ride-hailing deal with Minnesota comes at a cost https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/21/uber-and-lyfts-ride-hailing-deal-with-minnesota-comes-with-a-cost/ ••• The Gig Economy vs. America’s Workers https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/uber-lyft-doordash-ballot-measures-massachusetts-legalize-gig-workers-by-sandeep-vaheesan-2024-05 ••• How Uber and Lyft Avoid Millions in Business Taxes https://slate.com/business/2024/05/uber-lyft-gig-economy-driver-classification-business-taxes-unemployment.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Discussing a new surveillance program by NYC Mayor Eric Adams and the public-private partnerships with Fusus by Axon, we dig into how the moral panic around “organized retail theft” has become a smoke screen / cynical moral alibi for an arms race of policing. It’s new software for the old hardware of an oppressive corporate state. ••• Mayor Adams Announces new Pilot Program to Combat Retail Theft, Create Efficiencies, Improve Police-Community Relations Using Innovative Technology https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/383-24/mayor-adams-new-pilot-program-combat-retail-theft-create-efficiencies-improve#/0 ••• Privacy or safety? U.S. brings 'surveillance city to the suburbs' https://www.context.news/digital-rights/privacy-or-safety-us-brings-surveillance-city-to-the-suburbs Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about how everybody on the superalignment team at OpenAI—focused on safety, risk, adversarial testing, societal impacts, and existential concerns—is resigning, including high-profile people like Illya Sutskever. And nobody can talk about it because of draconian rules (even for Silicon Valley) about non-disclosure and non-disparagement people must sign (or risk their vested equity) upon exiting the company. For us, the turmoil of OpenAI is indicative of conflict between true believers (superalignment) and cynical operators (Sam Altman). Outro: Aunty Donna – Real Estate Agents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGm267O04a8 ••• “I lost trust”: Why the OpenAI team in charge of safeguarding humanity imploded https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2024/5/17/24158403/openai-resignations-ai-safety-ilya-sutskever-jan-leike-artificial-intelligence ••• ChatGPT can talk, but OpenAI employees sure can’t https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2024/5/17/24158478/openai-departures-sam-altman-employees-chatgpt-release Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

After revisiting our discussion of stimulants from last episode, we dive deep into a new hive of freaks on the internet and examine the psychology of forum posters on the Cybertruck Owners Club. ••• Cybertruck Owners Club https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

First we dive into some exciting news of actual innovation: ultrasonic extraction for cold brew coffee. Then offer a live react to OpenAI’s new product GPT-4o, which is its new flagship model in the form of a voice assistant, and jump from there to talk more deeply about the problems with AI companions via a tech column in the NYTimes. ••• Scientists Use Ultrasound to Make Cold Brew Coffee in 3 Minutes Instead of 24 Hours https://www.404media.co/scientists-use-ultrasound-to-make-cold-brew-coffee-in-3-minutes-instead-of-24-hours/ ••• Hello GPT-4o https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/ ••• Meet My A.I. Friends https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/technology/meet-my-ai-friends.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In what feels like a curse of eternal return, we discuss the news that Softbank is leading a $1 billion funding round into what is now the premier UK AI startup, Wavye, which has a generative simulation model for driving data. We then transition to talking about a long piece of reporting on video game engines like Unreal and Unity, the dream of creating perfect simulations of reality, and how everything is now downstream from video games. ••• SoftBank leads $1bn funding for UK artificial intelligence group Wayve https://www.ft.com/content/a5704e29-545c-45e6-b7e3-d0a8cda285c4 ••• Wayve GAIA https://wayve.ai/science/gaia/ ••• How Perfectly Can Reality Be Simulated? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/can-the-world-be-simulated Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Because we are all rap heads at TMK, we have been feeling juiced up by the beef between Kendrick and Drake, so we spend the first half breaking that down. Then we catch up on the campus protests and collective actions, the vibes on the ground in the encampments, and the range of deranged reactions by people who are disconnected from reality. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[Jathan got married last weekend! So no new shows until next week.] We dig into reporting on a special forces unit in the Brazilian ministry of environment which is composed of tier one operators who are also all scientists that are driven by a singular righteous mission of protecting the Amazon rainforest, wildlife and Indigenous communities from illegal miners and loggers. It’s almost like if the EPA had a wet works team—or, at least, it’s a good start. ••• The Brazilian Special-Forces Unit Fighting to Save the Amazon https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/08/the-brazilian-special-forces-unit-fighting-to-save-the-amazon Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We continue our discussion of Andreas Malm’s new, giant, magisterial essay, which lays out a longue durée analysis of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, situating it in a history of fossil empire, colonial annihilation, and ecological catastrophe that stretches directly back to 1840. The project of settler-genocide today is one that kicked off nearly two hundred years ago. ••• The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth | Andreas Malm https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/the-destruction-of-palestine-is-the-destruction-of-the-earth ••• Palestine Speaks for Everyone | Jodi Dean https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/palestine-speaks-for-everyone ••• Special issue on Ideologies and Power in AI https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 ••• Jathan’s new book - The Mechanic and the Luddite https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Jathan’s new article on the moral economy of behavioral insurance https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085147.2024.2328992 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with the announcement of Jathan’s new book, plus direct attention to a new special issue on ideologies and power in AI. Then we send our solidarity and support to Jodi Dean and others who are being punished for speaking out for Palestinian emancipation, before digging into the main subject of this episode and the next one: a giant, magisterial essay by Andreas Malm which lays out a longue durée analysis of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, situating it in a history of fossil empire, colonial annihilation, and ecological catastrophe that stretches directly back to 1840. The project of settler-genocide today is one that kicked off nearly two hundred years ago. ••• The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth | Andreas Malm https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/the-destruction-of-palestine-is-the-destruction-of-the-earth ••• Palestine Speaks for Everyone | Jodi Dean https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/palestine-speaks-for-everyone ••• Special issue on Ideologies and Power in AI https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/749 ••• Jathan’s new book - The Mechanic and the Luddite https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Jathan’s new article on the moral economy of behavioral insurance https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085147.2024.2328992 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

First we eulogize the dream deferred of Neom, then we add more lore to Palmer Luckey who, as we find out, has modeled his whole life on a literal-minded interpretation of a character from Yu-Gi-Oh!, then we talk more about the conspiratorial and immaterial thinking of the China-TikTok Hawks, finally we heap praise on a very astute essay about the material reality of SHEIN. ••• Saudis Scale Back Ambition for $1.5 Trillion Desert Project Neom https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-05/saudis-scale-back-ambition-for-1-5-trillion-desert-project-neom ••• How Silicon Valley’s ‘Oppenheimer’ found lucrative trade in AI weapons https://www.ft.com/content/ce6f96f8-6ab8-4089-b7db-f99db22c2071 ••• Super Cute Please Like https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-47/reviews/super-cute-please-like/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In the first part of the show, we talk about a ridiculous new paper funded by OpenAI that aims to reconcile all human values by combining them into a “moral graph” to train Socratic LLM through reinforcement learning by people “voting on wisdom upgrades.” Then we dig into the latest reporting on yet more AI systems that Israel is using to intensify and justify its genocide in Gaza. This time through generating kill lists and tracking when targets are at home with their family before bombing them. The horrors of reality—not some speculative potentiality, but what already exists—are truly beyond words. ••• ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ ••• The “Wise AI” paper we talk about https://twitter.com/edelwax/status/1773621129200234573 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into reporting on a special forces unit in the Brazilian ministry of environment which is composed of tier one operators who are also all scientists that are driven by a singular righteous mission of protecting the Amazon rainforest, wildlife and Indigenous communities from illegal miners and loggers. It’s almost like if the EPA had a wet works team—or, at least, it’s a good start. ••• The Brazilian Special-Forces Unit Fighting to Save the Amazon https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/08/the-brazilian-special-forces-unit-fighting-to-save-the-amazon Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Ariel Bogle — an investigative reporter with The Guardian Australia — to discuss her new, big piece uncovering the Security Risk Rating Tool created by the private contractor Serco and used to control the lives of people in Australia’s immigration detention centres. We get into the broader context of these tools and then dig into the specifics of how they work, how they impact detainees, the way the transform subjective discretion into objective judgment, the vicious cycles designed into the tools such that everybody is always “high risk,” and the troubles with investigating systems that are so opaque, secretive, and redacted to hell. ••• Revealed: the secret algorithm that controls the lives of Serco’s immigration detainees https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2024/mar/13/serco-australia-immigration-detention-network-srat-tool-risk-rating-ntwnfb- ••• Ariel on Twitter https://twitter.com/arielbogle Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 13 – Surplus Populations and Crisis – and get deeper into the role of surplus populations in capitalism, how your relative position to the circuits of capital plays a big part in dictating what kind of life you have, and why capital needs a steady pool of people to sacrifice to help prevent, mitigate, and weather inevitable crises. But first we talk for a while about recent analyses of techno-feudalism and why we still think this compelling moral/cultural argument does not necessarily make for a powerful political economic analysis. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Erin McElroy — author of Silicon Valley Imperialism — to first discuss their work as a co-founder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and the important work they are doing on landlord tech, both as an academic and activist. Then we get deeper into their new book that offers a rich, in-depth analysis of how the racial technocapitalism of Silicon Valley has set up imperial outposts in the postsocialist countries of Eastern Europe, specifically Romania. ••• Erin’s book – Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times https://www.dukeupress.edu/silicon-valley-imperialism ••• Erin’s website with their projects, publications, etc – https://www.erinmcelroy.net/ ••• Alex Horghidan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cumsecade Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In the first part we chat about fast food and the spread of surge pricing to everything, then use some recent announcements in the tech sector to get into the magical thinking and fictitious capital that totally sustains the AI industry all for the grand dream and supreme purpose of squeezing out another 3% annual growth in the economy. ••• Uber-style pricing is coming for everything https://www.vox.com/money/24105250/fast-food-restaurants-dynamic-pricing-algorithm-wendys ••• Scientific Journals Are Publishing Papers With AI-Generated Text https://www.404media.co/scientific-journals-are-publishing-papers-with-ai-generated-text/ ••• Microsoft Hires DeepMind Co-Founder Suleyman to Run Consumer AI https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-19/microsoft-hires-deepmind-co-founder-suleyman-to-run-consumer-ai ••• Saudi Arabia Plans $40 Billion Push Into Artificial Intelligence https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/business/saudi-arabia-investment-artificial-intelligence.html ••• Have We Reached Peak AI? https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Lee McGuigan — author of Selling the American People — to discuss the origins of advertising / adtech and how the ad industry has been deeply entangled with operations research and information technology since the 1940s, way longer than the usual stories of when advertising and technology joined together. As Lee’s work shows, the ad industry is a perfect case study for better understanding how the science / ideology of (algorithmic) optimization broke free from its confines in military strategy or economic planning and became a set of universal methods and solutions that should be applied everywhere. ••• Lee’s book – Selling the American People: Advertising, Optimization, and the Origins of Adtech https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545440/selling-the-american-people/ ‘ ••• Follow Lee – https://twitter.com/ljamesmcguigan Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 12 – The Power of Logistics – and get deeper into how, as Mau writes, “mobility is power, and means of transportation and communication are weapons,” which capital wields against labor, against government, against nature, against itself. We also illustrate the techno-politics of logistics with yet another reveal that a rapidly rising startup in the space of automating labor – Presto Automation – is actually Potemkin AI. Now that’s the power of logistics as a substitute for the power of technology! ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• AI-Powered Drive-Thru Is Actually Run Almost Fully by Humans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-07/ai-fast-food-drive-thrus-need-human-workers-70-of-time Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the latest proposed legislation to ban TikTok — which is quickly moving in the US House with broad bipartisan support — and the jingoistic motivations, the complete lack of concern about any of the actual cultural influence, social impact, economic power, or just empirical reality of this technology, and instead the hyper-fixation on this being a Chinese app rather than an American app. Indeed, the ban bill would force TikTok into becoming American owned — thus becoming a way more pernicious and shitty piece of tech. ••• TikTok Crackdown Shifts Into Overdrive, With Sale or Shutdown on Table | Wall Street Journal https://archive.is/fGfnc ••• TikTok Is For Millennials, It Turns Out https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns ••• The Influencers Getting Paid to Promote Designer Knockoffs From China https://www.wired.com/story/influencers-paid-promote-designer-knockoffs-from-china/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk for a while about the data monetization deals happening now between platforms like Reddit and AI companies like OpenAI, then get into cultural concerns about how technology mediates our reality, before ending with a social analysis of anxiety as the dominant affect in society right now. ••• Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080165/google-reddit-ai-training-data ••• Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/ ••• Shutterstock Expands Partnership with OpenAI, Signs New Six-Year Agreement to Provide High-Quality Training Data https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-expands-partnership-openai-signs-new-six-year Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with a long chat about Dune 2 – to avoid spoilers, or if you just don’t want to hear about Dune, skip to this timestamp: 34:43. We then get into the FTC / DOJ’s case against the rent maximizing algorithms being used by landlords to collude on price and drive up rents. It’s a real delight seeing antitrust enforcers knock back these obviously problematic technologies and deny the corporations’ totally idiotic legal defense of them. ••• Price fixing by algorithm is still price fixing https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2024/03/price-fixing-algorithm-still-price-fixing Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We look at the intensifying systems of surveillance and control that are being integrated into supermarkets to further exploit labor, monitor customers, and capture profits, while also pushing the increased enshittification of grocery stores. We trace how the grocery store has become less a center of food distribution for communities and more like a prison that controls access to vital commodities in a broader system of capitalist agrobusiness. ••• The secret sauce of Coles’ and Woolworths’ profits: high-tech surveillance and control https://theconversation.com/the-secret-sauce-of-coles-and-woolworths-profits-high-tech-surveillance-and-control-224076 ••• Supermarket ‘dark jobs’ and rapid grocery delivery: Transformations in labour, technology and logistics https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448231201641 ••• FTC Challenges Kroger’s Acquisition of Albertsons https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-challenges-krogers-acquisition-albertsons Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

First we chat about the very dumb debacle with Google’s Gemini AI being “absurdly woke,” when in reality the story here is that they were extremely naive and lazy about how to solve the structural biases of white visual culture. Then we get deeper into Nvidia’s major stock rally after blowing away all expectations with their latest financial reportings – and what this means for the political economy of technology, both AI specifically and the sector broadly. ••• A Sign That Spells: DALL-E 2, Invisual Images and The Racial Politics of Feature Space https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06323 ••• The Deeper Problem With Google’s Racially Diverse Nazis https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/02/google-gemini-diverse-nazis/677575/ ••• Now Google's 'absurdly woke' Gemini AI refuses to condemn pedophilia as wrong - after being blasted over 'diverse' but historically inaccurate images https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13122189/Googles-absurdly-woke-Gemini-AI-refuses-condemn-pedophilia.html ••• AI boom catapults Nvidia into tech’s big league https://www.ft.com/content/1f8b317d-fcce-4f5b-9e54-8315e102ec10 ••• What Bubble? Nvidia Profits Are Rising Even More Than Its Stock https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-26/hedge-funds-unload-tech-stocks-after-going-all-in-before-nvidia ••• The AI craze has companies even 'more overvalued' than during the 1990s dot-com bubble, economist says https://qz.com/ai-stocks-nvidia-overvalued-dot-com-bubble-1851287271 ••• Nvidia's $2 trillion market cap looks bubbly https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/nvidia-valuation-chipmakers-trillion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 10 – The Capitalist Reconfiguration of Nature – and get deeper into why capital seeks to subsume nature, generally, and how capital has been wildly successful at subsuming agriculture, more specifically, through a variety of strategies: technological, organizational, financial. Then we take a look at the latest tactic in capital’s war against the non-capitalist planet: Natural Asset Companies. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• Nature Has Value. Could We Literally Invest in It? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/business/economy/natural-assets.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We go in for another edition of Crisis Watch: Insurance Death Drive and talk about how insurers are flailing and floundering, grabbing onto anything they can while trying to keep their head above water as they drown, and pulling all of us down with them. Insures across health, car, and home coverage are holding the public hostage as they hike premiums by shocking (and illegal) percentages, as they cancel policies at a rapid clip, and as they simply exit entire markets. We get deeper into not only what is happening, but why this crisis is suddenly popping off now. Spoiler: the public is bearing the brunt of stupid, short-sighted decisions made by insurance companies and their risk models. ••• ‘Humanity’s remaining timeline? It looks more like five years than 50’: meet the neo-luddites warning of an AI apocalypse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/17/humanitys-remaining-timeline-it-looks-more-like-five-years-than-50-meet-the-neo-luddites-warning-of-an-ai-apocalypse ••• Health insurers accused of charging more for top-level hospital cover than price cap set by federal government https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-15/health-insurance-hospital-cover-premiums-surge-despite-price-cap/103464202 ••• Auto-insurance costs rear their ugly head yet again https://www.ft.com/content/cf42ae85-492d-465c-94f7-343bffa95b40 ••• The uninsurable world: what climate change is costing homeowners https://www.ft.com/content/ed3a1bb9-e329-4e18-89de-9db90eaadc0b Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by the Smiling Man and friend of the show, Ed Zitron. We discuss Flat Earth, CES, How to lose 50k, and everyone’s favorite tech journalist and aviator glasses aficionado. ••• Subscribe to Ed’s new podcast, Better Offline: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-better-offline-150284547/ ••• Subscribe to Ed’s newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ ••• Follow Ed: https://twitter.com/edzitron Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We riff about a true vortex of power in America: Jungle Jims. Then we get into a totally absurd – but also refreshingly direct – startup from Germany called Vay that just launched in Las Vegas. And we wrap up by checking in on Sam Altman who has finally decided that, in the name of democracy, OpenAI is ready to get into the “military and warfare” business. ••• Vay launches commercial driverless mobility service with remotely driven cars in Las Vegas, Nevada https://vay.io/press-release/vay-launches-commercial-driverless-mobility-service-with-remotely-driven-cars-in-las-vegas-nevada/ ••• OpenAI Is Working With US Military on Cybersecurity Tools https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-16/openai-ceo-altman-says-it-doesn-t-want-to-train-on-new-york-times-after-lawsuit ••• AI-driven misinformation ‘biggest short-term threat to global economy’ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/10/ai-driven-misinformation-biggest-short-term-threat-to-global-economy Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

This is the first part of our giant chat with Nick Chavez and Phil Neel about their new essay published by Endnotes – Forest and Factory – which offers a truly magnificent argument for how to confront the daunting task of overcoming capitalism, for how to imagine the seemingly impossible alternatives of a non-capitalist society, and for how to build the necessary reality of a communist society. A communism that not only functions, but flourishes by lifting humanity out of the pits of hell known as capital and advancing a model of life based on free time, free association, and free abundance of everything needed and desired. Their essay is not merely another case of magical realism – wishing for utopia and ignoring the hard parts – rather it offers a serious, scientific, and specific analysis of communist construction. ••• Forest and Factory: The Science and the Fiction of Communism | Nick Chavez, Phil Neel https://endnotes.org.uk/posts/forest-and-factory ••• Order a zine of the essay here https://shop.haters.life/products/forest-and-factory-zine-2-pack ••• Follow Nick https://twitter.com/DFManufracture Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 10 – The Despotism of Subsumption – and get deeper into the impersonal domination of capital and why the concepts of formal subsumption and real subsumption are necessary for a critical analysis of the socio-technical conditions of capitalism. Plus – we build all this into a discussion of the Apple Vision Pro. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Mel Gregg – an anthropologist who worked at Intel for a long time before becoming an industry consultant for sustainability in the tech sector – to discuss the deficiencies in how the tech sector is thinking about sustainability, the corporate governance regimes and net zero dashboards that manage how change does (and does not) happen, the paradoxes of green software and engineering for efficiency, and why we need to insert more social science and local activism into the tech sector. ••• Follow Mel https://twitter.com/melgregg ••• Counterproductive by Mel Gregg https://www.dukeupress.edu/counterproductive ••• Work's Intimacy by Mel Gregg https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Work%27s+Intimacy-p-9780745650289 ••• Electronics <> Ecologies series https://www.admscentre.org.au/electronics-ecologies/ ••• Getting beyond Net Zero dashboards in the information technology sector https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629623004577 ••• A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/climate/ai-could-soon-need-as-much-electricity-as-an-entire-country.html ••• Sam Altman Says AI Using Too Much Energy, Will Require Breakthrough Energy Source https://futurism.com/sam-altman-energy-breakthrough Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with a story designed to hit so many of our pressure points all at once: police have been using pseudoscience machine learning to render 3D avatars of suspects from DNA samples, sometimes from decades ago, and then running these 3D avatars through facial recognition. Then, ending with less horrific and more absurd, we get into an interview between Peter Thiel and John Gray where we learn a surprising fact about Thiel. ••• Cops Used DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face—and Tried to Run Facial Recognition on It https://www.wired.com/story/parabon-nanolabs-dna-face-models-police-facial-recognition/ ••• John Gray and Peter Thiel: Life in a postmodern world https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2024/01/john-gray-peter-thiel-discussion-post-modern-world Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Tamara Kneese — author of Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond — to discuss her work on how experiences of death and dying shape the internet, the afterlife promised by digital resurrection, the strange quest to solve death, the transhumanist urge to escape death, and the entropic decay of digital infrastructure. ••• Follow Tamara | https://twitter.com/tamigraph ••• Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248272/death-glitch/ ••• Memento Mori https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/memento-mori-kneese ••• Measuring Justice: Field Notes on Algorithmic Impact Assessments https://medium.com/datasociety-points/measuring-justice-field-notes-on-algorithmic-impact-assessments-c6cfeccc668d Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We riff about a true vortex of power in America: Jungle Jims. Then we get into a totally absurd – but also refreshingly direct – startup from Germany called Vay that just launched in Las Vegas. And we wrap up by checking in on Sam Altman who has finally decided that, in the name of democracy, OpenAI is ready to get into the “military and warfare” business. ••• Vay launches commercial driverless mobility service with remotely driven cars in Las Vegas, Nevada https://vay.io/press-release/vay-launches-commercial-driverless-mobility-service-with-remotely-driven-cars-in-las-vegas-nevada/ ••• OpenAI Is Working With US Military on Cybersecurity Tools https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-16/openai-ceo-altman-says-it-doesn-t-want-to-train-on-new-york-times-after-lawsuit ••• AI-driven misinformation ‘biggest short-term threat to global economy’ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/10/ai-driven-misinformation-biggest-short-term-threat-to-global-economy Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a deeper look at Nvidia, a company that has — compared to software firms like OpenAI — flown under the radar for both investigative and critical analysis of AI. We discuss their meteoric rise and the monopolistic control they have over the hardware for artificial intelligence through their business for GPUs but also how they have solidified that control through the closed, proprietary CUDA system for AI development. We also get into the journalistic style of great man + myth making + ironic distance that structures how these powerful companies and their “visionary” leaders are covered by the media. Finally, we end with one word: Gooniverse. ••• How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the A.I. Revolution https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/04/how-jensen-huangs-nvidia-is-powering-the-ai-revolution ••• How Nvidia Built a Competitive Moat Around A.I. Chips https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/technology/nvidia-ai-chips-gpu.html ••• Nvidia’s $40bn takeover of UK chip designer Arm collapses https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/08/nvidia-takeover-arm-collapses-softbank ••• SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son piles debt on to Silicon Valley mansion https://www.ft.com/content/1ea9c819-3019-47f6-b768-c92a0d06ecdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 9 – Value, Class, and Competition – and get deeper into the vertical relations between classes, the connection between domination by value and domination by class, and the universalizing power of competition as an ordering and disciplining force that compels everybody to act according to the laws of capital. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kick off with a critical look at reporting on the peaks and valleys, upswings and downturns in venture capital and start-up exits—and ask the $800 billion question: has all this unfathomable investment and “value creation” by the tech sector resulted in a better world? Did your life in 2023 feel better? Did society seem $800 billion better? Or has it actually just felt worse? If so, then what’s the point of this innovation system and its strategies, metrics, and benchmarks? We then end by chatting about the mass sympathy strikes against Tesla in Scandinavia. ••• US venture capital fundraising hits a 6-year low https://www.ft.com/content/cfb186c8-22f4-4a82-b262-f4380a5d82b8 ••• From Unicorns to Zombies: Tech Start-Ups Run Out of Time and Money https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/technology/tech-startups-collapse.html ••• Musk's woes deepen as Tesla strike spreads across Scandinavia https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231215-musk-s-woes-deepen-as-tesla-strike-spreads-across-scandinavia Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get back into the Q&A, picking up where we left off by talking about the profession of academia and working in institutions that are working against you, then get into advice for organizing in tech startups, how to counter the anti-luddite propaganda and deny the doomposting tendency, what our alternative podcasts would be about, and finally our bucket list for TMK guests. The Traditional Catholic Iceberg: https://twitter.com/PapistB/status/1741989796090974217 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kick off the new year by answering your questions from the TMK Discord! We talk about the video game industry, our writing / composing processes, advice for trying to break into critical tech journalism, plus more. And much more to come in part 2 over in the Patreon feed, where we keep going with the Q&A. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 8 – The Universal Power of Value – and get deeper into the particular social form that value takes in capitalism and the way it becomes treated as an abstract, impersonal, alien source of domination over the lives of everybody, both workers/producers and capitalists/explotiers. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Returning champ Salomé Viljoen joins us once again to discuss her latest work analyzing the relationship between social data and value creation. We get into the conversion problem of turning data into money, which requires us to expand our view of data and break from the bonds of pure exchange value to also think about social data’s “prediction value.” We also talk about why our current legal regimes of data governance are unequipped and ineffective at governing the political economy of social data—and the change that is needed. ••• Follow Salomé: https://twitter.com/salome_viljoen_ ••• Valuing Social Data https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4513235 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

With Cop City as a case study, we draw together two recent articles — one on the historical connection between right-wing racism, environmental groups, and ecoterrorist actions, and one on how the massive expansion of RICO laws to target (and fabricate) conspiracies of all kinds has become a key tool of prosecutorial power — to explore how the actions of right-wing groups precipitate the creation of stronger, tougher laws which then get used to further suppress left-wing movements. ••• The War on Ecoterror https://www.thedriftmag.com/the-war-on-ecoterror/ ••• An Offer You Can’t Refuse https://www.thedriftmag.com/an-offer-you-cant-refuse/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into a new report that details Israel’s military strategy of wiping out “power targets” and “family homes,” which is bolstered and justified by an artificial intelligence system (Habsora, or “the Gospel”) that one Israeli intelligence officer called a “mass assassination factory.” The reporting is so shocking and unreal — and the critical silence about the system, by many people whose whole beat is “AI ethics,” is noticeable. This is what the lethal risk of AI looks like in its real material actuality, not as some imaginary potential possibility. ••• ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ ••• Obama's secret kill list – the disposition matrix https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/14/obama-secret-kill-list-disposition-matrix ••• On the Moral Collapse of AI Ethics https://upfromthecracks.medium.com/on-the-moral-collapse-of-ai-ethics-791cbc7df872 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into a new report that details Israel’s military strategy of wiping out “power targets” and “family homes,” which is bolstered and justified by an artificial intelligence system (Habsora, or “the Gospel”) that one Israeli intelligence officer called a “mass assassination factory.” The reporting is so shocking and unreal — and the critical silence about the system, by many people whose whole beat is “AI ethics,” is noticeable. This is what the lethal risk of AI looks like in its real material actuality, not as some imaginary potential possibility. ••• ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/ ••• Obama's secret kill list – the disposition matrix https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/14/obama-secret-kill-list-disposition-matrix ••• On the Moral Collapse of AI Ethics https://upfromthecracks.medium.com/on-the-moral-collapse-of-ai-ethics-791cbc7df872 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the history of AI by drawing out the often very explicit millenarianism that undergirds so much of this technology and its culture over the last 70 years. This strange brew of Eschatological Evangelism and Technological Theology has sustained a cultish faith in AI’s ability to bring about a New Age. ••• Making God | Emily Gorcenski https://emilygorcenski.com/post/making-god/ ••• The Taming of Tech Criticism | Evgeny Morozov https://thebaffler.com/salvos/taming-tech-criticism Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 6 — Capitalism and Difference — and get deeper into the relations between the social logic of capital and social structures of difference like gender, examining how they manifest in the “necessary outside” of social reproduction and the feminization of that labor. Mau gets us to think at different levels of abstraction about the nature, causes, and effects of these relations that are so integral to capitalism as it exists, but do not stem from capital. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

With the dust settling, we can take a broader view of the whole OpenAI debacle, what likely caused an internal culture war to boil over into a corporate coup, how OpenAI’s convoluted governance structure made a lot of people ignore the obvious power at play, and what this all means in a bigger sense for the ongoing development of AI. ••• OpenAI and the rift at the heart of Silicon Valley https://www.ft.com/content/a6505db4-c8d4-44c1-a030-502b364ed370 ••• OpenAI’s board had safety concerns. Big Tech obliterated them in 48 hours https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-11-20/column-openais-board-had-safety-concerns-big-tech-obliterated-them-in-48-hours Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss her new novel Wrong Way, which skillfully blends a beautiful literary style — focused on characterization, inner life, human relations — with a sci-fi story set in an alternative present / very near future. Joanne’s novel takes the practices of Potemkin AI and pushes them to a logical extreme, revealing their true absurdity by centering the everyday life of an human worker whose job is to secretly imbue the technological future with autonomy. We talk about the need to tell stories about ordinary people and their social relations with the technical systems and corporations that structure their reality, rather than always focus on the hero’s journey of gifted kids with oversized egos and privileged agency. ••• Follow Joanne: https://twitter.com/jomc ••• Read Wrong Way: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610661/wrongway Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We step into the art world by way of a long profile of Holly Herndon, an experimental artist and musician who works with artificial intelligence to create provocative, strange, and deeply personal works that serve as meta commentaries on the intersection between art + tech + society. Through a start-up she co-founded, Herndon is also engaged in advocacy work to build a “consent layer” for artists in AI infrastructures. We critically discuss the political / cultural economy of these dynamics — these ways of seeing and means of producing artworks — both old and new. ••• Holly Herndon’s Infinite Art https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/holly-herndons-infinite-art Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kick off with a talk on insurtech that Jathan gave last week on the politics of machine learning and actuarial science, then get deeper into dynamics of speculative asset bubbles, why insurers live and die by the “float,” and some of the cutting-edge insurtech innovations — and fuel for nightmares — that we learned about in Vegas. ••• Slides and script for Jathan’s talk: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1azhFJPuMJXuv9tR6wHp4MAXpDQAlx8Px/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113285384334686678399&rtpof=true&sd=true Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 6 — Transcendental Class Domination — and get deeper into an analysis of class relations, the nature of economic power, and how capital wields this form of “impersonal domination” to structure the very “conditions of possibility” for existence and experience in the world. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[We are traveling and other stuff, so enjoy this exceptional episode from our Patreon archives] We jump off the absurd twitter debate about degrowth and bananas in global communism to discuss much deeper issues about why any alternative to capitalism cannot simply be premised on being better managers of capitalist machines. Despite the arguments of ecomodernists—and the poverty of thought it engenders—there is not a linear development of progress and innovation which either moves forward (to the right) or backward (to the left). Break free of bourgeois ideology! Throw off the shackles of capitalist systems! Abolish the commodity form! Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into effective accelerationism—its cult of personality, capitalist metaphysics, techno-theology, and lukewarm manifestos. We connect it to previous movements like Singulatariansim, strip away the mercurial branding of these ideologies, and look more closely at the material politics at their core. ••• ‘It’s a Cult’: Inside Effective Accelerationism, the Pro-AI Movement Taking Over Silicon Valley https://www.theinformation.com/articles/its-a-cult-inside-effective-accelerationism-the-pro-ai-movement-taking-over-silicon-valley ••• The Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Returning champion Cory Doctorow joins us to discuss his latest book, The Internet Con, which lays out how the basis of so much material power in the world exists at the intersection of information technology and intellectual property. We get into the mechanics of IT⇔IP, the necessity for interoperability in a world ruled by cartels, and the (intermediate) steps that must be taken now to fight back and create space for even more radical change. ••• Follow Cory: https://twitter.com/doctorow ••• Cory’s new book: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3035-the-internet-con ••• Cory’s other new book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/thelostcause Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 5 — Metabolic Domination — which brings us to the end of the first section outlining the material conditions (of human nature, society, life) that allow for the existence of something like economic power. Here we see how economic power operates by inserting itself into, mediating and controlling, the processes of human metabolism—that is, the material things and social relations that people depend upon to live. The very thing that makes humans so powerful—the flexibility, porosity, and promiscuity of our social relations with other things, people, and environments—is also what makes us susceptible to domination of various forms. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Alex Press — labor reporter for Jacobin — for a broad survey of the very large, active landscape of labor union actions happening in the United States. After updates on strikes, we then discuss the deep intersections of solidarity between labor movements and support for Palestine. The struggle for a better world is not just a bunch of isolated events, disconnected in time and place. We must stand together in the many big fights against domination of all kinds. ••• Writers Against the War in Gaza: https://www.writersagainstthewarongaza.com ••• Follow Alex: https://twitter.com/alexnpress ••• Read Alex’s work: https://jacobin.com/author/alex-press Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by David Z. Morris, a crypto journalist who has been covering the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. We hear from David about what’s been revealed and made clear during the trial as major witnesses from FTX give testimony — and we learn that the cult of personality around SBF, and his interpersonal manipulation of others, really was much deeper and darker than people realized. ••• Follow David: https://twitter.com/davidzmorris ••• David’s substack: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/ ••• Coverage of the SBF trial: https://protos.com/sbftrial/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Paris joins us to recap the Luddite Tribunal that happened last week with an all star lineup of generals in the Ludd Army passing judgment—and bringing down the hammer—on technologies. Then we talk about the new series Paris is doing on Tech Wont Save Us about Elon Musk — we discuss the infrastructural control that is at the core of his power and wealth. ••• Follow Paris: https://twitter.com/parismarx ••• Tech Wont Save Us: https://www.techwontsave.us/ ••• Disconnect newsletter: https://www.disconnect.blog/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 4 — The Human Corporeal Organisation — and look more deeply at how, as Mau writes, “The double mediation at the heart of the human metabolism—the mediation of tools and the mediation of social relations—explains why it can take infinite different forms.” We can never escape mediation of any kind, whether social (by living alone) or technological (by rejecting tools). We must understand how such mediation is crucial to human nature, and then critically engage with the power of mediation, reject those forms dominated by the logic of capital, and create the forms of mediation that work for our ends. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a deeper dive into the intellectual chicanery, moral corruption, and sociopathic tendencies at the heart of behavioral economics and its most famous “experts.” This is truly one of those cases where all your skepticism, cynicism, and antagonism for this entire field was not only justified, it was probably less intense than they deserved. This field needs more than a reckoning. We should raze the empire and salt the earth. Stuff we reference ••• They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/they-studied-dishonesty-was-their-work-a-lie Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in on a forgotten friend, Sam Bankman-Fried, on the eve of his big trial for one of the largest frauds in history. But this time with a nice addition of the freak beat as SBF’s parents enter the scene and come to his defense. On one hand, the legal defense for SBF is that he is just a dumb oaf who made some stupid mistakes. On the other, the moral defense for SBF, fronted by his parents, is that he is a big beautiful boy who is literally incapable of speaking “an untruth.” Stuff we reference ••• If It's Doomsday This Must Be Belfast https://captainplanet.fandom.com/wiki/If_It%27s_Doomsday_This_Must_Be_Belfast ••• Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Family Bubble https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/02/inside-sam-bankman-frieds-family-bubble Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Brian Merchant—LA Times tech columnist, author of Blood in the Machine, dear friend of TMK, general in the Ludd Army—to talk about his extraordinary new book. Brian has produced a masterwork on the history and legacy of Luddism. A deeply researched, thrilling narrative, filled with sharp insights, this book is the definitive story of the Luddite Rebellion and the birth of industrial capitalism. ••• Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech | Brian Merchant https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss chapter 3 of Mute Compulsion – The Social Ontology of Economic Power – and get into questions about the structure of social reality, why it is necessary to crack into these philosophical questions, how theories of social ontology form the whole basis of political ideologies and programs like neoliberalism and communism, why critiques of capitalism / technology based on ideas of human nature are common, easy, and weak, and why we need to build our critical theories on an ontology of social relations, not natural essence. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[Due to illness, we are unlocking this classic episode — which has only become more relevant as the news coverage and regulatory response to PFAS forever chemicals has only increased since our recording.] We take a deeper look at the political ecology of the “forever chemicals” that are integral to the existing microchip manufacturing process, the very serious damage they are wreaking on human health and the environment, the industrial interests that are aggressively pushing back against any attempt to regulate these chemicals, and the CEO of Chemours who has come forth as an ardent defender of the polymers in our blood. Stuff we reference ••• The crackdown on risky chemicals that could derail the chip industry https://www.ft.com/content/76979768-59c0-436f-b731-40ba329a7544 ••• EU ban on forever chemicals would hit bloc’s green transition, warns top industry boss https://www.ft.com/content/197ca0c8-0a4d-4794-bc46-796139821f3d ••• The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth ••• Mark E. Newman https://www.chemours.com/en/about-chemours/leadership/mark-e-newman-leadership-bio Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss an interview with the latest tech billionaire, Alexandr Wang of Scale AI, to push the jingoistic position that Silicon Valley has a duty to ensure American supremacy in every domain—military, geopolitics, technology, economy—and land lucrative contracts in the process. ••• Alexandr Wang: US technologists should help preserve US military and economic leadership https://www.ft.com/content/98b0a060-0e2e-4001-a4b6-8c388c106988 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Quinn Slobodian — author of Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy — to discuss the libertarian extremism that forms the intellectual foundation for right-wing movements. We can see how the fringe beliefs of anarcho-capitalists — like Murray Rothbard (neo-confederate secessionist) and David Friedman (medieval LARPer) — are gaining broader influence, even becoming mainstream. On one hand, they are raving lunatics, ideological zealots, and explicit racists. On the other hand, the utopias they desire can be found manifested in the zones and policies — like gated communities and gutted education systems — that have been surging for decades. ••• Quinn’s book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250753892/crackupcapitalism ••• Quinn’s twitter: https://twitter.com/zeithistoriker Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss chapter two – Power and Marxism – which offers a survey of how Marxist theories of power have largely been caught between the two poles of violence and ideology. With power-as-violence, the focus has been on the changing roles of the state, its relationship with capital, and the ways it physically controls people. With power-as-ideology, the focus has been on the role of institutions and culture in shaping how people think, thus exercising forms of mental control over people. While both these traditions are valuable and necessary, as Mau argues, they offer a duality of power, rather than a trinity. That missing link? Mute compulsion. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by one of our favorite friends — Meredith Whittaker — for a giant discussion that bridges her two latest articles. First a historical analysis of Charles Babbage and the smoking gun that directly links plantation logics of control with the industrial design of computation. Then a political economy of “open” AI and the material power that dominates the entire stack for these systems. ••• Follow Meredith: https://twitter.com/mer__edith ••• Origin Stories: Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control | Meredith Whittaker https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/origin-stories-plantations-computers-and-industrial-control/ ••• Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI | David Gray Widder, Meredith Whittaker, Sarah Myers West https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with news about the latest attempt to build a smart city from scratch as a collection of venture capitalists have been secretly buying huge amounts of land near San Francisco to finally realize a dream that will never die. We connect this logic of the capitalist zone to an expansive analysis of Saudi Arabia’s global investments, geopolitical partnerships, and giant ambitions for a future where the world is a zone. Stuff we reference: ••• The Silicon Valley Elite Who Want to Build a City From Scratch https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html ••• How Saudi Arabia is buying the world https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2023/07/saudi-arabia-capitalsim-buying-world ••• How Saudi money returned to Silicon Valley https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/1/23702451/silicon-valley-saudi-money-khashoggi Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Tamara Nopper and Eve Zelickson —— from the Data & Society Research Institute —— to discuss their excellent primer on Wellness Capitalism. This is the pure ideal of TMK crossovers as we lay out how an intricate tangle of things —— the organization of social reproduction by capital, the power dynamics of labor-boss relations, the cultures of personal responsibility and behavioral choices, the technocratic authority of baroque administrative systems, the actuarial governance regime of risk management —— all come together to control access to, and degrade the quality of, essential services for human life and society. ••• Wellness Capitalism: Employee Health, the Benefits Maze, and Worker Control | Tamara Nopper, Eve Zelickson https://datasociety.net/library/wellness-capitalism-employee-health-the-benefits-maze-and-worker-control/ ••• Follow Tamara: https://twitter.com/tamaranopper ••• Follow Eve: https://twitter.com/zel_eve Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss chapter one – Conceptualising Power and Capital – which lays the groundwork for analyzing these two fundamental concepts and their relation. Mau goes through mainstream social and political theories of power, showing how they are all deficient in various ways and what features a theory of power must possess. Then he lays out what it means to understand capital as a social logic and how this logic can exercise power in ways that are meaningful and material. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[We are unlocking the intro episode for the new book club. The first taste is free, find the rest on the premium feed.] We kick off the TMK book club with the excellent new book – Mute Compulsion by Søren Mau – which offers a foundational analysis of power, value, capital, and social reproduction. Mau’s book is written with a real analytical clarity that advances our critical, theoretical understanding of the relations and operations of those things in society and our lives. We set the context for the book and our approach before discussing the Introduction chapter, which established the book’s motivating questions and overarching argument about the need to pay special attention to the economic power of capital. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• Communism is Freedom – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/communism-is-freedom Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In another instalment of What the Fuck is Happening in America, we talk about how sports betting has totally saturated society since the Supreme Court overturned a ban in 2018, then we discuss the next wild frontier of online casinos driven by gambling platforms and megastar streamers, then finally we gaze into the dark abyss of The Machine Zone. Stuff we reference ••• The dark side of the US sports betting boom https://www.ft.com/content/2e1a235a-8a46-47f3-b040-5ca21a04ebf4 ••• Cigars, Booze, Money: How a Lobbying Blitz Made Sports Betting Ubiquitous https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/sports-betting-lobbying-kansas.html ••• Twitch’s Gambling Boom Is Luring Gamers Into Crypto Casinos https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-04/twitch-s-gambling-boom-is-luring-gamers-into-crypto-casinos ••• A Nation of the Walking Dead https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-nation-of-the-walking-dead/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with a visit to that smart city we all love, New Orleans, and see how the police department’s facial recognition surveillance is going. Then we revisit China, this time to lay out the broader conditions of its zombie economy and attempts by the state to reassert its power over capital by enforcing discipline on the tech and real estate sector, and giving them strong guidance about how they can work to better serve the state’s interest. We discuss this further in the context of China’s antitrust crackdown on tech companies—we might be envious of the means, but we should be wary of the goals. Stuff we reference ••• NOPD use of facial recognition leads to zero arrests in nine months https://veritenews.org/2023/07/26/nopd-use-of-facial-recognition-leads-to-zero-arrests-in-nine-months/ ••• Zombie Economy https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/zombie-economy ••• Why Is China’s Economy Stumbling? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/opinion/china-economy-decline.html ••• What Comes Next as China’s Tech Crackdown Winds Down https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-24/what-s-next-as-china-s-tech-crackdown-winds-down#xj4y7vzkg Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kick off the TMK book club with the excellent new book – Mute Compulsion by Søren Mau – which offers a foundational analysis of power, value, capital, and social reproduction. Mau’s book is written with a real analytical clarity that advances our critical, theoretical understanding of the relations and operations of those things in society and our lives. We set the context for the book and our approach before discussing the Introduction chapter, which established the book’s motivating questions and overarching argument about the need to pay special attention to the economic power of capital. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• Communism is Freedom – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/communism-is-freedom Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh to discuss their new book – Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City – which offers a rich analysis of Uber and its operations in Washington DC as a case study in the political economy of urban crisis. We get into how Uber thrives by taking advantage of the low expectations that people have of their city governments, public services, and the economy. The common sense of neoliberalism means that decision-makers and consumers understand Uber as the most obvious solutions to social problems, and cannot imagine any other alternatives, despite the fact that relying on Uber means settling for a system that addresses existing problems by only causing different ones. ••• Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City | Katie J. Wells, Kafui Attoh, and Declan Cullen https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249759/disrupting-dc ••• Follow Katie: https://twitter.com/KatieJWells ••• Follow Kafui: https://twitter.com/AttohKafui Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in on some enemies of the show to see what’s new with them. Uber has finally posted an operating profit for the first time in history – and it only took more than $31 billion in losses, plus a lot more exploitation and immiseration, to get there. Dan Ariely, a famous behavioral economist, has ironically been caught using fraudulent data for a study about honesty that has been used as the basis for insurance initiatives to combat fraud. Finally, Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, has written an abhorrent essay arguing that we all have moral obligations to embrace the development of AI weapons—or else we will be “punished” for refusing the call of duty. Stuff we reference: ••• Uber makes first operating profit after racking up $31.5bn of losses https://www.ft.com/content/dae2b90e-1ba0-4e8f-aabc-34aae4ca05d7 ••• Fabricated data in research about honesty. You can't make this stuff up. Or, can you? https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-francesca-gino-harvard-dishonesty-fabricated-data ••• Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of A.I. Weapons https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/opinion/karp-palantir-artificial-intelligence.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the a new investigation on the exponential growth of Starlink – Elon Musk’s satellite internet communication network – its geopolitical centrality to the war in Ukraine and international telecommunication policies, and the immense power this grants Musk as the man who has singular control over a private global infrastructure system that everyone from the Pentagon on down has grown dependent upon. ••• Elon Muskʼs Unmatched Power in the Stars https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/28/business/starlink.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We jump off the absurd twitter debate about degrowth and bananas in global communism to discuss much deeper issues about why any alternative to capitalism cannot simply be premised on being better managers of capitalist machines. Despite the arguments of ecomodernists—and the poverty of thought it engenders—there is not a linear development of progress and innovation which either moves forward (to the right) or backward (to the left). Break free of bourgeois ideology! Throw off the shackles of capitalist systems! Abolish the commodity form! Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the kayfabe of the green transition as the woke capitalists at Blackrock appoint Aramco to its board of directors, meanwhile the social justice warriors in the mining industry are doing land acknowledgements before ripping out rare earth minerals needed for renewable energy. These are the champions of a sustainable planet for human life. They are not the champions we deserve, nor are they ones we need, but they are the only ones we have. Stuff we reference: ••• Total life insurance: Logics of anticipatory control and actuarial governance in insurance technology https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03063127231186437 ••• BlackRock Appoints CEO of Oil Giant Aramco to Its Board https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-17/blackrock-names-aramco-ceo-amin-nasser-to-its-board-of-directors#xj4y7vzkg ••• A Good Prospect​ | Mining Climate Anxiety for Profit https://www.thedriftmag.com/a-good-prospect/ ••• Shell Is Looking Forward https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/shell-climate-change.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are excited to be joined again by Evgeny Morozov, host of The Santiago Boys, a new narrative podcast series about the history of Cybersyn, the geopolitics of its creation in Cold War Latin America, and the legacy of Salvador Allende, Fernando Flores, and the man who looms largest of all: Stafford Beer. This podcast series is not like any story of Cybersyn you might have read before. Morozov has take a mountain of research — over 200 hundred original interviews, deep archival investigations, all compiled into an online resource accessible via the link below — and turned it into a thrilling narrative about a radical system that almost was, a world that could have been, and the people who fought to the end for those dreams. ••• The Santiago Boys: https://the-santiago-boys.com ••• Outro song: Fela Kuti - International Thief Thief (I.T.T.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jptR_YwCs3o Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start chatting about Jathan going on television to talk about AI – friend or foe? hype or hysteria? – then discuss SAG-AFTRA going on strike and the potential future divisions between artificial content vs organic products in the entertainment industry. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

[Unlocking this one from the paywall] We start by talking about Ed’s new sci-fi / cosmic horror story in the latest issue of Logic(s). We cruise by the aborted cage fight between Zuck and Musk. Then somehow make our way to a long discussion of behavioral insurance technologies and start sketching out a political theory of insurance and its institutional forms in society. Stuff we reference: ••• The Circle | Ed's new story https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/the-circle/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start off with the very funny legal letter that Musk’s lawyers sent to Zuckerberg threatening legal action for Threads stealing IP from Twitter. Then we get into reporting on the rampant use of psychedelics in Silicon Valley. But they aren’t taking drugs for cool reasons, but rather to become more productive and creative with microdosing. This is yet another way to chemically create the most productive workforce, who are also more resilient against the soul crushing brutality of a capitalist regime. It’s like if MKUltra took place in a Stanford lab with VC funding. Stuff we reference: ••• Screenshot of Twitter v. Threads letter (part one): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0YXx0qaUAEpR05?format=jpg&name=large ••• Screenshot of Twitter v. Threads letter (part two): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0YX0SDakAA1F6U?format=jpg&name=large ••• Magic Mushrooms. LSD. Ketamine. The Drugs That Power Silicon Valley. https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-microdosing-ketamine-lsd-magic-mushrooms-d381e214 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We look into a new startup – Inflection AI – that has raised $1.5 billion, was co-founded by tech elites, and just released an AI chatbot, Pi, that is meant to be your ultra friendly, personal companion, coach, creative partner and more. We place our bet that this won’t be the last time we hear about Inflection AI. Everything about this company — its funding partners, founders’ pedigrees, AI product, and public mission – points to Inflection AI becoming even bigger and unavoidable. Stuff we reference: ••• AI Funding Explosion: Inflection AI Nabs $1.3B, Runway and Typeface Also Raise Big https://news.crunchbase.com/ai-robotics/funding-explosion-venture-generative-ai-unicorn/ ••• Inflection AI https://inflection.ai/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start by talking about Ed’s new sci-fi / cosmic horror story in the latest issue of Logic(s). We cruise by the aborted cage fight between Zuck and Musk. Then somehow make our way to a long discussion of behavioral insurance technologies and start sketching out a political theory of insurance and its institutional forms in society. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Alex Sammon – politics reporter at Slate – to discuss one of the best pieces of gonzo reporting in recent memory. Alex journeyed into the heart of darkness at the center of American capitalism: the National Automobile Dealers Association. We discuss why a critical analysis of car dealers is necessary for understanding the real composition of class power and wealth in society. The politics of how car dealerships became a network of deeply entrenched fiefdoms with the power of king makers is absolutely stunning. Plus, we talk about the debauchery and decadence on display at the NADA conference. ••• Alex’s car dealers article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html ••• Alex’s Trump streamers article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/trump-miami-courthouse-indictment-desantis.html ••• Alex’s twitter: https://twitter.com/alex_sammon ••• American Gentry | Patrick Wyman https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/trump-american-gentry-wyman-elites/620151/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get into Ed’s new column for The Nation, what he’s got planned, the long arc of arguments he’s building, and how the key to good tech criticism is to talk about technology by using it as a way to talk about other things. After a while discussing the hows and whys of good old historical materialist analysis, things then go off the rails in the best ways. Ed’s column: https://www.thenation.com/authors/edward-ongweso-jr/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Antony Loewenstein — author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World — to discuss his extensive reporting on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the policing tactics and surveillance technologies that are tested on Palestinians before sold as part of lucrative global export industry, and how the dynamics of occupation never stay within their cordoned zones but always expand to capture increasingly more people and places. ••• Antony’s book: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2684-the-palestine-laboratory ••• Antony’s twitter: https://twitter.com/antloewenstein Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

The tech asset bubble is now so massive that its reality distortion field is affecting the major indices like the S&P 500, warping their ability to serve as useful signals and indicators about the economy, and causing passive investors that peg trillions of dollars to these indices to become mechanically over-exposed to a handful of tech companies. All our fates are increasingly and intricately tied to the volatile financials of a few corporations. Very cool! Stuff we reference ••• Rise of the tech giants exposes the problem of index distortions https://www.ft.com/content/e0176208-fa3e-453c-8a9d-0bca61af9cdf ••• Nvidia races towards $1tn club as AI frenzy drives chip stocks higher https://www.ft.com/content/b074781a-683f-4b20-8c70-33bb71399d94 ••• What is the real point of all these letters warning about AI? https://www.fastcompany.com/90902786/what-is-the-real-point-of-all-these-letters-warning-about-ai Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Auni Ahsan and Stephen McMurtry – organizers with the Alphabet Workers Union – to talk about the nuts and bolts of organizing at a major tech company, the development of AWU and its relationship with Communications Workers of America, what it means to be a tech worker today, the conditions and issues for labor in the sector, the purpose of organized labor power more broadly, the challenges and opportunities for AWU as they continue to grow. ••• AWU https://alphabetworkersunion.org/ ••• CODE-CWA Trainings https://code-cwa.org/upcoming-trainings Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a deeper look at the political ecology of the “forever chemicals” that are integral to the existing microchip manufacturing process, the very serious damage they are wreaking on human health and the environment, the industrial interests that are aggressively pushing back against any attempt to regulate these chemicals, and the CEO of Chemours who has come forth as an ardent defender of the polymers in our blood. Stuff we reference ••• The crackdown on risky chemicals that could derail the chip industry https://www.ft.com/content/76979768-59c0-436f-b731-40ba329a7544 ••• EU ban on forever chemicals would hit bloc’s green transition, warns top industry boss https://www.ft.com/content/197ca0c8-0a4d-4794-bc46-796139821f3d ••• The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth ••• Mark E. Newman https://www.chemours.com/en/about-chemours/leadership/mark-e-newman-leadership-bio Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the technological theology that has been taking hold in Silicon Valley and its orbital communities – in various ways, different degrees, and over time. The components of this theology are nicely compiled into an acronym coined by Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres: Tescreal – transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, longtermism. Stuff we reference: ••• We need to examine the beliefs of today’s tech luminaries https://www.ft.com/content/edc30352-05fb-4fd8-a503-20b50ce014ab ••• Technology and Its Discontents: On the Verge of the Posthuman https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068384 ••• Why We are Called Hammer and Hope https://hammerandhope.org/article/issue-1-article-4 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get into the Writers Guild of America strike, why this is an important labor action to watch, the terrible conditions they are striking again, the mindset of the professional class of capital managers that control “content” production, and how the potential use of AI in tv/movies follows from already existing practices like “mini-rooms,” which brought gig economy dynamics to the work of writing. Stuff we reference: ••• ​​As the Writers’ Strike Enters Its Third Week, the Studios Aren’t Budging https://jacobin.com/2023/05/writers-guild-of-america-strike-tv-shows-film-artificial-intelligence-studios ••• TV Writers Say They’re Striking to Stop the Destruction of Their Profession https://jacobin.com/2023/05/writers-strike-wga-amptp-streaming-pay ••• Is This the End of the TV Writers’ Room as We Know It? https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/the-end-of-the-tv-writers-room-as-we-know-it-mini-rooms ••• Your Boss Wants AI to Replace You. The Writer’s Strike Shows How to Fight Back https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-05-11/column-the-writers-strike-is-only-the-beginning-a-rebellion-against-ai-is-underway ••• Will a Chatbot Write the Next ‘Succession’? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/business/media/writers-guild-hollywood-ai-chatgpt.html ••• ‘Disrespectful to the Craft:’ Actors Say They’re Being Asked to Sign Away Their Voice to AI https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence ••• Writers vs. robots: Hollywood moved toward automation long before AI https://www.fastcompany.com/90893629/hollywood-started-leaning-toward-automation-long-before-ai Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cory Doctorow — returning champion, friend of the show, and author of the new novel Red Team Blues — joins us to chat about fiction (science), finance (crypto), forensics (accounting), and much more. You never knew forensic accounting could be so radical and thrilling, but Red Team Blues is an immanent critique of techno-financial capitalism in the guise of a page ripping novel. We cover a lot of ground, all of it fascinating, as we always do when Cory comes on TMK. ••• Buy Red Team Blues: https://craphound.com/shop/ ••• Follow Cory: https://twitter.com/doctorow ••• Cory’s blog: https://pluralistic.net/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the technological theology that has been taking hold in Silicon Valley and its orbital communities – in various ways, different degrees, and over time. The components of this theology are nicely compiled into an acronym coined by Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres: Tescreal – transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, longtermism. Stuff we reference: ••• We need to examine the beliefs of today’s tech luminaries https://www.ft.com/content/edc30352-05fb-4fd8-a503-20b50ce014ab ••• Technology and Its Discontents: On the Verge of the Posthuman https://www.jstor.org/stable/40068384 ••• Why We are Called Hammer and Hope https://hammerandhope.org/article/issue-1-article-4 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Jonathan Guyer – senior foreign policy writer at Vox – to discuss his reporting on how the intimate relationship between Silicon Valley and Saudi Arabia is getting even deeper and weirder. We get into the geopolitics, the soft power, and the reputation laundering of Saudi Arabia – and its intersections with the cynical values and capital flows in Silicon Valley. Jonathan’s twitter: https://twitter.com/mideastXmidwest Jonathan’s articles: ••• How Saudi money returned to Silicon Valley https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/1/23702451/silicon-valley-saudi-money-khashoggi ••• How the Saudi crown prince erased the stigma of a murder https://www.vox.com/world/2022/10/3/23380680/global-elite-have-forgotten-jamal-khashoggis-murder-mbs-new-york-investment-conference Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We spike our blood pressure with a discussion about recent reporting on the systems used by health insurers to automate rejecting claims. It’s one of those classic situations we all know and love: human doctors rubber stamping algorithmic decisions in a system created by a private equity ghoul to save major insurers a few dollars by making the lives of real people significantly worse. Stuff we reference ••• How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims ••• Lina Khan: We Must Regulate A.I. Here’s How. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/opinion/ai-lina-khan-ftc-technology.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get into Evgeny Morozov’s latest essay on the geopolitical interests and military neoliberalism that’s really driving the AI arms race. Morozov traces today’s developments back to the Cold War – not just as a metaphor, but by showing how many of the same people and institutions are still in positions of power. To understand the America vs China framing of technological competition, which is now so dominant and two-dimensional in the discourse about AI, we must see how it is stoked by people like Eric Schmidt and Gilman Louie and their networks of influence, capital, and ideology. Article we discuss: ••• AI: the key battleground for Cold War 2.0? | Evgeny Morozov https://mondediplo.com/2023/05/02china Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We cruise into the drive-thru of Taco Bell’s Innovation Lab and discuss the strange sublime of food that has been industrially engineered to hit every pleasure center in your brain, while also profaning all this is holy and natural in this world. We are awe-struck by the productive capacity and scientific innovation of capital, while also in total horror of what it has produced and innovated. And yes, I will add a Doritos Loco Taco to my meal. Thanks. Article we discuss ••• Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen, the Front Line in the Stunt-Food Wars https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/24/taco-bells-innovation-kitchen-the-front-line-in-the-stunt-food-wars Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are very pleased to be joined by Sarah Myers West— managing director of AI Now Institute and former Senior Advisor on AI to the FTC—to discuss their excellent new report, 2023 Landscape: Confronting Tech Power. We lay out how the dominance of Big Tech is built on a triforce of advantages: data, compute, geopolitical. These advantages serve as both core pillars and core chokepoints for corporate control over AI. And if we hope to overturn their power, then we must undermine these advantages. The report lays out a number of key interventions for policy, regulation, and organizing. ••• 2023 Landscape report: https://ainowinstitute.org/general/2023-landscape-executive-summary ••• Sarah’s twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahbmyers Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Returning champion David A. Banks joins us for a supersized discussion about his new book, The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America. How do cities have to act like social media influencers to attract new flows of capital? How are fundamental dynamics of capitalist urban development — growth machines, rent gaps, spatial fixes, destructive renovation, entrepreneurial competition — updated and upgraded to fit into the techno-financial conditions of today? Why does every downtown have the same damn wine bar now? Join us for answers to all these questions and much more. ••• David’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383456/the-city-authentic ••• David’s twitter: https://twitter.com/DA_Banks ••• David’s substack: https://otherday.substack.com/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the federal intelligence agencies being big fans of great books and movies, and writing about them in their little newsletters. Then move on to a big discussion about how the tech industry has been buoyed by a whole lot of nothing: zero interest rates, zero marginal costs, zero regulation, zero oversight. Those zeroes are key to the political economic foundation of Silicon Valley. And now – due to social, financial, and technological factors – the zeroes are increasing slightly. Will AI be the perpetual value machine that finally helps capital resolve all its contradictions and ascend to the next level? Of course not. But that won’t stop them from trying to force the impossible anyway. Articles we discuss ••• “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” Move Poses Terror Threat, Kansas City Intel Agency Claims https://theintercept.com/2023/04/11/how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-movie/ ••• Is Environmental Radicalism Inevitable? https://newrepublic.com/article/171560/how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-young-activists ••• TechScape: The end of the ‘free money’ era https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/11/techscape-zirp-tech-boom ••• Putting the Silicon in Silicon Valley https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n06/john-lanchester/putting-the-silicon-in-silicon-valley Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We go in-depth on an article that has not received the attention it is due: an investigation into an automated welfare fraud system in the Netherlands, which is based on unprecedented access to the machine learning model, its training data, and operational handbooks. Through a deep analysis of the systems mechanics, this investigation goes beyond validating what we already know to be true about how such algorithms discriminate. It shows how these systems are complex and targeted in their discrimination, while also being simplistic and arbitrary in their decisions. Articles we discuss ••• Inside the Suspicion Machine https://www.wired.com/story/welfare-state-algorithms/ ••• Welfare surveillance system violates human rights, Dutch court rules https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/welfare-surveillance-system-violates-human-rights-dutch-court-rules Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We cruise through a few topics: talk about the anti-China alliance between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill pushing to ban TikTok; the bizarre post-mortem on SPACs published by their biggest booster, Chamath Palihapitiya; and the regular beat of people having no idea how to understand AI, while also being absolutely positive that they can harness it to [fix democracy]. Articles we discuss ••• Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill Build an Anti-China Alliance https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-and-capitol-hill-build-an-anti-china-alliance-e508c75e ••• 2022 Annual Letter | Chamath Palihapitiya https://chamath.substack.com/p/2022-annual-letter ••• Another Crack at Chamath Palihapitiya’s Letter to SPAC Investors https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-04-06/another-crack-at-chamath-palihapitiya-s-letter-to-spac-investors ••• Can A.I. and Democracy Fix Each Other? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/opinion/artificial-intelligence-democracy-chatgpt.html ••• Special Report: Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s a fan cam episode for our favorite tech columnist, Brian Merchant, who had two pieces come out recently that are back-to-back bangers. First is about why all the people making and selling AI keep talking about being afraid of their own creations. It’s Frankenstein meets sorcerer's apprentice but as a marketing strategy for their own power (and their unique ability to control that power). Second is about what all these people should actually be afraid of. As history shows us, there is more than one way to crash a computer. Article we discuss ••• Afraid of AI? The startups selling it want you to be | Brian Merchant https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-03-31/column-afraid-of-ai-the-startups-selling-it-want-you-to-be ••• Silicon Valley elites are afraid. History says they should be | Brian Merchant: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-03-24/column-how-afraid-should-silicon-valley-be Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We give ourselves a concussion by talking about yet another opinion essay about AI written by three “experts” and published by a major newspaper. How is AI doing neuro-linguistic programming? What happens when your analysis is all idealism, no materialism, all superstructure, no base? Will AI soon use its godlike powers to hack civilization and create militant groups at its command just by telling us the right story? Wait, you’re telling me we have to take this shit seriously because the authors have direct lines of influence to people who have actual political power and control capital? Goddamnit. Article we discuss ••• You Can Have the Blue Pill or the Red Pill, and We’re Out of Blue Pills | Yuval Harari, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Abeba Birhane — Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI at the Mozilla Foundation — for a critical discussion about the release of GPT-4 and OpenAI. We also get into the excellent work that Abeba and colleagues have done mapping the specific values encoded into, and the surveillance pipeline that influences, the vast majority of AI/ML research. ••• Abeba’s twitter: https://twitter.com/Abebab ••• Abeba’s paper – The Values Encoded in Machine Learning Research https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3531146.3533083 Stuff we referenced ••• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks: 'A little bit scared of this' https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-reshape-society-acknowledges/story?id=97897122 ••• GPT-4 Technical Report https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4.pdf ••• Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712 ••• The Sparks of AGI? Or the End of Science? https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-sparks-of-agi-or-the-end-of-science ••• GPT-4 and professional benchmarks: the wrong answer to the wrong question https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/gpt-4-and-professional-benchmarks Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss the clear and present danger throughout the global financial system, with crises happening in the banking sector that have not been seen since the 2008 crash. However, these are not sudden and surprising explosions—at least not to industry and regulatory insiders—they are instead the slow motion ticking of bombs that are under review. We also get further into the failures of the VC industry and the fact that reforms—even severe ones that cut deep—are not enough to fix an industry, let alone bring it to heel, which is structurally incapable of serving the social good. Some stuff we reference ••• How Venture Capital Can Avoid the Next Silicon Valley Bank Fiasco | Del Johnson https://www.wired.com/story/to-save-the-innovation-economy-break-big-venture-capital/ ••• Enmeshment in Venture https://www.laconiacapitalgroup.com/blog/enmeshment ••• A Death in the Valley: What the End of SVB Reveals About VC Class Solidarity | Doug Henwood https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/svb-bank-interest-rates/ ••• Fed Blocked Mention of Regulatory Flaws in Silicon Valley Bank Rescue https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/business/fed-regulation-svb.html ••• Before Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the Fed Spotted Big Problems https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/business/economy/fed-silicon-valley-bank.html ••• UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse for More Than $3 Billion https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We've unlocked this episode for the free feed. It's been a long time since we’ve seen a good old fashioned bank run lead to the collapse of a venerable financial institution, but leave it to Silicon Valley to rediscover something old and call it new again. We are joined by Brian Merchant — LA Times tech columnist and author of Blood in the Machine — for a post-mortem on Silicon Valley Bank, breakdown its events and effects, and hold Ed to account for his incitements to violence against the most marginalized and traumatized people of them all: venture capitalists. ••• Brian’s column: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-03-12/column-silicon-valley-bank-is-broken-because-silicon-valley-is-broken ••• Brian’s book: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/ ••• Brian’s twitter: https://twitter.com/bcmerchant Some stuff we reference ••• The Incredible Tantrum Venture Capitalists Threw Over Silicon Valley Bank | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-rescue-venture-capital-calacanis-sacks-ackman-tantrum.html ••• Silicon Valley Bank profit squeeze in tech downturn attracts short sellers https://www.ft.com/content/0387e331-61b4-4848-9e50-04775b4c3fa7 ••• Startup Bank Had a Startup Bank Run https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-10/startup-bank-had-a-startup-bank-run ••• How Bad Was the Silicon Valley Bank Bailout? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/opinion/silicon-valley-bank-bailout.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Been a long time since we’ve seen a good old fashioned bank run lead to the collapse of a venerable financial institution, but leave it to Silicon Valley to rediscover something old and call it new again. We are joined by Brian Merchant—LA Times tech columnist and author of Blood in the Machine—for a post-mortem on Silicon Valley Bank, breakdown its events and effects, and hold Ed to account for his incitements to violence against the most marginalized and traumatized people of them all: venture capitalists. ••• Brian’s column: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-03-12/column-silicon-valley-bank-is-broken-because-silicon-valley-is-broken ••• Brian’s book: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/ ••• Brian’s twitter: https://twitter.com/bcmerchant Some stuff we reference ••• The Incredible Tantrum Venture Capitalists Threw Over Silicon Valley Bank | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-rescue-venture-capital-calacanis-sacks-ackman-tantrum.html ••• Silicon Valley Bank profit squeeze in tech downturn attracts short sellers https://www.ft.com/content/0387e331-61b4-4848-9e50-04775b4c3fa7 ••• Startup Bank Had a Startup Bank Run https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-10/startup-bank-had-a-startup-bank-run ••• How Bad Was the Silicon Valley Bank Bailout? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/opinion/silicon-valley-bank-bailout.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Nick Sever – author of the new book Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation – to discuss his excellent ethnographic research on the creation of algorithmic recommendation systems. Nick spent a long time getting to really know the people who make these systems and his book offers so much original, granular detail about the various practices, theories, and relationships that influence the engineers behind these algorithms. Nick’s book also contains extremely interesting and surprising applications of classic anthropological theory to contemporary algorithmic technology. ••• Nick’s book – Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo183892298.html ••• Nick’s twitter – https://twitter.com/npseaver Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Disclaimer: this episode was recorded before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. We will do a post-mortem on that debacle in the next premium episode. In part 2 of our discussion on venture capitalism, we dig further into an excellent (and very long) new law article that is crucial for understanding VC. How did this very particular model of investment, which is guided by its own idiosyncratic interests and structural imperatives, come to hold the reins of our global innovation system? And what does that mean for how key decisions are made about technological development? Article we discuss: Enhancing the Innovative Capacity of Venture Capital | Peter Lee https://yjolt.org/enhancing-innovative-capacity-venture-capital Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In this week’s episodes, we dig into an excellent (and very long) new law article, which is crucial for understanding the history, mechanics, constraints, and consequences of venture capitalism. How did this very particular model of investment, which is guided by its own idiosyncratic interests and structural imperatives, come to hold the reins of our global innovation system? And what does that mean for how key decisions are made about technological development? Article we discuss: ••• Enhancing the Innovative Capacity of Venture Capital | Peter Lee https://yjolt.org/enhancing-innovative-capacity-venture-capital Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Now we know why Henry Kissinger looks the way he does. He peered into the true face of the New God // New Technology. He is paying the price for this forbidden glance – cursed to live for eternity in a shriveled flesh husk, damned to preach about its power, along with Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher. Their reverence is tempered by vague warnings of risk and responsibility. Their hysterical register is offset by the hushed tones of sober reflection. Stuff we reference: ••• ChatGPT Heralds an Intellectual Revolution | Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-heralds-an-intellectual-revolution-enlightenment-artificial-intelligence-homo-technicus-technology-cognition-morality-philosophy-774331c6 ••• How the Enlightenment Ends | Henry Kissinger https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/ ••• Planning for AGI and beyond | Sam Altman https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond/ ••• The Myth of Artificial Intelligence | Meredith Whittaker, Lucy Suchman https://prospect.org/culture/books/myth-of-artificial-intelligence-kissinger-schmidt-huttenlocher/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Malcolm Harris—author of Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World—to discuss his magisterial book on how a hellmouth in Northern California has, for the last two hundred years, been a vortex of power for capital. We discuss some of the lesser known people and products of Palo Alto—like Herbet Hoover and William Shockley—that have had very important impacts (for worse and worse) on the direction of modern society, but have largely been looked back on in very myopic ways. We only scratch the surface of the amazingly detailed histories, social maps, and historical materialist analysis that Malcolm digs up in his book. Buy a copy right now! ••• Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World | Malcolm Harris: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo-alto/9780316592031/ ••• Follow Malcolm: https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We look at the latest way bosses are outsourcing the dirty work of owning capital and managing workers to techno-consultants. Then see why venture capitalists are loudly crying about a light touch rule that will require them to prove they actually did due diligence before spending billions of other people’s dollars. And we wrap things up by checking in on the plight of Amazon under its new CEO Andy Jassy – and wonder if the company’s troubles will lead to a second imperium of Bezos? Stuff we reference: ••• AI is starting to pick who gets laid off https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/20/layoff-algorithms/ ••• Venture World Watches As SEC Moves To Regulate Industry https://news.crunchbase.com/policy-regulation/venture-sec-regulations-web3-ftx/ ••• Can this man turn Amazon around? https://www.ft.com/content/a8cdfe3a-a445-476c-b4a7-367468ac1398 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss the supermarkets for data – giant grocery chains like Kroger have created powerful capacities for data extraction and monetization. This forces us to expand our analysis of data surveillance beyond the usual suspects in big tech and reckon with the fact that data capital is not a thing that can be excised from the political economic system, but is now an essential component of that whole system’s operations. Stuff we reference: ••• Forget Milk and Eggs: Supermarkets Are Having a Fire Sale on Data About You https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/02/16/forget-milk-and-eggs-supermarkets-are-having-a-fire-sale-on-data-about-you ••• “Out Of Control”: Dozens of Telehealth Startups Sent Sensitive Health Information to Big Tech Companies https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/12/13/out-of-control-dozens-of-telehealth-startups-sent-sensitive-health-information-to-big-tech-companies ••• Now for sale: Data on your mental health https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/02/13/mental-health-data-brokers/ ••• Senators Launch Inquiry into Telehealth Companies for Tracking and Monetizing Personal Data https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2023/02/07/senators-launch-inquiry-into-telehealth-companies-for-tracking-and-monetizing-personal-data Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In this installment of What the Fuck is Happening in America: floating “objects” keep getting shot down; a train carrying the toxic gas vinyl chloride has turned Ohio into a sacrifice zone; the Biden administration ramps up its investments in industrial policy, but in such a way that apparently the entire purpose of the economy is to try incentivizing private companies, with tax credits and subsidiaries, into directly competing with China. Sorry folks, the economy can’t do anything else for any other reason *shrug* Stuff we reference: ••• Derailed Ohio Train Carried Toxic Ingredient for “Worst” Kind of Plastic https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/02/derailment-east-palestine-ohio-train-carried-toxic-chemical-vinyl-chloride-plastic-pvc/ ••• America’s government is spending lavishly to revive manufacturing https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/02/02/americas-government-is-spending-lavishly-to-revive-manufacturing Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Jumping off an FT op-ed on venture capital and tech hype – which aligns great with TMK thought – we discuss the value and risk models of venture capitalism, then get into the emerging market structures and dynamics for generative AI. It’s not just a web3 redux. We end with Ted Chiang’s fantastic article on lossy compression as an analogy for large-language models. Some stuff we reference: ••• The new Current Thing for VCs mourning the implosion of Web3 https://www.ft.com/content/83807cad-5f2c-4c35-a4ff-e9df5cbd3505 ••• Generative AI: A Creative New World | report by Sequoia Capital https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/generative-ai-a-creative-new-world/ ••• ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get some Parisian updates and stories from Ed. Then we enter the mind palace of a libertarian who, with all the annoying pretension of a philosophy major, tried to make ChatGPT say the word. We wrap up with a discussion of the “year of efficiency” in Silicon Valley as the biggest four tech companies are rewarded with over $800 billion in market cap for making massive job cuts, massive stock buybacks, and massive investments in AI. Some stuff we reference ••• Big Tech groups disclose $10bn in charges from job culls and cost cutting https://www.ft.com/content/9daf27f6-dde7-40d8-b01d-33b70844aa69 ••• Tech’s Biggest Companies Discover Austerity, to the Relief of Investors https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/technology/big-tech-earnings-austerity.html ••• Tech's Elite Hates Labor https://ez.substack.com/p/techs-elite-hates-labor ••• Big Tech companies use cloud computing arms to pursue alliances with AI groups https://www.ft.com/content/5b17d011-8e0b-4ba1-bdca-4fbfdba10363 ••• Google reveals plans for Bard chatbot as AI tech race heats up https://www.ft.com/content/66fad3e0-f530-48c1-984c-82578274ce7a ••• Microsoft Throws a Coming-Out Party for A.I. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/technology/microsoft-ai-chatgpt-bing.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Part 1 –– We welcome returning champ Nick Chavez – mechanical engineer, marxist political economist – for a long conversation about his new essay examining the real nitty-gritty aspects of production and labor, knowledge and management. Time to step down from the ivory tower and onto the shop floor. We talk extensively about different modes of manufacturing and the stratification of technical expertise within capitalist production – and what needs to be kept, changed, and abolished in a transition to communist production. ••• Nick’s essay: https://brooklynrail.org/2023/12/field-notes/Technical-Expertise-and-Communist-Production ••• Nick’s new blog: https://designformanufracture.wordpress.com/ ••• Nick’s new twitter: https://twitter.com/DFManufracture Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dip into the a16z omnibus of predictions for the tech industry in 2023. Time to learn what the thought masters of the universe are trying to wishcast into existence because they have a material interest in making them happen. Stuff we reference: ••• Big Ideas in Tech for 2023: An a16z Omnibus https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Ed takes us on a guided tour of Odin Intelligence, SweepWizard, CloudFactory and other tech bullshit that sounds like embarrassing nonsense while also contributing in their own way to monetizing, mobilizing, and heightening the eschaton. Stuff we reference: ••• Police Contractor That Promised to Track Homeless People Hacked https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgyjnq/odin-intelligence-hacked ••• Crime App ‘Citizen’ Fires Overseas $2 an Hour Workers https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkg5nk/citizen-fires-overseas-kenya-nepal-workers-cloudfactory ••• CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23564311/cnet-pausing-ai-articles-bot-red-ventures Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s been a while since we’ve done a real reading series. So we spend time with a group of rogue entrepreneurs who are taking it upon themselves to save the planet by geoengineering the atmosphere. Stuff we reference ••• A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startup-says-its-begun-releasing-particles-into-the-atmosphere-in-an-effort-to-tweak-the-climate/ ••• Saudi Aramco bets on being the last oil major standing https://www.ft.com/content/513b770b-836b-472b-a058-3e4a95437c69 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We spend more time talking about the political economy of AI – the production and application of AI within a capitalist system and how it might (and should) differ within a socialist or communist system. We pay particular attention to discussing the growing and specialized industries for producing, supporting, propping up, and stepping in for AI in a variety of applications. Living labor creates the machinery of dead labor, which then acts as an agent of capital to discipline and dominate living labor, making it more machine-like, thus turning the living into the undead. Stuff we reference ••• Seven questions to ask about AI https://maxread.substack.com/p/seven-questions-to-ask-about-ai ••• Human_Fallback https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-44/essays/human_fallback/ ••• The Worldwide Data Annotation Tools Industry is Expected to Reach $13.2 Billion by 2030 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220824005423/en/The-Worldwide-Data-Annotation-Tools-Industry-is-Expected-to-Reach-13.2-Billion-by-2030---ResearchAndMarkets.com Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

They don’t make things like they used to… No really. They don’t. We discuss how a perfect storm of things like stagnant wages, rising inflation, declining profits, expedited production, among other factors have led to a real drop in the quality of consumer goods along with generally lowered expectations of living conditions and technological innovations. Stuff we reference ••• Your stuff is actually worse now https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23529587/consumer-goods-quality-fast-fashion-technology ••• Why Tech Billionaires Want to Shape Our Future w/ Rose Eveleth https://techwontsave.us/episode/149_why_tech_billionaires_want_to_shape_our_future_w_rose_eveleth Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We offer some thoughts on where the tech sector is heading right now, how the markets are performing amidst a down turn, and what big trends for tech and capital are looking strong in the new year. Stuff we reference ••• A new era: the end of cheap money https://www.ft.com/content/6d312b6c-9f74-4816-ad7e-7e797c5e0f6b ••• Silicon Valley start-ups race for debt deals in funding crunch https://www.ft.com/content/d12a4baa-53c6-4256-b125-d25622f9555f ••• Silicon Valley staff rush to offload start-up shares as valuations plummet https://www.ft.com/content/7178364f-1f0d-46e4-9692-b648ea258d06 ••• Private Markets Don’t Like to Go Down https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-01-04/private-markets-don-t-like-to-go-down#footnote-1 ••• Forecast: Startup M&A Could Pick Up In 2023 As Fundraising Tightens Further https://news.crunchbase.com/ma/startup-forecast-2023-fundraising-venture-valuations/ ••• A New Area of A.I. Booms, Even Amid the Tech Gloom https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/technology/generative-ai-chatgpt-investments.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We do a postmortem on 2022, the year of Web3, talking about the goofs and grifts, speed and scale, crashes and canaries, with our major takeaway and theme being that just as FTX is not anomalous for Web3, nor is Web3 anomalous for Silicon Valley. It is, instead, a product and paragon of the structural conditions and systemic imperatives that define how the political economy of technology operates within capitalism. Stuff we reference ••• In 2022, web3 went just great https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/in-2022-web3-went-just-great ••• Web3 grift leaderboard https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top ••• Imprinting the economy: The structural power of venture capital https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X221136559 ••• MicroStrategy Hit Lowest Since 2020 After Bitcoin Sale https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-29/microstrategy-mstr-hits-lowest-since-2020-after-bitcoin-sale-announcement?srnd=technology-vp Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We give some personal updates, then get distracted talking about a new survey on consumer sentiments and insurance technology. It turns out that actually the vast majority of people *do not* want to use surveillance technology and exchange data for any insurance discounts. Remember this when insurance policies that require using devices and sharing data still proliferate. It's not because consumers want them, but because insurers demand them. Stuff we reference: ••• Most Americans still refuse to install data-sharing devices for insurance discounts https://www.policygenius.com/auto-insurance/home-auto-technology-survey-2022/ ••• Grim Findings for Insurers’ Digital Strategies https://www.ethicsandinsurance.info/grim-reading-for-insurers-digital-strategies/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We breakdown ChatGPT, the conversational large language model created by OpenAI. How this system works. How it has been fetishized by consumers and reporters, critics and advocates. Why most of the hand wringing and claim making about the impacts of this technology has been wrongheaded. And why our analysis of the implications for such a system being integrated into everyday life—regardless of how well it does or does not work—must push past the bounds of bias and misinformation. We are talking here about the AI of Delphi. The perception of meaning via the production of reality. Yet another in a long line of interpretive systems for simultaneously constructing and understanding the world. Stuff we reference: ••• How come GPT can seem so brilliant one minute and so breathtakingly dumb the next? https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/how-come-gpt-can-seem-so-brilliant ••• What to Expect When You’re Expecting… GPT-4 https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting ••• Every answer https://robhorning.substack.com/p/every-answer ••• The great Transformer: Examining the role of large language models in the political economy of AI https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20539517211047734 ••• ChatGPT, Galactica, and the Progress Trap https://www.wired.com/story/large-language-models-critique/ ••• Exclusive: ChatGPT owner OpenAI projects $1 billion in revenue by 2024 https://www.reuters.com/business/chatgpt-owner-openai-projects-1-billion-revenue-by-2024-sources-2022-12-15/ ••• Did a Fourth Grader Write This? Or the New Chatbot? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/26/upshot/chatgpt-child-essays.html?referringSource=articleShare Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

If we want to understand the cloud, then we need to study real estate. We are joined by Dan Greene—from the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies—who has written the premier analysis of who owns the internet. We all know the cloud is a place, but many of us think that place is largely owned by familiar tech giants. Wrong. The actual owners of the bones and pipes of the internet are Real Estate Investment Trusts and, by extension, private equity firms. The stack of landlords goes deeper than we realize. ••• Dan’s twitter: https://twitter.com/Greene_DM ••• Dan’s website: http://dmgreene.net/ ••• Dan’s article – Landlords of the internet: Big data and big real estate http://dmgreene.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/03063127221124943.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We give some personal updates, then get distracted talking about a new survey on consumer sentiments and insurance technology. It turns out that actually the vast majority of people *do not* want to use surveillance technology and exchange data for any insurance discounts. Remember this when insurance policies that require using devices and sharing data still proliferate. It's not because consumers want them, but because insurers demand them. Stuff we reference: ••• Most Americans still refuse to install data-sharing devices for insurance discounts https://www.policygenius.com/auto-insurance/home-auto-technology-survey-2022/ ••• Grim Findings for Insurers’ Digital Strategies https://www.ethicsandinsurance.info/grim-reading-for-insurers-digital-strategies/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a look at the critical ecologies of the cloud with Mél Hogan – Director of the Environmental Media Lab at the University of Calgary – who researches the environmental politics of server farms and data centers. We unpack the ongoing domination of nature by machine and market logics — until there isn’t anything left to dominate. ••• Mel’s twitter: https://twitter.com/mel_hogan ••• Mél’s work: https://www.melhogan.com/ ••• Project on art and the cloud https://www.criticalstudiesofthe.cloud/ ••• Critical Data Center Studies bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bnbDNTXlpddbfuShMgRKWvWLFIKUKBchUkluMMOVRkw/edit#heading=h.2bmuylggugur Stuff we reference: ••• Big data ecologies: Landscapes of political action http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/big-data-ecologies ••• The Nature of Data Centers | special issue of Culture Machine https://culturemachine.net/vol-18-the-nature-of-data-centers/ ••• Power, Pollution and the Internet https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-of-energy-belying-industry-image.html?pagewanted=all Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We continue our analysis of all things green by looking deeper at the operations of a core mechanism directing cash flows into sustainable investments: ESG. What is ESG? How does it work? You think you know? You assume you understand it? Does the acronym stand for environmental and social governance? Or does it actually stand for environment, social, and governance? Would you believe that the placement of “and” makes all the difference? If there is confusion about the very acronym, then what other things are not what they seem with these ESG metrics, ratings, and indexes? You’ve confronted cynicism? Not like this you haven’t. Stuff we reference: ••• The ESG Mirage https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-what-is-esg-investing-msci-ratings-focus-on-corporate-bottom-line/ ••• The Wall Street Consensus at COP27 | Daniela Gabor https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-wall-street-consensus-at-cop27/ ••• Neoliberalizing Space | Jamie Peck, Adam Tickell http://overgaardtonnesen.dk/TEKSTERNE/03-Peck-Tickell-Neoliberalizing-Space.pdf ••• Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition | Brett Christophers https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926957 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) recently happening, we dig into the political economy of green policy, green investing, green finance, green technology, green capitalism. What is driving the transition necessary to sustain the billions of lives – and trillions in profits – on Earth? Who are the vanguards of sustainability lighting our way into the future? Stuff we reference: ••• The Wall Street Consensus at COP27 | Daniela Gabor https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-wall-street-consensus-at-cop27/ ••• Money and the Climate Crisis https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/money-and-the-climate-crisis/ ••• The ESG Mirage https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-what-is-esg-investing-msci-ratings-focus-on-corporate-bottom-line/ ••• Neoliberalizing Space | Jamie Peck, Adam Tickell http://overgaardtonnesen.dk/TEKSTERNE/03-Peck-Tickell-Neoliberalizing-Space.pdf ••• Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition | Brett Christophers https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926957 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

While Jathan is busy with his day job, Ed and Jereme are joined by Ed Zitron and Aaron Thorpe for a shitposters party. Topics include: dystopias, cat ownership as praxis, conspiracy theories about Covid and JFK, and how Las Vegas isn’t doing the crypto bullshit. Also: talking shit about all the usual suspects. Ed’s twitter: https://twitter.com/edzitron Ed’s substack: https://ez.substack.com/ Aaron’s twitter: https://twitter.com/borgposting Aaron’s podcast 1: https://twitter.com/thetrillbillies Aaron’s podcast 2: https://twitter.com/elcpod Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are taking a break to catch up on stuff. Enjoy this classic (and infuriating) premium episode. Take beta blockers before this episode. In a companion piece for our episode on Health Communism, we dig into a concrete case that exemplifies everything we talked about with the production of surplus populations for the purpose of extractive abandonment. The ongoing story we discuss in this episode takes all those dynamics and pushes them to their most horrific logical conclusions. Some references: ••• How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html ••• They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/business/nonprofit-hospitals-poor-patients.html ••• Deaths Linked to Neglect, Error Raise Concerns About Quality of Care at This Safety Net Hospital https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-roseland-community-hospital-covid-deaths Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We continue our deep dive into a provocative, radical blueprint for democratizing finance and taking control of the economy. We detail Omarova’s detailed proposal for turning the Federal Reserve into the People’s Ledger. On the liabilities side, we discuss the universalization of deposit services (aka FedAccounts) and the elimination of private deposit-taking by commercial banks. On the assets side, we discuss the creation of a National Investment Authority which would allocate capital to socially beneficial, large-scale projects. Together this reformed Fed would drastically reduce the complexity and volatility of the financial system, while democratizing access to financial services, while also distributing the flows of capital to worthwhile investments. ••• The People's Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol74/iss5/1/ ••• Socialist Investment, Dynamic Planning, and the Politics of Human Need | Aaron Benanav https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08935696.2022.2051375 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive deep into a provocative, radical blueprint for democratizing finance and taking control of the economy. A recent paper by law professor – and a favorite thinker of TMK – Saule Omarova offers a detailed plan for how to reengineer the Federal Reserve, totally restructuring its balance sheet, and “redefining the role of a central bank as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a democratic economy—the People’s Ledger.” ••• The People's Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol74/iss5/1/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re pulling the ripcord on this book. After slogging through five chapters, we discuss why this book just isn’t working for our needs with the TMK Book Club and why we are abandoning it. Despite it being an influential book, which is squarely in our interests, its approach to describing the topic makes it difficult and, frankly, not very fun to talk about. So instead we talk about some other contenders for the next iteration of the TMK Book Club that show more promise and take us in some different directions. We also ask for your recommendations! Comment on this episode on Patreon or post them on Discord. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

As the tech economy faces a massive turn down, we dig deeper into a market segment that experienced meteoric overcapitalized growth, a huge pandemic boost, and an immediate collapse: instant delivery // dark stores // ghost kitchens. To help us analyze the consequences of this sector’s rise, demise, and aftermath we are joined by Aaron Shapiro – author of Design, Control, Predict: Logistical Governance in the Smart City. ••• Aaron’s twitter: https://twitter.com/BricolageYumYum ••• Aaron’s book: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/design-control-predict ••• Aaron’s article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14695405211069983 ••• The Fantasy of Instant Delivery Is Imploding https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-24/gopuff-layoffs-signal-instant-delivery-s-demise?leadSource=uverify+wall Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We riff on the artisanal race science of Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, the crypto hedge fund linked to FTX. Then we introduce you to the Harman Ready Care system, yet another of the wonderful innovations on the market contributing, in its own incremental way, to improving the world today. ••• Introducing HARMAN Ready Care: Detects Driver Behaviors and Assists via Context-Aware Interventions for Safer and Smarter Drives https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220914005609/en/Introducing-HARMAN-Ready-Care-Detects-Driver-Behaviors-and-Assists-via-Context-Aware-Interventions-for-Safer-and-Smarter-Drives ••• Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/data-driven Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the details of FTX’s collapse. FTX is not an isolated event. FTX is not a bad apple. FTX is not uniquely mismanaged. FTX is not a cautionary tale. FTX is not a stunning surprise. FTX is a systemic problem, a vehicle for structural levels of fraud, another in a long line of liquidity crunches for crypto, a litmus test for credible due diligence, a fork in the road for the crypto economy, institutional investors, and government regulators. ••• It Was All a Game for Sam Bankman-Fried https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/it-was-all-a-game-for-sam-bankman-fried.html ••• FTX’s Balance Sheet Was Bad https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad ••• FTX held less than $1bn in liquid assets against $9bn in liabilities https://www.ft.com/content/f05fe9f8-ca0a-48d5-8ef2-7a4d813af558 ••• Sam Bankman-Fried Was Supposed to Be Different. He Wasn't. https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7epm/sam-bankman-fried-was-supposed-to-be-different-he-wasnt ••• Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Crypto Empire Is Officially Bankrupt https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjkmvw/sam-bankman-frieds-ftx-crypto-empire-is-officially-bankrupt Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into Chapter 3 – Theory and Practice – and look at how, in the 1960s and 1970s, theories of finance like random-walk hypothesis and efficient market hypothesis, started leaking out of the university and having real world effects in professional financial practice. Combined with market restructuring caused by the rapid growth of institutional investors in the American economy, these financial theories directly influence the creation of things like index funds, which go on to set financial markets on a totally new pathway. Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss a recent investigation by ProPublica into the convergence of real estate, private equity, and algorithmic pricing as they profile a particularly odious company (RealPage) that is selling a technology (YieldStar) to property management companies, which directly leading to severe upward pressures on rental pricing and vacancy rates. Troubled by real estate companies extracting higher margins out of renters in a tight market in ways that raise red flags of collusion? Well, just blame a guy named Bob. Stuff we reference: ••• Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why. https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent ••• Senator Seeks Antitrust Review of Apartment Price-Setting Software https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-senate-antitrust-apartment ••• Company That Makes Rent-Setting Software for Apartments Accused of Collusion, Lawsuit Says https://www.propublica.org/article/realpage-accused-of-collusion-in-new-lawsuit ••• RealPage Accused Of Price-Fixing In Student Housing Market https://www.law360.com/real-estate-authority/articles/1546168/realpage-accused-of-price-fixing-in-student-housing-market ••• JP Morgan Wants to Make Tenant Data Available to Every Landlord https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7bkyn/jp-morgan-wants-to-make-tenant-data-available-to-every-landlord Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: https://www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the chaos at Twitter as Elon drives the company into the ground, merging classic techniques of a private equity takeover with his patented impulsive incompetence. Stuff we reference: ••• Musk’s Trump-style management rattles Twitter workers awaiting layoffs https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/03/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-silence-blind/ ••• Twitter job cuts begin as Musk warns of ‘massive’ revenue drop https://www.ft.com/content/b9a2a0ec-d3fe-422d-bc62-fa9ddfd3f06c ••• A Layoff Guide for Twitter Workers https://news.techworkerscoalition.org/2022/11/03/issue-16/ ••• Exclusive: Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims https://www.reuters.com/legal/exclusive-tesla-faces-us-criminal-probe-over-self-driving-claims-sources-2022-10-26/ ••• American Gentry https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/trump-american-gentry-wyman-elites/620151/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Jacob Silverman – contributing editor at The New Republic – to discuss his profile of David Sacks, a venture capitalist and right-wing media personality who has been on the vanguard of reactionary culture wars and political influence in Silicon Valley. Follow Jacob: https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob Stuff we reference ••• The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom https://newrepublic.com/article/168125/david-sacks-elon-musk-peter-thiel ••• The Neocons and the Woke Left Are Joining Hands and Leading Us to Woke War III | Opinion https://www.newsweek.com/neocons-woke-left-are-joining-hands-leading-us-woke-war-iii-opinion-1748947 ••• The Shadow Crew Who Encouraged Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shadow-crew-who-encouraged-elon-musks-twitter-takeover-tesla-jack-dorsey-11651260119 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into Chapter 2 – Transforming Finance – and look at how, in the 1950s and 1960s, the economic study of finance started shifting from merely descriptive approaches to engaging in more analytical theories and mathematical models of how finance does (and should) operate. Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by reporter Avi Asher-Schapiro who, along with his colleague Fabio Teixeira, has published an investigation into the crypto carbon credits markets. This collision between green finance and crypto economics reveals many of the worst tendencies of both sectors as financiers take advantage of highly profitable opportunities for price arbitrage. Such as bundling low quality “zombie credits” with high quality carbon credits, labeling these subprime assets as premium, and selling the tokens at the highest price. All in the name of making the markets more efficient at saving the planet, of course. ••• Follow Avi: https://twitter.com/AASchapiro ••• Fears of 'subprime' carbon assets stall crypto rainforest mission https://www.context.news/net-zero/long-read/fears-of-subprime-carbon-assets-stall-crypto-rainforest-mission Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Take beta blockers before this episode. In a companion piece for our episode on Health Communism, we dig into a concrete case that exemplifies everything we talked about with the production of surplus populations for the purpose of extractive abandonment. The ongoing story we discuss in this episode takes all those dynamics and pushes them to their most horrific logical conclusions. Some references: ••• How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html ••• They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/business/nonprofit-hospitals-poor-patients.html ••• Deaths Linked to Neglect, Error Raise Concerns About Quality of Care at This Safety Net Hospital https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-roseland-community-hospital-covid-deaths Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant — co-hosts of Death Panel — to discuss their truly excellent new book, Health Communism, which offers a searing analysis of how our conceptions and systems of health are critical to the maintenance of capitalism. Under capitalism we are all human waste: the sick and surplus that are drains on productive society. If you don’t think you are, then just wait long enough and hopefully you’ll live long enough to meet that fate. Health communism is both the reason for tearing down this system and an alternative that reclaims health for all people—not just the bosses and workers, but for those great many subjected to the extractive abandonment of being marked as surplus. ••• Health Communism: https://www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism ••• Death Panel: https://www.deathpanel.net/ ••• Beatrice: https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd ••• Artie: https://twitter.com/avierkant Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

After an extended riff, we kick off the new TMK Book Club on An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets by Donald MacKenzie. In the first chapter we get an intro to some of the big themes, methods, and theories that we’ll get deeper into throughout the book’s sociological analysis of financial economics and market dynamics. This is a foundational book in the social studies of finance. Being an academic text, it is also dense and heady. Read along with us if you have the time and ability. But don’t stress if you can’t. We will, as always, do our best to break things down and add our own discussion of each chapter. Episodes come out biweekly. Here’s a free pdf of the book: https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MacKenzie-An-Engine-Not-a-Camera.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in on our old friends/enemies at the New York Time, then get to some listener mail about effective altruism, all before offering a smart, nuanced, and critical defense of the CIA. You see, it’s not that we are angry, we are just disappointed at the CIA’s continual failure to live up to its own potential for greatness. Stuff we reference: ••• Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/has-the-cia-done-more-harm-than-good ••• The Responsibility of Intellectuals https://chomsky.info/19670223/ ••• It's Lonely in the Metaverse: Decentraland’s 38 Daily Active Users in a $1.3B Ecosystem https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/10/07/its-lonely-in-the-metaverse-decentralands-38-daily-active-users-in-a-13b-ecosystem/ ••• ‘The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/upshot/medicare-advantage-fraud-allegations.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a hard look at the White House’s new AI Bill of Rights and discover that the Eye of Sauron is actually ethical according to its principles. We then go in on academia and journalism for, in their own ways, laundering the interests and influence of the tech sector. Also, the new TMK book club starts next week in the patreon feed! Starting with Chapter 1, we will be going through An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets | Donald MacKenzie https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262633673/an-engine-not-a-camera/ Some references: ••• Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/ ••• Biden’s AI Bill of Rights Is Toothless Against Big Tech https://www.wired.com/story/bidens-ai-bill-of-rights-is-toothless-against-big-tech/ ••• AI Data Laundering: How Academic and Nonprofit Researchers Shield Tech Companies from Accountability https://waxy.org/2022/09/ai-data-laundering-how-academic-and-nonprofit-researchers-shield-tech-companies-from-accountability/ ••• Eighteen pitfalls to beware of in AI journalism https://aisnakeoil.substack.com/p/eighteen-pitfalls-to-beware-of-in ••• On NYT Magazine on AI: Resist the Urge to be Impressed https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/on-nyt-magazine-on-ai-resist-the-urge-to-be-impressed-3d92fd9a0edd Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss recent events of a report by Tech Inquiry about big tech’s military contracts was pulled by its funders — a major union and a major social democratic party — over Tech Inquiry’s refusal to censor its criticism of Microsoft. We offer our own critical analysis of organizations focused on building short-term, self-interested alliances with capital instead of ones focused on building long-term, worker power that is antagonistic to capital. Some references: ••• On the censorship of our report on government purchasing from Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet https://techinquiry.org/?about=UNI-censorship&guard= ••• Labor union censored report criticizing Microsoft’s military contracts https://theintercept.com/2022/09/07/microsoft-military-union-cwa/ ••• German SPD politician justifies murder of Rosa Luxemburg https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/18/thie-j18.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Jathan debriefs on the insurtech conference. Then we discuss Elon Musk’s texts and emails that were made public during discovery for his litigation with Twitter, which show just how idiotic, pathetic, and sycophantic these billionaires truly are. There’s no secret genius masterplan or devious conspiracy. It’s just powerful people sucking off the guy above them and ripping off everybody below them. Stuff we reference: ••• Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/elon-musk-texts-twitter-trial-jack-dorsey/671619/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are unlocking a recent episode about a topic that remains very relevant. We dig deep into Effective Altruism and Longtermism, laying out the origins, beliefs, and actions of this ideological moral system and the networks of influence and wealth that it’s plugged into. Along the way we critique the extreme logical conclusions it leads to, the extremely simpleminded fairy tales it’s based on, and the extremist group of moral zealots, useful idiots, and cynical bullshiters that rule this rationalist religion. Some stuff we reference: ••• The Case for Longtermism https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/opinion/the-case-for-longtermism.html ••• The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism ••• Stop the Robot Apocalypse https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n18/amia-srinivasan/stop-the-robot-apocalypse Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s TMK Live in Vegas! Well, in real life recording live to tape in the same room for the first time ever. We talk about our adventures in Las Vegas. A city that is constituted by many forms of totally controlled, perfectly designed prisons. A city that is representative of the many forms of surplus in capitalism: of luxury and money, of misery and people. Some stuff we reference ••• Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160887/addiction-by-design ••• A Nation of the Walking Dead https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-nation-of-the-walking-dead/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin – authors of the excellent new book Chokepoint Capitalism – to discuss how creative labor markets are tightly squeezed on all sides by massive monopolies / monopsonies that create chokepoints to trap suppliers, trap consumers, and trap all the profits in markets for books, music, movies, and every other artistic endeavour. Cory and Rebecca then detail a long list of tactics and solutions for breaking the capitalist stranglehold over cultural production. ••• Follow Cory: https://twitter.com/doctorow ••• Follow Rebecca: https://twitter.com/rgibli ••• Buy the book: http://www.beacon.org/Chokepoint-Capitalism-P1856.aspx ••• Support the kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/chokepoint-capitalism-an-audiobook-amazon-wont-sell Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We cruise through recent stories about how our surveillance society continues developing. We’ve got biometric fingerprint scanners to enter the bathrooms at a high school ••• police have decided the heat on facial recognition has finally died down and have begun lifting moratoriums and expanding its usage ••• an insurance company and tech company buy large stakes in a home security company, in the prologue to every anarcho-capitalist sci-fi story ••• and powerful, price, geolocation trackers have become cheap, plentiful, and small, much to the totally predictable detriment of stalking and abuse victims. Some stuff we reference: ••• Sydney high school uses fingerprint technology to stop vandalism in toilets https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-06/moorebank-high-school-fingerprints-students-going-to-toilet/101410544 ••• First, they banned facial recognition. Now they're not so sure https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/05/tech/facial-recognition-bans-reversed/index.html ••• Ring the Alarm https://www.coverager.com/ring-the-alarm-2022 ••• ‘I was just really scared’: Apple AirTags lead to stalking complaints https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/20/apple-airtags-stalking-complaints-technology ••• ‘I didn’t want it anywhere near me’: how the Apple AirTag became a gift to stalkers https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/05/i-didnt-want-it-anywhere-near-me-how-the-apple-airtag-became-a-gift-to-stalkers Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Justin Roczniak—of the excellent engineering disasters podcast, Well There’s Your Problem—to talk about the potential freight rail strike that has been brewing for a long time and near-future scenarios for the supply chain. We discuss the horrid labor conditions in the industry and the scourge of Precision Scheduled Railroading, a system of management that has transformed the entire railroad sector so it serves one god: The Operating Ratio. follow Justin: https://twitter.com/who_shot_jgr Well There’s Your Problem: https://linktr.ee/wtyppod Some stuff we reference: ••• SMART-TD, BLET joint statement on rail embargo https://smart-union.org/smart-td-blet-joint-statement-on-rail-embargo/ ••• A Nationwide Freight Railroad Shutdown Could Cost $2 Billion a Day https://www.aar.org/economic-impact-of-railroad-shutdown# ••• ‘It’s Going to End Up Like Boeing’: How Freight Rail Is Courting Catastrophe https://www.vice.com/en/article/3angy3/freight-rail-train-disaster-avoidable-boeing ••• Rail Strike Threatens to Slow US Supply-Chain Recovery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-09-12/supply-chain-latest-us-railroad-strike-threatens-supply-chain-recovery ••• Rail Unions Are Bargaining Over a Good Job Made Miserable https://www.labornotes.org/2022/02/rail-negotiations-are-about-good-job-made-miserable Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss a powerful new essay on the multiple violences – domestic, data, administrative, racial – wrought by the state family police, aka “child protective services,” which uses an array of tools to terrorize and tear apart families, particularly targeting those that are Black and Brown. But first, we pour one out for Real Life Magazine and reflect on its importance – and the huge loss – for the tech media landscape. Some stuff we reference: ••• Birthing Predictions of Premature Death | J. Khadijah Abdurahman https://logicmag.io/home/birthing-predictions-of-premature-death/ ••• The Time Tax https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/how-government-learned-waste-your-time-tax/619568/ ••• I Have Studied Child Protective Services for Decades. It Needs to Be Abolished. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/04/abolish-child-protective-services-torn-apart-dorothy-roberts-book-excerpt/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: www.bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get an update on Jathan’s journey into the heart of darkness as he returns to suburban America after a four years absence – a stranger in a strange homeland. Riffs and distractions ensue until we end by talking about Mark Zuckerberg going on the Joe Rogan Experience, Meta’s pivot to Alpha Male Mindset, and the rise of Dark Zuck. Some stuff we reference: ••• Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Pitch Is Falling Flat https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-31/mark-zuckerberg-s-metaverse-flails-on-joe-rogan-podcast ••• The Continued Unraveling of Mark Zuckerberg’s Malicious Metaverse https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/02/the-continued-unraveling-of-mark-zuckerbergs-malicious-metaverse/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss a great new essay from Noah Kulwin that situates the modern crypto grift economy as a reincarnation of the Savings and Loans Crisis of the 80s – as a way of arguing for a longer view of the historical materialist context of these larger dynamics. New body, old engine. Some stuff we reference: ••• Tales from the Thrifts https://thebaffler.com/salvos/tales-from-the-thrifts-kulwin ••• Would You Take Out a Loan to Buy This Week’s Groceries? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/dining/buy-now-pay-later-loans-groceries.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss a new startup doing the rounds called Sanas that uses AI “accent translation” to make "non-white" call center workers speak English with a white American accent. This is some real retro throwback tech solutionism / startup utopianism with a very quotable founder at the helm. While Sanas claims it's all about worker empowerment and global equity, we here at TMKonsulting show how Sanas is likely to be used as a tool of exploitation. Plus contribute to broader shifts in the role of large language models for the political economy of AI. We then end with a shout out to FN Meka. Some stuff we reference: ••• Sansa https://www.sanas.ai/ ••• Sanas, the buzzy Bay Area startup that wants to make the world sound whiter https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/sanas-startup-creates-american-voice-17382771.php ••• This Startup Is Selling Tech to Make Call Center Workers Sound Like White Americans https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek7g/this-startup-is-selling-tech-to-make-call-center-workers-sound-like-white-americans ••• Virtual rapper FN Meka underscores how AI perpetuates racial stereotyping https://mashable.com/article/fn-meka-record-deal-racial-stereotyping Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the booming market for – and community organizing against – landlord technologies that use invasive surveillance to terrorize tenants and automate evictions. In addition to discussing the broader political economy and social toxicity of this shit, we also introduce a new psycho into the canon. Some stuff we reference: ••• Automating gentrification: Landlord technologies and housing justice organizing in New York City homes https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02637758221088868 ••• Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0308518X19846514 ••• Electronic Fortification in Phoenix: Surveillance Technologies and Social Regulation in Residential Communities https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1078087406292845 Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss his great new book Resisting AI. As Jathan wrote in a blurb for the book: “With analytical and moral clarity, McQuillan makes the case for recognising the radical politics of AI and meeting its goose step march head-on.” We get deep into an excellent discussion spanning the political economy and political epistemology of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Ed is trapped in Pittsburgh where he is now forced to live as a worker in a defunct steel factory. ••• Follow Dan on Twitter https://twitter.com/danmcquillan ••• Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/resisting-ai ••• Data Science as Machinic Neoplatonism https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-017-0273-3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig deep into Effective Altruism and Longtermism, laying out the origins, beliefs, and actions of this ideological moral system and the networks of influence and wealth that it’s plugged into. Along the way we critique the extreme logical conclusions it leads to, the extremely simpleminded fairy tales it’s based on, and the extremist group of moral zealots, useful idiots, and cynical bullshiters that rule this rationalist religion. Some stuff we reference: ••• The Case for Longtermism https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/opinion/the-case-for-longtermism.html ••• The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism ••• Stop the Robot Apocalypse https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n18/amia-srinivasan/stop-the-robot-apocalypse Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

[We are unlocking this episode to share the interview with the main feed. Apologies for the feedback from Noah's audio causing a slight digital buzz when he talks, Jereme cleaned it up as best he could.] Ed is joined by reporter Noah Lanard to talk about his recent profile of Peter Thiel’s apostle: Blake Masters. We track the origins and development of his ideology: from his childhood flirtation with liberalism(?) to his college libertarianism and deeper integration into Thiel’s network of fascists eager to seize control of the GOP and Silicon Valley. Read the article: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/blake-masters-peter-thiel-donald-trump-arizona-senate-mark-kelly/ Follow Noah: https://twitter.com/nlanard Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We melt our brains discussing two reality tv shows that are taking copaganda to the next level. First up is Ring Nation, a new show produced by Amazon-owned MGM Studios that’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos for a ubiquitous surveillance society. Next is Hunted, a new Australian show based on a UK series that’s like a mix of The Amazing Race + Live PD + 24. I wish this was all fake. I wish this was all a bit. But it’s more than real: it’s reality tv, baby! Some stuff we reference: ••• 'Ring Nation' Is Amazon's Reality Show for Our Surveillance Dystopia https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8x49/ring-nation-is-amazons-reality-show-for-our-surveillance-dystopia ••• Ready, set, dough: The hide-and-seek game with $100k up for grabs https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/ready-set-dough-the-hide-and-seek-game-with-100k-up-for-grabs-20220705-p5aza5.html ••• No matter who wins Hunted, Channel 10’s new surveillance game, we all lose https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/07/25/hunted-channel-10-surveillance-show-we-all-lose/ ••• Facial recognition smartwatches to be used to monitor foreign offenders in UK https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/05/facial-recognition-smartwatches-to-be-used-to-monitor-foreign-offenders-in-uk ••• SoftBank Reports Record $23.4 Billion Loss as Holdings Fall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-08/softbank-reports-record-23-4-billion-loss-as-holdings-tumble Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Based on Amazon’s recent acquisitions of One Medical and iRobot—just the latest in a shopping spree of vertical integration—we analyze how these seemingly disparate things all plug into Amazon’s broader strategy for “ambient computing.” In which data from a vast variety of sources and streams are combined and integrated into a range of different services. In which we are always plugged into Amazon’s ever-expanding network through protocols like Sidewalk. In which we are constantly connected to the eternal and ubiquitous market. Some stuff we reference: ••• Amazon agrees to buy Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7bn www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/05/amazon-buy-roomba-maker-irobot-vaccum ••• Amazon’s Roomba Deal Is Really About Mapping Your Home https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-05/amazon-s-irobot-deal-is-about-roomba-s-data-collection ••• Dave Limp: Amazon’s focus is on the real world, not the metaverse https://www.ft.com/content/3d5bdfa8-d85e-41e8-b2d5-fadf8948cbba Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Ed is joined by reporter Noah Lanard to talk about his recent profile of Peter Thiel’s apostle: Blake Masters. We track the origins and development of his ideology: from his childhood flirtation with liberalism(?) to his college libertarianism and deeper integration into Thiel’s network of fascists eager to seize control of the GOP and Silicon Valley. Read the article: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/blake-masters-peter-thiel-donald-trump-arizona-senate-mark-kelly/ Follow Noah: https://twitter.com/nlanard Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into a convoluted and confused scheme for people selling shares in their future to venture capitalists, which pushes logics of hyper-financialization in even more perverse directions—all proposed by two brothers who are the epitome of a dumb guy’s idea of smart guys. Article we discuss: ••• Is Selling Shares in Yourself the Way of the Future? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/is-selling-shares-in-yourself-the-way-of-the-future Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

At long last, we dive into the last chapter of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We reflect on this odyssey of a book, pulling out its major themes, discussing the baseline freedoms that are essential for society, considering the nihilistic contradictions inherent to the Enlightenment view of humanity, looking back on how we got stuck in static social relations and dead end political developments, plus more! Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Jörg Tittel, creator of the new video game The Last Worker, which is part social satire, part interactive narrative, part adventure game. We discuss the ideas, story, design, and production behind the game where players take on the role of the last human worker in an otherwise fully automated fulfillment center the size of Manhattan that is operated by Jüngle—a near future version of Amazon. The Last Worker is coming out on most platforms, including VR, later this year. ••• The Last Worker: thelastworker.com ••• Jorg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/newjorg ••• 15 minute demo playthrough of the game: https://youtu.be/Bgp7nLOKlM8 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Now it’s time to get into the real analysis of fintech as laid out by Saule Omarova’s work. We walk through the dominant regulatory approach to financial markets that came from the New Deal; how the 1980s is the true origin of the fintech revolution; how the secondary financial markets have taken over the whole system; how new technologies focused on making micro-level transactions faster, easier, cheaper have led to making macro-level systems more unstable, unrestrained, and untethered from reality. The paper we discuss: ••• New Tech v. New Deal: Fintech as a Systemic Phenomenon | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2800&context=facpub Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We set up and begin discussing a paper that can be described as a Rosetta Stone for how to analyze the development, logics, mechanics, and impacts of fintech innovations from the 1980s onward — and the regulatory regime for financial markets that traces back to the New Deal. This paper is dense in the best way, so it demands (and deserves) a lot of focused time/attention. This episode establishes the bones of the analysis; the next one on the premium feed will flesh out the analysis. The paper we discuss: ••• New Tech v. New Deal: Fintech as a Systemic Phenomenon | Saule T. Omarova https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2800&context=facpub Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive back into chapter 11 – Full Circle – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We revisit the Indigenous critique of how human civilization develops and where the political values underlying modern human societies originate. First outlined in the beginning of the book, we now further flesh out the Indigenous critique and drive home its key conclusions. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

{For this week we're unlocking a classic episode} We talk about the absurdities of proptech – or the real estate technology sector – which is jam packed with out-of-control purchasing by house-flipping algorithms powered by automated valuation models that lead to balance sheets filled with liabilities and it’s all fuelled by way too much free-flowing capital. In other words, a classic recipe for disaster. The article we discuss: ••• House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood | Matthew Ponsford https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/13/1049227/house-flipping-algorithms-are-coming-to-your-neighborhood/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Paris Marx is back for part two of our discussion about their new book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation. This time we dig deeper into the winding history of the electric vehicle and why today’s model of electrification without collectivization is not going to solve our problems—just cause new ones. ••• Road to Nowhere | Paris Marx: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3995-road-to-nowhere ••• Follow Paris: https://twitter.com/parismarx ••• Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us: https://twitter.com/techwontsaveus Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Dear friend of the show, Paris Marx, has an excellent new book just out from Verso called Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation. Paris is back on the show to dive into the book’s historical, grounded, critical analysis with us. This is part 1, with part 2 coming out on the patreon feed later this week. ••• Road to Nowhere | Paris Marx: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3995-road-to-nowhere ••• Follow Paris: https://twitter.com/parismarx ••• Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us: https://twitter.com/techwontsaveus Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In this real chill episode, the boys get loose, lay back, and just chat. We cover dental work, drug nerds, and oh yeah, that time Jereme got stabbed in Mississippi days after 9/11 for making a joke. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We have a special investigation from Professor Ed, who takes us on a journey through the history and development of innovation policy and venture capital in China. We begin with the massive government Torch Program that, starting in the 1980s, set about engineering a national innovation sector on a scale never seen before. Then in the 1990s we see China begin liberalizing its markets, opening up for different forms of investment both domestic and international. But doing so in its own unique way – not in the style of structural adjustment shocks but as carefully controlled market reforms. Some stuff we reference: ••• Steve Blank’s series on VC in China: https://steveblank.com/2013/04/10/china-the-sleeper-awakens/ ••• OECD report on China’s innovation policy: https://www.oecd.org/science/inno/39177453.pdf ••• CIGI report on China’s Experience in Building a Venture Capital Sector: https://www.cigionline.org/static/documents/documents/no.248_0.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Jathan is back from Sweden where he was giving a keynote at a smart cities conference. For this episode, Jathan delivers his keynote here — “State-as-a-Platform” – Sovereignty and Capital in Smart Governance – which is followed by a rousing discussion about the relations between agency and structure, doom and hope, positioning and maneuvering. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by David Gerard – longtime critic of blockchain, even before it was cool – to discuss the experience of staring into the crypto abyss and having it stare back into you. Follow, read, and support David here: ••• Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidgerard ••• Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/book/ ••• Libra Shrugged: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/ ••• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive back into chapter 10 – Why the State Has No Origin – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. And finish up our discussion of how different forms of social power based on violence/sovereignty, information/administration, charisma/heroic politcs all come together in different combinations at different places and points, with some features exaggerated over others, to produce radically different forms of states throughout human history. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Olivier Jutel to talk about a fantastic paper he wrote on blockchain imperialism in the Pacific. We discuss how blockchain projects and crypto entrepreneurs are partnering with the US State Department and contributing to the geopolitical agenda of American hegemony. This is all part of the Pacific Ideology – a long history of treating the Pacific islands as a colonial frontier for financial extraction and testbed for experimental innovation. It’s techno-solutionism in the service of imperial soft power. ••• Read Olivier’s paper – Blockchain imperialism in the Pacific https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720985249 ••• And his other paper – Blockchain humanitarianism and crypto-colonialism https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(21)00305-6 ••• Follow Oliver: https://twitter.com/OJutel Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 10 – Why the State Has No Origin – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. This is a massive chapter that gets deep into analyzing the features of social power and development of state institutions. We see how control of violence, control of information, and control of charisma all come together in different combinations at different places and points, with some features exaggerated over others, to produce radically different forms of states throughout human history. To really do this chapter justice, we had to break it into two parts. The second part will drop next week. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Ben Tarnoff—author of Internet for the People; co-founder of Logic Magazine—to do some historical materialism on the internet. Ben has a great new book coming out that traces the political economic development of the internet, from its origins as a military network to its privatization via wholesale handover to a telecom oligopoly to its existence today as an archipelago of shopping malls run by slumlords. We then discuss why there’s an urgent need for democratizing and demarketizing the internet, what that could look like, and how the seeds of that radical change can already be found in existing projects. ••• Order Ben’s book: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3927-internet-for-the-people ••• Follow Ben: https://twitter.com/bentarnoff ••• Read Logic Magazine: https://logicmag.io/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We go from talking about how AI/ML research is dominated by the resources, interests, and tradeoffs of “top labs.” Then discuss how our algorithmic agents become active participants in human culture but in ways that can be unexpected and unknowable. Together these conditions are producing a world that is far more weird, bizarre and unsettling than anybody intended. Less George Orwell, more Phillip K. Dick. Some stuff we reference: ••• I don't really trust papers out of "Top Labs" anymore | https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/uyratt/d_i_dont_really_trust_papers_out_of_top_labs/ ••• The Steep Cost of Capture | Meredith Whittaker https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2021/the-steep-cost-of-capture ••• AI Inventing Its Own Culture, Passing It On to Humans, Sociologists Find | Edward Ongweso Jr | https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp7y7/human-culture-to-increasingly-come-from-unexplainable-ai-sociologists-find Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined by Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey, hosts of the great podcast Crypto Critics’ Corner, for a deeper dive into stablecoins—a cornerstone // time bomb of the crypto financial system. They explain how stablecoins, and specifically Tether, have become systemically important to the workings of the system and the wealth of big players, creating too big to fail institutions that continue growing despite their practices, performance, and people being anything but stable. Listen to Crypto Critics’ Corner: https://twitter.com/CryptoCriticPod Follow Bennett Tomlin: https://twitter.com/BennettTomlin Follow Cas Piancey: https://twitter.com/CasPiancey Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 9 – Hiding in Plain Sight – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We discuss the utopian experiment of Teotihuacan in Mesoamerica 2000 years ago: a city that revolted against authoritarian rule and instituted a socialist system, complete with universal housing and democratic governance, which lasted for hundreds of years. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

(While Jereme works to overcome a technical problem from our last record, we are unlocking an episode.) We continue our discussion of Hilary Allen’s paper on DeFi and shadow banking and dive into her comparative analysis between Wall Street and Silicon Valley. We see how there are direct analogues between the kind of financial innovations and systemic fragilities that led to the 2008 crash and the crisis dynamics of DeFi: overleveraging and crypto tokens; rigidity and smart contracts; bank runs and stablecoins. Allen then argues that the best approach is not to legitimize DeFi through regulation, but to erect a firewall that prevents it from integrating with the mainstream economy and financial sector. Some stuff we reference: ••• DeFI: Shadow Banking 2.0 | Hilary J. Allen https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4038788 ••• Is Crypto Re-Creating the 2008 Financial Crisis? | Charlie Warzel, Hilary Allen https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/624cb2ebdc551a00208c1524/crypto-bubble-web3-decentralized-finance/ ••• Defi and Shadow Banking 2.0: Leverage, rigidity and bank runs | Cory Doctorow https://doctorow.medium.com/defi-and-shadow-banking-2-0-7bae9d1d308e Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

(Sorry for the delay!) We comb through Andreessen Horowitz’s inaugural 2022 State of Crypto Report, devoting more time and attention to discussing its claims and framing than it should warrant. But considering the outsized influence a16z has here, they force us to take seriously even their most inane fever dreams. In the process of reviewing the report, we receive a masterclass in how to lie with graphs and numbers. Some stuff we reference: ••• Introducing the 2022 State of Crypto Report | a16z https://a16zcrypto.com/state-of-crypto-report-a16z-2022/ ••• The 2022 State of Crypto Report | a16z https://a16z.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/state-of-crypto-2022_a16z-crypto.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We check in on our old friend / enemy / mentor, Masayoshi Son, and see how the SoftBank Vision Fund has been faring over the last year. The Masa multiplier effect is his ability to amplify the state of the larger tech sector. When it’s good, it’s really good. But when it’s really bad—in the way tech sector valuations have been dropping this year—oh boy, it’s enough to make you want to [redacted]. Fortunately, nobody has a stronger stomach for loss than Masa. Some stuff we reference: ••• Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place | The Economist https://www.economist.com/business/2022/05/14/tech-bubbles-are-bursting-all-over-the-place ••• After a bruising year, SoftBank braces for more pain | The Economist https://www.economist.com/business/2022/05/16/after-a-bruising-year-softbank-braces-for-more-pain Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 8 – Imaginary Cities – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We talk about the origins of cities and contradict the commonly held belief that proto-state governance—e.g. centralized, hierarchical administration—developed in tandem with urban society. Instead, early cities existed for hundreds of years, organized by bottom-up self-governance, before the palaces and temples became the centers of urban power. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We review China’s hard, fast, and big regulatory responses to big tech’s rising power over the last year, discuss the vastly different political theories motivating tech policy in the US, Europe, and China, and look ahead for what’s to come as China unveils a new set of sweeping, world leading regulations for AI decision-making. Some stuff we reference: ••• China’s Tech Crackdown: A Year-in-Review https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-tech-crackdown-year-review ••• What Xi Means by ‘Disorderly Capital’ Is $1.5 Trillion Question https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/what-xi-means-by-disorderly-capital-is-1-5-trillion-question?sref=z97LigUM ••• Antitrust in China – 2021 Year in Review https://www.gibsondunn.com/antitrust-in-china-2021-year-in-review/ ••• China Is About to Regulate AI—and the World Is Watching https://www.wired.com/story/china-regulate-ai-world-watching/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We continue our discussion of Hilary Allen’s paper on DeFi and shadow banking and dive into her comparative analysis between Wall Street and Silicon Valley. We see how there are direct analogues between the kind of financial innovations and systemic fragilities that led to the 2008 crash and the crisis dynamics of DeFi: overleveraging and crypto tokens; rigidity and smart contracts; bank runs and stablecoins. Allen then argues that the best approach is not to legitimize DeFi through regulation, but to erect a firewall that prevents it from integrating with the mainstream economy and financial sector. Some stuff we reference: ••• DeFI: Shadow Banking 2.0 | Hilary J. Allen https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4038788 ••• Is Crypto Re-Creating the 2008 Financial Crisis? | Charlie Warzel, Hilary Allen https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/624cb2ebdc551a00208c1524/crypto-bubble-web3-decentralized-finance/ ••• Defi and Shadow Banking 2.0: Leverage, rigidity and bank runs | Cory Doctorow https://doctorow.medium.com/defi-and-shadow-banking-2-0-7bae9d1d308e Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss an extremely good paper by law professor Hilary J. Allen – DeFI: Shadow Banking 2.0 – which lays out a very clear, critical, and comparative analysis of the unregulated financial instruments that led to the 2008 global financial crash and their systemic similarities to the unregulated financial innovations that are emerging in DeFi / Web3. In this first part, we lay out the causes of the 2008 crash, explaining specific instruments and dynamics that caused this hyper-complex fragile system to collapse. In part two, on the patreon later this week, we explain how DeFi is already unfolding in ways that are best described as: “It is happening again.” Some stuff we reference: ••• DeFI: Shadow Banking 2.0 | Hilary J. Allen https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4038788 ••• Is Crypto Re-Creating the 2008 Financial Crisis? | Charlie Warzel, Hilary Allen https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/624cb2ebdc551a00208c1524/crypto-bubble-web3-decentralized-finance/ ••• Defi and Shadow Banking 2.0: Leverage, rigidity and bank runs | Cory Doctorow https://doctorow.medium.com/defi-and-shadow-banking-2-0-7bae9d1d308e Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 7 – Ecology of Freedom – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. In which we discuss the tragedy of the commons, ecological imperialism, flirtations with farming, domestication of plants and animals, dangers of teleological reasoning, and much more. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a walk on the weird side as a brief reference to the novel Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove—a graphomaniac author of alternative histories and all around beautiful mind—leads us down a rabbit hole of increasingly bizarre discoveries. Enjoy a little something different from our normal programming… Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the absurdities of proptech – or the real estate technology sector – which is jam packed with out-of-control purchasing by house-flipping algorithms powered by automated valuation models that lead to balance sheets filled with liabilities and it’s all fuelled by way too much free-flowing capital. In other words, a classic recipe for disaster. The article we discuss: ••• House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood | Matthew Ponsford https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/13/1049227/house-flipping-algorithms-are-coming-to-your-neighborhood/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are unlocking a premium episode in which we discuss Ed’s new reporting on the political economy of play-to-earn games, focusing on Axie Infinity and its super-exploitative system of “managers” and “scholars.” Surprise, surprise – the technological and financial foundation of Axie Infinity is just a house of cards built on a bed of sand. Its failure is inevitable. The question is: how much damage will it do along the way? Some stuff we reference: ••• The Metaverse Has Bosses Too. Meet the ‘Managers’ of Axie Infinity | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g3ag/the-metaverse-has-bosses-too-meet-the-managers-of-axie-infinity ••• Miami Mayor Unveils Laser Eyes Robot Bull Statue at Bitcoin Conference https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q9wm/miami-mayor-unveils-laser-eyes-robot-bull-statue-at-bitcoin-conference Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 6 – Gardens of Adonis – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. Here we bust the myth of the “Agricultural Revolution” in two main senses. First, we bust the idea of agricultural development as a linear, deterministic, teleological transitional stage in human society. Second, we bust the idea of agriculture as a revolution that happened immediately, spread quickly, and never turned back. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Richard Nieva, reporter at Buzzfeed, who, along with his colleague Aman Sethi, just published a massive investigation into Worldcoin, a company that aims to distribute crypto to people around the world in exchange for having their eyes scanned by an ominous biometrics device called the Orb. We discuss the long list of major issues with Worldcoin’s operations—including faulty technology, delayed payments, labor exploitation, colonialist extraction, and much more—as uncovered by Richard and Aman’s reporting. Follow Richard: https://twitter.com/richardjnieva Follow Aman: https://twitter.com/Amannama Articles we discuss: ••• “What Did You Do With Our Eyes”: This Startup Promised People Free Crypto If They Scanned Their Eyeballs. Now People Feel They've Been Scammed | Richard Nieva, Aman Sethi https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-crypto-eyeball-scanning-orb-problems ••• Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users | Eileen Guo, Adi Renaldi https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/ ••• Crypto Startup That Wants to Scan Everyone’s Eyeballs Is Having Some Trouble | Ellen Huet https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-16/worldcoin-the-eyeball-scanning-crypto-unicorn-hits-signup-snags Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Ed’s new reporting on the political economy of play-to-earn games, focusing on Axie Infinity and its super-exploitative system of “managers” and “scholars.” Surprise, surprise – the technological and financial foundation of Axie Infinity is just a house of cards built on a bed of sand. Its failure is inevitable. The question is: how much damage will it do along the way? Some stuff we reference: ••• The Metaverse Has Bosses Too. Meet the ‘Managers’ of Axie Infinity | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g3ag/the-metaverse-has-bosses-too-meet-the-managers-of-axie-infinity ••• Miami Mayor Unveils Laser Eyes Robot Bull Statue at Bitcoin Conference https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5q9wm/miami-mayor-unveils-laser-eyes-robot-bull-statue-at-bitcoin-conference Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 5 – Many Seasons Ago – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by one of the best critical observers of Web3 around – Molly White, creator of Web3 is Going Just Great – to discuss what made her, as a software engineer who is immersed in the tech sector and discourse, finally have to take a stand on Web3. We then break down how Web3 fetishizes its own apparent complexity-as-convolution, the pitfalls in how it is covered by reporters, the cynicism of its biggest advocates, and the internal ideological contradictions at the heart of Web3. Check out Molly’s work: ••• Web3 is Going Just Great ​​https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ /// https://twitter.com/web3isgreat ••• The (Edited) Latecomers Guide to Crypto https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/latecomers-guide-to-crypto ••• Molly’s website https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/latecomers-guide-to-crypto ••• Molly’s twitter https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Content warning: this episode has explicit discussion of anti-Black racism experienced by Black workers at Tesla, including racist discrimination, imagery, and slurs. We discuss the details of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 4,000 current and former Black workers at Tesla. The lawsuit is based on a long list of allegations of rampant, systemic, abhorrent acts of racism and discrimination in the company’s automotive plant in Fremont, California. Some stuff we reference: ••• California Department of Fair Employment and Housing vs. Tesla Motors, Inc. https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/e8/c4/932fafa44013b4e7a4bc082b9615/dfeh-tesla-complaint.pdf ••• Black Tesla employees describe a culture of racism: ‘I was at my breaking point’ https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-25/black-tesla-employees-fremont-plant-racism-california-lawsuit ••• Tesla Now Runs the Most Productive Auto Factory in America https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-tesla-factory-california-texas-car-production/ ••• The “Lost Cause” Goes West: Confederate Culture and Civil War Memory in California https://boomcalifornia.org/2020/06/07/the-lost-cause-goes-west-confederate-culture-and-civil-war-memory-in-california/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Our impromptu discussion last week about Jame C. Scott and dual use anthropology made us revisit a classic essay in which Malcolm Harris critically analyzes the anarcho-liberal politics advocated for by Scott. Imagine if the normative basis for your “radical” politics amounted to: throw your hands up like you just don’t care, because nothing matters anyway. We then move on to a new essay offering a thoughtful critique of sci-fi author Neal Stephenson and his latest book that centers on an anarcho-capitalist billionaire geoengineering our salvation. Some stuff we reference: ••• Anarchish: James C. Scott’s “Two Cheers for Anarchism” | Malcolm Harris https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/anarchish-james-c-scotts-two-cheers-for-anarchism/ ••• Professor Who Learns From Peasants | https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/books/james-c-scott-farmer-and-scholar-of-anarchism.html ••• The Billionaire’s Bard | Rob Madole https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-billionaires-bard-madole Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Our intrepid reporter goes gonzo as Ed descends into the doltish phantasmagoria of SXSW. There are nightmares of humanoid rabbits as Web3 meets Midsommar. Spectacles and speculations of all varieties multiply faster than the mind can process. The old world is dying; long live the new flesh. Ed’s article – At SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be Born https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gb75/at-sxsw-a-pathetic-tech-future-struggles-to-be-born Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 4 – Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. This chapter is bookended by discussions of two key political distinctions that organize societies in fundamentally different ways. We start with formal freedom vs substantive freedom. Or, freedom as an ideology (e.g. the land of the free; the pursuit of liberty; spreading democracy) and freedom as a practice (e.g. the ability to actually do things and live life in certain ways). We then conclude on the question of the origins of property. Here we indigenous conceptions of property in the form of sacred objects/knowledge based on relations of caring and sharing. Which evolve into contemporary conceptions (based on Roman law) of property as private possessions based on relations of domination and exclusion. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're unlocking the latest episode from the premium feed on the political economy of Buy Now, Pay Later companies. What are they, where did they come from, how do they work, why are they booming, and who is winning and losing? We focus our analysis on the big three BNPLs – Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm – each one a super decacorn company that has benefited immensely from debt fuelled spending during the pandemic. Some stuff we reference: ••• Would You Take Out a Loan for a Pair of Jeans? | Susie Cagle racked.com/2017/11/29/16710502/affirm-loan-shopping ••• Buying a new purse? This startup wants to help you pay for it — but could also get you into debt. | Susie Cagle vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2019/1/14/18178772/afterpay-stores-installment-urban-outfitters ••• BNPLs: Businesses Needing Provided Legibility | Patrick McKenzie bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/buy-now-pay-later/ ••• I Bought a Burrito From Chipotle in Four Easy Payments | Ryan Felton consumerreports.org/shopping-retail/the-downsides-of-expanding-buy-now-pay-later-plans-a2840564542/ ••• The Risks of Buy Now, Pay Later Programs | Penelope Wang consumerreports.org/shopping-retail/risks-of-buy-now-pay-later-programs-a1000664957/ ••• Predatory Inclusion and Education Debt: Rethinking the Racial Wealth Gap | Louise Seamster, Raphaël Charron-Chénier journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2329496516686620 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We investigate the political economy of Buy Now, Pay Later companies. What are they, where did they come from, how do they work, why are they booming, and who is winning and losing? We focus our analysis on the big three BNPLs – Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm – each one a super decacorn company that has benefited immensely from debt fuelled spending during the pandemic. Some stuff we reference: ••• Would You Take Out a Loan for a Pair of Jeans? | Susie Cagle racked.com/2017/11/29/16710502/affirm-loan-shopping ••• Buying a new purse? This startup wants to help you pay for it — but could also get you into debt. | Susie Cagle vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2019/1/14/18178772/afterpay-stores-installment-urban-outfitters ••• BNPLs: Businesses Needing Provided Legibility | Patrick McKenzie bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/buy-now-pay-later/ ••• I Bought a Burrito From Chipotle in Four Easy Payments | Ryan Felton consumerreports.org/shopping-retail/the-downsides-of-expanding-buy-now-pay-later-plans-a2840564542/ ••• The Risks of Buy Now, Pay Later Programs | Penelope Wang consumerreports.org/shopping-retail/risks-of-buy-now-pay-later-programs-a1000664957/ ••• Predatory Inclusion and Education Debt: Rethinking the Racial Wealth Gap | Louise Seamster, Raphaël Charron-Chénier journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2329496516686620 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

First up is old friend FTC’s recent actions ordering companies to destroy “models and algorithms” derived from “ill-gotten data.” This is a massive regulatory precedent that targets the underlying business model of tech companies, rather than just slapping them on the wrist with fines. We then roll into the latest news from old enemy Uber, who has rolled out a new secretive algorithm that determines how much drivers get paid. This is part of an ongoing agenda to make markets for everything into black-boxed, real-time, hyper-competitive technologies of governance. Some stuff we reference: ••• FTC Takes Action Against Company Formerly Known as Weight Watchers for Illegally Collecting Kids’ Sensitive Health Data | https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2022/03/ftc-takes-action-against-company-formerly-known-weight-watchers ••• The FTC Forced a Misbehaving A.I. Company to Delete Its Algorithm | https://onezero.medium.com/the-ftc-forced-a-misbehaving-a-i-company-to-delete-its-algorithm-124d9f7e0307 ••• Secretive Algorithm Will Now Determine Uber Driver Pay in Many Cities | https://themarkup.org/working-for-an-algorithm/2022/03/01/secretive-algorithm-will-now-determine-uber-driver-pay-in-many-cities ••• Law and the Future of Gig Work in California: Problems and Potentials (Part 1) | https://onlabor.org/law-and-the-future-of-gig-work-in-california-problems-and-potentials-part-1/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into chapter 3 – Unfreezing the Ice Age – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We travel back to prehistoric times to learn how the actual archaeological evidence flies in the face of persistent, ubiquitous interpretations of human nature as unchangeable and human society as one-dimensional. Instead, we see how social fluidity and political experimentation has long been the norm – and the rigidity of our institutions and thinking today is the real anomaly. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Rather than try to hit you with hot takes and quick analysis on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we take a step back and round up of the most craven people in crypto who saw this crisis as a problem in need of web3 solutions. Brace yourself for the most harebrained schemes and opportunistic scams. The great thing about the blockchain is that it promotes peace and profits at the same time. Some stuff we reference: ••• Crypto Community Rushes to Ukraine’s Defense Armed With NFTs, DAOs | Maxwell Strachan https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dx39/crypto-community-rushes-to-ukraines-defense-armed-with-nfts-daos ••• Crypto won’t save Ukraine — or Russia | Linsey Choo https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-fintech/ukraine-russia-crypto?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5 ••• Crypto and NFT scammers take advantage of the invasion of Ukraine to boost their grifts | Web 3 is Going Great https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-02-26-0 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

You’ve got questions; we’ve got answers! In our first Mail Bomb episode, we riff on some of the excellent questions submitted by subscribers and chat about which dead leftist figures we would bring to Davos, the best ways to make your coworkers into Luddites, and professional advice for being academics, journos, and techies in the TMK style, among other topics. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Phil Neel, a communist economic geographer, to dig deep into different theories of crisis in capitalism. While theorizing crisis is a core part of the Marxist analysis of capitalism, we focus on understanding how major approaches in mainstream economics try (and fail) to explain the features, causes, and solutions for crisis. Bonus: we learn how economics is a disproven cosmology maintained by bourgeois ideology—like astrology for the ruling class. Double bonus: we end the episode with an explanation and critique of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Check out some of Phil’s work: ••• Global China, Global Crisis: Falling Profitability, Rising Capital Exports and the Formation of New Territorial Industrial Complexes | Phillip Neel https://drive.google.com/file/d/1krt15Qx0lPizv7SPR8b0GhsmGK61k1TP/view ••• Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict | Phil Neel https://www.akpress.org/hinterland.html ••• Phil Neel at Brooklyn Rail | https://brooklynrail.org/contributor/phil-a-neel Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s time for chapter 2 – Wicked Liberty – of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow. We dig deep into the colonial origins of the Enlightenment, the hegemonic historical narrative of European superiority, the striking indigenous critique that Native Americans levied against European society, and the myths of progress that continue today and prevent us from imagining radically alternative ways of living. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Continuing our radical tech worker occasional series, we’re pleased to be joined by Bjorn Westergard—senior software engineer at NPR and Marxist union organizer—for a wide-ranging discussion about his own journey into tech and politics, the influence of Occupy Wall Street, his experiences involved with unionization efforts, what the label “tech worker” even means, and the need for labor to go on the offensive against capital. Info for Jathan’s open PhD position: https://supervisorconnect.it.monash.edu/projects/research/social-political-economic-studies-technology-and-fire-finance-insurance-real Check out Bjorn’s blog: https://socialistplanning.org/ Organizing resources: ••• Collective Action in Tech https://collectiveaction.tech/ ••• Tech Workers Coalition https://techworkerscoalition.org/ Some stuff we reference: ••• A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy | Jane McAlevey https://janemcalevey.com/book/a-collective-bargain-unions-organizing-and-the-fight-for-democracy/ ••• Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism: Marx and Normative Social Theory in the Twenty-First Century | Tony Smith https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1190-beyond-liberal-egalitarianism Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the complete disaster that is the NFT ecosystem before zooming out to discuss how the real promise and purpose of NFTs is as an instrument for total financialization of everything. Turning every piece of data about any little thing into a commodity that can then be securitized, collateralized, and speculated with. Contained within this little dumb oddity is the seeds for a world designed and defined by fictitious capital – which firms like a16z are doing their damndest to make grow. Some things we reference: ••• The NFT Ecosystem Is a Complete Disaster | Edward Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdvnd/the-nft-ecosystem-is-a-complete-disaster ••• The Internet Is Just Investment Banking Now | Ian Bogost https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/future-internet-blockchain-investment-banking/621480/ ••• Why some Australians are paying real money for virtual land in the metaverse | James Purtill https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-02-04/metaverse-australians-paying-money-virtual-land-real-estate/100798106 ••• Bored Ape start-up in investment talks with Andreessen Horowitz | FT https://www.ft.com/content/acc635d6-bb05-4af6-b4da-b8462c06466d ••• Mapping the celebrity NFT complex | Max Read https://maxread.substack.com/p/mapping-the-celebrity-nft-complex Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Because it was so damn good, we’re unlocking part two of our discussion with Nick Chavez, focusing on the possibilities and limitations of reengineering capitalist forces of production for communist social relations. We discuss the need for epistemic luddism—or breaking the way we understand and use technologies—and why militancy at points of production is absolutely crucial. What comes first? Which one gives us the other? Radical machines or radical society? The dialectical answer is, of course, why not both! Some stuff we reference: ••• The Present and Future of Engineers | Nick Chavez | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM ••• Error | Endnotes 5 https://endnotes.org.uk/file_hosting/EN5_Error.pdf ••• How to Make a Pencil | Aaron Benanav https://logicmag.io/commons/how-to-make-a-pencil/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kick off the next installment of the TMK book club with The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Join us as we dig into this massive—and massively important—new book, discussing each chapter in-depth. We start with Chapter 1: Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood — and lay out the deceptive myths, championed by pop sci hucksters, that have perpetuated wrong, dull, and dire accounts of the origins of human civilization and modern society. New episodes drop every other week on the Patreon feed. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Well it’s finally happened. We are joined by Evgeny Morozov—preeminent critic of digital capitalism and founder of The Syllabus—for a very long conversation. Among a great many things, we discuss: the origins and purpose of The (Crypto) Syllabus platform // the political economy of knowledge creation and curation // Evgeny’s intellectual evolution // why it's not all about the bullshitters and assholes // the immanent critique of web3 // what leftists should learn from engaging with web3 // why socialists must not avoid complexity // debates over if feudalism is resurgent and capitalism is dead. ••• The Syllabus: https://www.the-syllabus.com/ ••• The Crypto Syllabus: https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/ ••• Evgeny on twitter: https://twitter.com/evgenymorozov Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We pick up on part two of our discussion with Nick Chavez, focusing on the possibilities and limitations of reengineering capitalist forces of production for communist social relations. We discuss the need for epistemic luddism—or breaking the way we understand and use technologies—and why militancy at points of production is absolutely crucial. What comes first? Which one gives us the other? Radical machines or radical society? The dialectical answer is, of course, why not both! Some stuff we reference: ••• The Present and Future of Engineers | Nick Chavez | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM ••• Error | Endnotes 5 https://endnotes.org.uk/file_hosting/EN5_Error.pdf ••• How to Make a Pencil | Aaron Benanav https://logicmag.io/commons/how-to-make-a-pencil/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are joined once again by Nick Chavez, a Marxist mechanical engineer, to discuss the political economy of automation – providing the groundwork for a better understanding of how automation actually operates in the market, the workplace, the interests of capital, and the lives of labor. What happens when the living are dominated by the dead? What happens when you work too much or not work enough? What happens when the bottom keeps falling out of a stagnated service economy? What happens when capital controls the forces of automation? We need only look at the world to find the answer to these questions. Some stuff we reference: ••• The Present and Future of Engineers | Nick Chavez | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM ••• Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation | Jason E. Smith http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143188 ••• Automation and the Future of Work | Aaron Benanav https://www.versobooks.com/books/3717-automation-and-the-future-of-work Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk more about (digital) sabotage, the different scales and intensities these actions can take, and the risks of inconvenience or worse, which sabotage as a form of self-sacrifice might require. We then get into the politics of the “slow computing” movement, the failings of “humane technology” philosophies, and why the tech press is a sucker for a redemption story. Some stuff we reference: ••• Gaslighting Your Boss: Creative Experiments in Digital Sabotage | Sam Lavigne: https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/gaslighting-your-boss ••• The Subversive Genius of Extremely Slow Email | Ian Bogost: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/01/slow-internet-email/621232/ ••• Slow Computing: Why We Need Balanced Digital Lives | Rob Kitchin, Alistair Fraser: https://www.slowcomputingbook.com/ ••• Former Google scientist says the computers that run our lives exploit us — and he has a way to stop them | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/17/artificial-intelligence-ai-empathy-emotions/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the different visions that tech billionaires have for space – whether it’s Elon Musk’s ambitions for lording over Mars colonies or Jeff Bezos’s schemes to monopolize logistics for orbital settlements. At the end of the day, we can see the same imperialist imperative inherent to capitalism expressing itself through the search for a new frontier, the final frontier to conquer: space. The essay we discuss: ••• Dawn of the Space Lords | Corey Pein | The Baffler https://thebaffler.com/salvos/dawn-of-the-space-lords-pein Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss recent work Andreas Malm – Marxist historian, ecologists, and radical climate activist – as analysed through a large synthetic review essay by Adam Tooze. We get into capitalism’s climate catastrophe, the politics and praxis of direct action, the ahistorical positions and principles of large liberal climate change activism movements, and the urgent need for moral arguments backed up by material actions. It’s how to blow up a pipeline meets how to sabotage a factory line. Some stuff we reference: ••• Ecological Leninism | Adam Tooze https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n22/adam-tooze/ecological-leninism ••• Andreas Malm and ecological Leninism | Adam Tooze https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-50-andreas-malm-and-ecological ••• This Nonviolent Stuff′ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible | Charles E. Cobb Jr. https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Kicking off the new year, we are joined by returning champion Wendy Liu – author of Abolish Silicon Valley – to look back on all the very dumb things the tech sector has forced us take seriously in 2021. We talk about how free flowing capital has both created and accelerated a world built on sand. Where all the vaporware, bullshit, and grifts of things like NFTs, DAOs, and web3 seemingly come from nowhere and become all we can talk about. We wrap up with our hopes that 2022 will be a year that proves one thing: the luddites were right. • Follow Wendy: twitter.com/dellsystem/ • Buy her very good book: repeaterbooks.com/product/abolish-silicon-valley-how-to-liberate-technology-from-capitalism/ Some stuff we discuss: ••• My first impressions of web3 | Moxie Marlinspike https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html ••• Cryptocurrency Investors Try to Turn Private Islands Into Blockchain Utopias | Ed Ongweso Jr. https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3n38x/cryptocurrency-investors-try-to-turn-private-islands-into-blockchain-utopias Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're back next week with fresh episodes! Until then, here's part 2 of our in-depth discussion on Aadhaar. We pick up with part two of our deep dive into Aadhaar, looking at the social issues, political implications, and street-level implementation. Building on the work of Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson, we first lay out an analysis of what it means to “see like an infrastructure.” Then we dwell on the problems, errors, and glitches involved in making Aadhaar actually work. And what that means for different people who are classified as “high-resolution” or “low-resolution” data subjects. Some stuff we discuss: ••• Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SLAI_RSSJ.pdf ••• A New AI Lexicon: Resolution | Ranjit Singh https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-resolution-8f3430654ee4 ••• From Margins to Seams: Imbrication, Inclusion, and Torque in the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/From_Margins_to_Seams_RSSJ.pdf ••• Biometric Marginality: UID and the Shaping of Homeless Identities in the City | Ursula Rao https://www.jstor.org/stable/23391467 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're taking a break from recording for the holidays. Enjoy this unlocked Patreon episode. As the Federal Trade Commission files suit to block the merger between Nvidia and Arm, we take the opportunity to revisit the excellent and necessary work of the FTC’s Chair, Lina Khan. We discuss a recent profile of Khan in the New Yorker. Then dig deeper into a very long, very important paper by Khan making the legal case for reviving the antitrust doctrine of structural separation and applying it to break up platform giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook. Some stuff we reference ••• The Separation of Platforms and Commerce | Lina Khan https://columbialawreview.org/content/the-separation-of-platforms-and-commerce/ ••• Lina Khan’s Battle to Rein in Big Tech | Sheelah Kolhatkar https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/06/lina-khans-battle-to-rein-in-big-tech ••• Lina Khan Cashes in Her Chips | David Dayen https://prospect.org/economy/lina-khan-cashes-in-her-chips/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In part two of our discussion with hosts of Left Reckoning, Matt Lech and David Griscom, we pick right back up where we left off. We get into the environmental racism of where Amazon builds its warehouses and the ways that Black, Hispanic, and/or low-income communities are treated as sacrifice zones for the unending expansion of capitalism and technology. We then talk about the predatory model of buy now, pay later companies—one of the most obviously socially harmful “innovations” to pop off during the pandemic. Follow Matt Lech: https://twitter.com/MattLech Follow David Griscom: https://twitter.com/DavidGriscom Follow Left Reckoning: https://twitter.com/LeftReckonig Some stuff we reference: ••• When Amazon Expands, These Communities Pay the Price | https://www.consumerreports.org/corporate-accountability/when-amazon-expands-these-communities-pay-the-price-a2554249208/ ••• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Opens Inquiry into “Buy Now, Pay Later” Credit | https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-opens-inquiry-into-buy-now-pay-later-credit/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Opening song: Venceremos – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11MlvWKfL7s We’re very excited to be joined by the hosts of Left Reckoning, Matt Lech and David Griscom, for an action packed double header of episodes to keep you busy during the holiday season! We have a very energetic discussion about the project of leftism before getting into a critical political economy analysis of the sudden rise of 15-minute delivery apps and the pushback by workers against anonymous automated management. Part two of our long discussion with Matt and David will be posted on the TMK Patreon. Follow Matt Lech: https://twitter.com/MattLech Follow David Griscom: https://twitter.com/DavidGriscom Follow Left Reckoning: https://twitter.com/LeftReckoning Some stuff we reference: ••• The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-07/what-instant-delivery-services-could-do-to-cities ••• Workers demand gig economy companies explain their algorithms | https://www.ft.com/content/95e7f150-b0f9-4602-8e5d-76a138b59851 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We wrap up with the last chapter of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book, Control and Freedom. We discuss: the book’s value as a lens for analyzing current developments and discourses about “web3” — conceptions of the internet as both a public and private space — the general cultural affect of paranoia and its relation to techno-power — a self-crit session on the utility of “emerging technologies” as a term — Chun’s case studies of facial recognition and webcams. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We do a close reading of a new article in Foreign Policy by futurist Parag Khanna and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan, which stands as a monument to how “web3” is like a brain worm that destroys people’s ability to think. The articles’ ten theses are a testament to the poverty of thought pervasive in the upper echelons of wealth, influence, and technology. Outro: https://soundcloud.com/braunestahl/future-history-of-luddism Some stuff we discuss: ••• Great Protocol Politics | Parag Khanna, Balaji S. Srinivasan https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics/ ••• The Naked and the Ted | Evgeny Morozov https://newrepublic.com/article/105703/the-naked-and-the-ted-khanna Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

As the Federal Trade Commission files suit to block the merger between Nvidia and Arm, we take the opportunity to revisit the excellent and necessary work of the FTC’s Chair, Lina Khan. We discuss a recent profile of Khan in the New Yorker. Then dig deeper into a very long, very important paper by Khan making the legal case for reviving the antitrust doctrine of structural separation and applying it to break up platform giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook. Some stuff we reference ••• The Separation of Platforms and Commerce | Lina Khan https://columbialawreview.org/content/the-separation-of-platforms-and-commerce/ ••• Lina Khan’s Battle to Rein in Big Tech | Sheelah Kolhatkar https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/06/lina-khans-battle-to-rein-in-big-tech ••• Lina Khan Cashes in Her Chips | David Dayen https://prospect.org/economy/lina-khan-cashes-in-her-chips/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We kept ignoring DAOs and web3 hoping it would go away, but sadly it hasn’t. So we pick apart each part of the acronym—decentralized, autonomous, organization—and discuss the techno-politics of their promise and practice. We get into blockchain, smart contracts, and corporate governance. Some stuff we reference: ••• Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of Law | Karen E.C. Levy https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/107 ••• DAOs are interesting, likely, and terrifying | Jason Prado: https://venturecommune.substack.com/p/daos-are-interesting-likely-and-terrifying ••• Zealots of the Blockchain | David Golumbia: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/zealots-of-the-blockchain-golumbia ••• Mapping the NFT revolution: market trends, trade networks, and visual features | Matthieu Nadini et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00053-8 ••• Digital extraction: Blockchain traceability in mineral supply chains | Filipe Calvão, Matthew Archer https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262982100041X Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Continuing sci-fi week at TMK, we dig into Chapter 4, “Orienting the Future,” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Grounded in Chun’s in-depth analysis of cyberpunk via two paradigmatic examples—the novel Neuromancer and the anime Ghost in the Shell—we lay out a critical take on the cyberpunk genre. We then discuss Chun’s incisive arguments about “high-tech Orientalism” and the colonial politics encoded into cyberpunk and the culture that has flowed from it. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We get into a great discussion about the Butlerian Jihad — or the war against all computation that catalyzed the events of the Dune series — and the reactionary politics that inform so much science fiction, the trap of treating feudalism as fate, the need for stories informed by the lessons of Luddism, and much more. Cold open: Alex Jones explains Evangelion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9RUOEOoNQ&t=1s Some stuff we reference: ••• Science Fiction Is a Luddite Literature | Cory Doctorow: https://onezero.medium.com/science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature-56ed9cfc5470 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We pick up with part two of our deep dive into Aadhaar, looking at the social issues, political implications, and street-level implementation. Building on the work of Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson, we first lay out an analysis of what it means to “see like an infrastructure.” Then we dwell on the problems, errors, and glitches involved in making Aadhaar actually work. And what that means for different people who are classified as “high-resolution” or “low-resolution” data subjects. Some stuff we discuss: ••• Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SLAI_RSSJ.pdf ••• A New AI Lexicon: Resolution | Ranjit Singh https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-resolution-8f3430654ee4 ••• From Margins to Seams: Imbrication, Inclusion, and Torque in the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/From_Margins_to_Seams_RSSJ.pdf ••• Biometric Marginality: UID and the Shaping of Homeless Identities in the City | Ursula Rao https://www.jstor.org/stable/23391467 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start the show looking back at a Wired cover story from 1997 predicting the next 25 years would be The Long Boom. But oops! Turns out all the bad future spoilers came true instead. We dive deep into Aadhaar, the Indian government’s massive biometric identity database that has enrolled the information of more than a billion people. We talk about the technological architecture of the system and how it operates as an identity-as-a-service platform for public and private services. This is part 1 of a much broader discussion laying the foundations for analysing Aadhaar. Part two, looking at the social issues and political implications of Aadhaar, will be released on the TMK Patreon feed. Some stuff we discuss: ••• The Long Boom | Wired (1997) https://archive.org/details/eu_Wired-1997-07_OCR/page/n123/mode/2up ••• All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan | Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-04/23andme-to-use-dna-tests-to-make-cancer-drugs ••• Give Me a Database and I Will Raise the Nation-State | Ranjit Singh https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Give_Me_a_Database_RS.pdf ••• Seeing Like an Infrastructure: Low-resolution Citizens and the Aadhaar Identification Project | Ranjit Singh and Steven Jackson https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.22/163.112.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SLAI_RSSJ.pdf ••• A New AI Lexicon: Resolution | Ranjit Singh https://medium.com/a-new-ai-lexicon/a-new-ai-lexicon-resolution-8f3430654ee4 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: MCI “Anthem” commercial (1997): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioVMoeCbrig We dig into Chapter 3, “Scenes of Empowerment, of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book and talk about the pervasive ideology of the internet as an emancipatory world of virtual equality where things like race, gender, age, and ability cease to exist. And discuss how, despite the obvious naivety (at best) of this belief, it still persists today in various unchanged ways. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re very pleased to be joined by Britt Young, a PhD candidate in geography at UC Berkeley, who works on the intersection of technology and disability. We dive into the militarized R&D for prosthetics, Britt’s experiences using an advanced “cyborg” arm, the vast inequality in access to workable prosthetics, and question if our society’s approach to assistive tech is consistent with disability justice or represents a vexing politics of ableism. Follow Britt: twitter.com/bhyrights Read Britt’s work: britthyoung.com Some stuff we reference: ••• The Politics of Ableism | Gregor Wolbring: https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1057/dev.2008.17 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Why don’t people like crypto? Obviously because they’re old fuddy duddies who don’t want to wrap their mind around new technology! We talk about Ed’s reporting trip to Puerto Rico and why the island has become a haven for crypto enclaves. We then end with a nice palate cleanser as Ed tells us about a recent panel he attended with David Wengrow about his and Graeber’s new book. Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab fresh new TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Nick Chavez, a mechanical engineer working in R&D, to discuss his incisive essay exploring the capitalist origins and purpose of engineering, the class position and labor process of engineers, and the role of engineers before, during, and after communist revolution. Read Nick’s essay: The Present and Future of Engineers | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM Music in this episode is from Nick’s glitch group: https://glitchdotcool.bandcamp.com/album/glitch-with-friends-compilation-vol-2 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Metastasis is the process of cancer cells spreading to other parts of the body. Facebook is in its full on metastatic phase. We talk about the big news of Facebook rebranding as Meta – its impotent propaganda campaign, the extractive economy underpinning this vision of society, why the metaverse as its pitched is bullshit, and how the actual metaverse is more likely to be an infinite virtual office we’re all forced to used. Some stuff we reference: ••• Facebook Has No Clue How to Solve Its Image Problem, Leaked Doc Shows | Shoshana Wodinksy https://gizmodo.com/facebook-has-no-clue-how-to-solve-its-image-problem-le-1847945657 ••• The Real Reason Facebook Changed Its Name | Brian Merchant https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg/620538/ ••• Zuckerberg Announces Fantasy World Where Facebook Is Not a Horrible Company | Jason Koebler https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb485/zuckerberg-facebook-new-name-meta-metaverse-presentation ••• Why Facebook has become Meta | Hannah Murphy, Madhumita Murgia https://www.ft.com/content/29762a96-419f-41b2-9e96-fa7423abb125 ••• Founder’s Letter, 2021 | Mark Zuckerberg https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 2, “Screening Pornography” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book. Diving into the cultural panic around cyberporn in the 90s, we talk about how porn online was used as an early battleground for policy debates about commerce, regulation, and censorship on the internet. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

••• Jathan is doing an intensive residency program so we're unlocking an older patreon episode that many comrades in the TMK Discord said was one of their favorites. Enjoy! ••• Rather than our usual doompilled analysis, we take a big dose of dumbpill as we spend the whole episode on a reading series of the stupidest article we have come across in a long time. Malcolm Gladwell – a man whose career is built on being an insanely incurious idiot – got to ride in a Waymo autonomous vehicle. He then wrote about it for Facebook’s newsletter Bulletin. Sorry in advance. Have we misunderstood the future of the automobile? | Malcolm Gladwell | Facebook Bulletin: https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/489595605629557 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s a good old TMK where we get mad talking about two stories. First, the increasingly influential “state-as-a-platform” model of governance that France is leaning super hard into, which goes beyond neoliberalism by taking seriously the premise: “What if instead of a government, we had AWS.” Second, schools in the UK are rolling-out facial recognition in secondary school cafeterias. Teaching kids that access to anything in life, even just lunch, must be mediated by intrusive systems of surveillance and control – oh, I mean, speed and convenience. Some stuff we reference: ••• France finds growth prescription with health app Doctolib https://www.ft.com/content/ca41f61e-2513-41d2-9adf-d94b5af302a1 ••• Facial recognition cameras arrive in UK school canteens https://www.ft.com/content/af08fe55-39f3-4894-9b2f-4115732395b9 ••• Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/benioff-salesforce-capitalism.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Outro: Eva B - Mukhtasir Baatein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T--NV__iJA We’re joined by two excellent scholars — Noopur Raval, research fellow in the AI Now Institute at NYU, and Rida Qadri, PhD candidate in Urban Information Systems at MIT — to talk about their important research on platform workers and economies in the Global South. We discuss practices of agency and social support amongst workers in places like Jakarta and Bangalore; the North-South divide in how these platforms are understood; contextualizing these systems as an antidote against universalizing them; the trope of “finding” invisible tech workers in exotic lands; the need for a “decolonial cosmopolitan ethic,” and much more. Find Noopur here: noopur.xyz /// twitter.com/tetisheri Find Rida here: ridaqadri.net /// twitter.com/qadrida Their work we discuss: • Mutual Aid Stations | Rida Qadri, Noopur Raval: https://logicmag.io/distribution/mutual-aid-stations/ • Delivery Drivers Are Using Grey Market Apps to Make Their Jobs Suck Less | Rida Qadri: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvpng/delivery-drivers-are-using-grey-market-apps-to-make-their-jobs-suck-less • Platform Workers as Infrastructures of Global Technologies | Rida Qadri: https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-august-2021/platform-workers-as-infrastructures-of-global-technologies • Interrupting Invisibility in a Global World | Noopur Raval: https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-august-2021/interrupting-invisibility-in-a-global-world • An Agenda for Decolonizing Data Science | Noopur Raval: https://mediarep.org/bitstream/handle/doc/14422/spheres_5_0202_Raval_Agenda-for-Decolonizing-Data-Science.pdf?sequence=1 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 1, “Why Cyberspace?” of Wendy H.K. Chun’s book and dive into the origins, politics, and ideology behind this weird metaphor for the Internet. In the process we trace an evolution of different phases in the Internet's political economy, from the Web 1.0 endless electronic frontier of freedom to the Web 2.0 archipelago of platforms and rentiers, and circling back to many ideological desires born anew in the Web 3.0 vision of a decentralized metaverse. All this and more as we talk through Chun’s richly detailed cultural / material analysis of the Internet. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We are very pleased to be joined by returning guest Danielle Carr, anthropologist and historian of science who is finishing her PhD at Columbia, to chat about her excellent new essay on the (anti-)political epistemology of the pop sci style as represented by the work of the genre’s golden boy, Carl Zimmer. We discuss science as both an institution and ideology that, like other such things with authority and power in society, must be subjected to ruthless critical analysis. And yet, nearly all critique of science has been forfeited to the most extreme right-wing denialism. No longer! It’s time to reclaim ground for a leftist, materialist examination of science. Follow Danielle: twitter.com/_danielle_carr Read her article: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/carl-zimmer-virus/ Some other stuff we reference • Against Method | Paul Feyerabend: https://www.versobooks.com/books/442-against-method • How to Defend Society Against Science | Paul Feyerabend: https://www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/issue-files/rp11_article1_defendsocietyagainstscience_feyerabend.pdf •The Eighteenth Brumaire of Bruno Latour | Simon Schaffer: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11622708/ • Neoliberalism for Polite Company: Bruno Latour’s Pseudo-Materialist Coup | R.H. Lossin: https://salvage.zone/articles/neoliberalism-for-polite-company-bruno-latours-pseudo-materialist-coup/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Outro: And We Thought That Nation-States Were a Bad Idea by Propagandhi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNWZ6THAUPo We give you our raw reactions to a mind-numbing Bloomberg Opinion piece that “argues” for granting mega-corporations like Facebook and Amazon statehood and giving them a seat at the United Nations. Never have we seen somebody survey an issue as wildly important as “corporate sovereignty” and reach the dumbest, worst conclusions at every turn—all while thinking they are actually making a very smart, nuanced, complex analysis. Some stuff we reference: • Give Amazon and Facebook a Seat at the United Nations | Ben Shcott: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-03/give-amazon-and-facebook-a-seat-at-the-united-nations • Beyond Public and Private: Toward a Political Theory of the Corporation | David Cieply https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2484826 • Corporate sovereignty: Negotiating permissive power for profit in Southern Africa | Tessa Diphoorn, Nikkie Wiegink: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14634996211037124 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr.

For this week's free episode, we are unlocking the first episode of our new TMK Book Club Patreon series, which will be running biweekly for the next few months. If you want to hear more – and check out our large back catalogue of premium episodes – please subscribe on Patreon! We dive into our next instalment of the TMK Book Club – “Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics” by Wendy H.K. Chun. This is a foundational piece of critical theory and new media studies, and a necessary addition in the TMK pantheon. Published in the heady days of 2005, we provide some context about the state of the Internet, culture and politics at the time. Then we discuss the Preface and Introduction. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dive into our next instalment of the TMK Book Club – “Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics” by Wendy H.K. Chun. This is a foundational piece of critical theory and new media studies, and a necessary addition in the TMK pantheon. Published in the heady days of 2005, we provide some context about the state of the Internet, culture and politics at the time. Then we discuss the Preface and Introduction. You can grab a pdf of Chun’s book here: https://au1lib.org/book/2074091/cc12a3 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We take a hard look at Netradyne, the latest piece of shitty surveillance tech already forced on Amazon delivery drivers—and perhaps coming soon to your car. First we look at Lauren Kaori Gurley’s reporting on how these AI cameras are extremely error prone—but weirdly never in ways that benefit, rather than punish, workers—and then take a deeper dive into how Netradyne is pitching its product to insurance companies. Some stuff we reference: • Amazon Delivery Drivers Forced to Sign ‘Biometric Consent’ Form or Lose Job | Lauren Kaori Gurley https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8n3j/amazon-delivery-drivers-forced-to-sign-biometric-consent-form-or-lose-job • Amazon’s AI Cameras Are Punishing Drivers for Mistakes They Didn’t Make | Lauren Kaori Gurley https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npjv/amazons-ai-cameras-are-punishing-drivers-for-mistakes-they-didnt-make • How Insurers Are Adopting Transportation Safety Technology | Netradyne https://www.netradyne.com/how-insurers-are-adopting-transportation-safety-technology/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

To quote the headline for Ed’s article, “Ok, what the fuck is Evergrande and is it going to blow up the global economy?” First question: Evergrande is the second largest real estate developer in China. Its business model is premised on infinite growth, it’s massively indebted to everybody, and it is finally collapsing. Second question: Maybe! We lay out the dynamics leading up to, and unfolding now during, Evergrande’s collapse and discuss the potential consequences of yet another “too big to fail” financial institution doing what they do best: failing. Some stuff we reference: • OK, WTF Is Evergrande and Is It Going to Blow Up the Global Economy? | https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5mqm/ok-wtf-is-evergrande-and-is-it-going-to-blow-up-the-global-economy • Citron Research / Andrew Left 2012 short seller report on Evergrande | https://www.slideshare.net/dingli8888/citron-research • Evergrande Gave Workers a Choice: Loan Us Cash or Lose Your Bonus | https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/19/business/china-evergrande-debt-protests.html • Evergrande used retail financial investments to plug funding gaps | https://www.ft.com/content/0b03d4de-1662-4d30-bcfd-c9bae24fa9cc • China’s Nightmare Evergrande Scenario Is an Uncontrolled Crash | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-16/china-s-nightmare-evergrande-scenario-is-an-uncontrolled-crash • The Asset Economy: Property Ownership and the New Logic of Inequality | Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper, Martijn Konings https://au1lib.org/book/14728397/9acae0 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

outro: https://youtu.be/JanZSDIWpmg We start with a quick moratorium on self-deprecating apologia for doompill. Confronting, with sober senses and ruthless analysis, the material conditions of the world is not always a joyful thing. But, importantly, it is not one that calls for nihilism, fatalism, or doom. We then discuss a long excerpt from an upcoming biography of Peter Thiel and finally give this (self-admittedly) evil man the attention he deserves. Not only is Thiel driven by venal desires of power and wealth, he is also consumed with paranoia that one day the taxman will make him pay his fair share. Thiel is a ludicrous caricature of the Randian superhero. Some stuff we discuss • Peter Thiel Gamed Silicon Valley, Donald Trump, and Democracy to Make Billions, Tax-Free | Max Chafkin: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-15/peter-thiel-gamed-silicon-valley-tech-trump-taxes-and-politics • Lord of the Roths | Justin Elliott, Patricia Callahan, James Bandler: https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Intro: https://youtu.be/7YynqVvgZYI We spend the first half finishing our discussion of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s essay. Then, in the second half, we switch gears and talk about the video of a Tesla trying to mow down pedestrians, the cultural logics of speed, worlds built for objects over people, and the relations between automation, authority and anarchy. Some stuff we discuss: • How to change the course of human history | David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/# • Error | Endnotes 5 https://libcom.org/files/Endnotes%205.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We go back in time—with the help of groundbreaking work by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow—to examine what the history of social inequality can teach us about the political developments of today and the course we can plot for tomorrow. Along the way, with the help of the two Davids, we deploy the sharpest tools of historical materialism to debunk, dismiss, and dunk on the big idea bozos like Jared Diamond and Francis Fukuyama who make sweeping—and sweepingly wrong—proclamations about the essence of human nature and the naturalization of capitalist society. Essay we discuss: How to change the course of human history | David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/# Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s part two of the Never Forget Extravaganza! We’re joined again by military tech journalist Kelsey D. Atherton to explore the deep and decades long entanglement between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon—from the early days of the semiconductors industry being born in the cradle of military contracts to the contemporary period of, as one Pentagon startup calls it, “the new Manhattan Project” of artificial intelligence. We wrap up by considering what the next phase of the forever war machine will bring. Follow Kelsey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AthertonKD Subscribe to Kelsey on Substack: https://athertonkd.substack.com/ Some stuff we reference: • Silicon Valley Giants—Not Start-Ups—Dominate DoD Tech $$ | Kelsey D. Atheron: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/silicon-valley-giants-not-start-ups-dominate-dod-tech/ • Reports of a Silicon Valley/Military Divide Have Been Greatly Exaggerated | Jack Poulson: https://techinquiry.org/SiliconValley-Military/ • Silicon Valley Takes the Battlespace | Jonathan Guyer: https://prospect.org/power/silicon-valley-takes-battlespace-eric-schmidt-rebellion/ • Project Maven: Amazon And Microsoft Scored $50 Million In Pentagon Surveillance Contracts After Google Quit | Thomas Brewster: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/09/08/project-maven-amazon-and-microsoft-get-50-million-in-pentagon-drone-surveillance-contracts-after-google/?sh=40ebfa5e6f1e • Silicon Valley Mystery House | Langdon Winner: https://bibliodarq.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/sorkin-m-ed-variations-on-a-theme-park.pdf • Cold War Armory: Military Contracting in Silicon Valley | Thomas Heinrich: https://faculty.fiu.edu/~revellk/pad2011/heinrich.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s the Never Forget Extravaganza! We’re joined by military tech journalist Kelsey D. Atherton to breach the memory hole of forever war and consider the invasions and occupations, technologies and tactics, abroad and at home, that have defined the post-9/11 era. This is part one of our conversation with Kelsey. Part two – and TMK’s 100th episode – will drop on the Patreon feed on 9/11. We set the scene by casting our minds back to the beginning of the Global War on Terror – then provide something like a bestiary of vehicles, weapons, and surveillance systems – then explore the deep and decades long entanglement between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, along with all the demonic initials like the CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, ICE – then wrap it up with a broader analysis of the forever war machine: how we got here, why it was overdetermined, and what comes next. Follow Kelsey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AthertonKD Subscribe to Kelsey on Substack: https://athertonkd.substack.com/ Some stuff we reference: • These machines were supposed to help win the war in Afghanistan. What happened? | Kelsey D. Atherton: popsci.com/technology/timeline-us-airborne-tools-of-war-afghanistan/ • This is the real story of the Afghan biometric databases abandoned to the Taliban | Eileen Guo and Hikmat Noori: technologyreview.com/2021/08/30/1033941/afghanistan-biometric-databases-us-military-40-data-points/ • The Global Garage | Will Meyer: thebaffler.com/latest/the-global-garage-meyer • The MRAP Story: Learning from History | Stephen W. Miller: asianmilitaryreview.com/2018/10/the-mrap-story-learning-from-history/ • Algorithmic War: Everyday Geographies of the War on Terror | Louise Amoore: sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00655.x Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

outro: Funeral Candies – You're Dead https://youtu.be/TjvQPijYEZ8 We start with discussing an investigation into the harrowing—and fatal—working conditions of delivery drivers in South Korea and the human tragedy at the heart of ecommerce. Moving on to lighter fare—by comparison—we talk through a report on the massive tax breaks and anonymous shell companies supporting the spread of data centres across the US. Some stuff we reference: • Dead on Arrival | Carrington Clarke: abc.net.au/news/2021-08-26/south-korea-delivery-drivers-working-theselves-to-death/100380322 • Data In The Dark: How Big Tech Secretly Secured $800 Million In Tax Breaks For Data Centers | David Jeans: forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2021/08/19/data-in-the-dark-how-big-tech-secretly-secured-800-million-in-tax-breaks-for-data-centers/?sh=1458f2006b43 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're unlocking a premium episode for the main feed this week. We talk about insurance technology as Jathan gives the lowdown on a big grant he just received to do a multi-year project investigating the political economy of the insurtech sector. We then discuss the FIRE sector more generally and look at recent reporting on how property tech companies are buying up homes. Some stuff we reference: • Draining the Risk Pools | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/draining-the-risk-pool/ • Data machine: the insurers using AI to reshape the industry | Ian Smith: https://www.ft.com/content/d3bd46cb-75d4-40ff-a0cd-6d7f33d58d7f • The personalisation of insurance: Data, behaviour and innovation | Liz McFall, Gert Meyers, Ine Van Hoyweghen: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720973707 • Zillow, Other Tech Firms Are in an ‘Arms Race’ To Buy Up American Homes | Maxwell Strachan: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ymxz/zillow-other-tech-firms-are-in-an-arms-race-to-buy-up-american-homes • The attachments of ‘autonomous’ vehicles | Chris Tennant, Jack Stilgoe: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127211038752 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk about the geopolitics of microchip manufacturing, the complex factors causing the current global shortage of semiconductors, the centrality of industrial policy and intellectual property to the trade wars between Western and Eastern countries, the competition over securing leadership in strategic technology like artificial intelligence, and the consequences of changing modes of production. In other words, just another day at TMK. Some stuff we reference: • Chips with Everything | Evgeny Morozov: mondediplo.com/2021/08/03morozov • From Automobile Capitalism to Platform Capitalism: Toyotism as a prehistory of digital platforms | Marc Steinberg: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01708406211030681 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Intro: Contra – This Machine Kills (remixed) https://contra805.bandcamp.com/track/this-machine-kills We’re joined by two of the sharpest minds on the politics of AI and data governance—Meredith Whittaker and Salomé Viljoen—to chat about the relationship between corporate gatekeepers and academic research, the construction and infrastructure of data, AI as a universal hammer for all nails, how the state enforces Silicon Valley’s power, and what it would take to seize the data pipeline from private capital for the public good. This discussion expands on a recent article we published in Nature: Everyone should decide how their digital data are used—not just tech companies | Jathan Sadowski, Salomé Viljoen, Meredith Whittaker: nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01812-3 Salomé’s profile: law.columbia.edu/faculty/salome-viljoen And Twitter: twitter.com/salome_viljoen_ Meredith’s profile: ainowinstitute.org/people/meredith-whittaker.html And Twitter: twitter.com/mer__edith Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Outro: Processory - Take Me To Your Leader https://sugars.bandcamp.com/track/take-me-to-your-leader We talk about insurance technology as Jathan gives the lowdown on a big grant he just received to do a multi-year project investigating the political economy of the insurtech sector. We then discuss the FIRE sector more generally and look at recent reporting on how property tech companies are buying up homes. Some stuff we reference: • Draining the Risk Pools | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/draining-the-risk-pool/ • Data machine: the insurers using AI to reshape the industry | Ian Smith: https://www.ft.com/content/d3bd46cb-75d4-40ff-a0cd-6d7f33d58d7f • The personalisation of insurance: Data, behaviour and innovation | Liz McFall, Gert Meyers, Ine Van Hoyweghen: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720973707 • Zillow, Other Tech Firms Are in an ‘Arms Race’ To Buy Up American Homes | Maxwell Strachan: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ymxz/zillow-other-tech-firms-are-in-an-arms-race-to-buy-up-american-homes • The attachments of ‘autonomous’ vehicles | Chris Tennant, Jack Stilgoe: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127211038752 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Taylor Lorenz – business reporter at the New York Times, twitter.com/TaylorLorenz – for an excellent discussion about the evolution and rapid growth of the creator economy, the working conditions of content creators across social media platforms, the predatory system of management, marketing, and investment, and the venture capitalists who only saw this labor as valid once they could exploit it. Some of Taylor’s work we reference: • Hello, Content Creators. Silicon Valley’s Investors Want to Meet You. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/technology/content-creators-venture-capital.html • Young Creators Are Burning Out and Breaking Down https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/style/creator-burnout-social-media.html • The App With the Unprintable Name That Wants to Give Power to Creators https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/technology/fypm-creators-app-pay.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s the final chapter of Autonomous Technology: “Frankenstein’s Problem.” We talk for a while about the story of Frankenstein as an allegory for responsibility, neglect, and care for our creations. We then get into Winner’s core ideas of “technology as legislation” and “Luddism as epistemology” before providing some general synthesis of the book as a whole. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Article we reference Revolutionary Readings: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Luddite Uprisings | Edith Gardner: https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=ijcs Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re delighted to be joined by Chris Gilliard (twitter.com/hypervisible) – one of the best experts on privacy and surveillance around – for a fantastic discussion laying out his incisive analysis of “luxury surveillance” and “imposed surveillance.” To quote Chris: “Luxury surveillance is expensive, voluntary, and sleek. Imposed surveillance is involuntary, overt, clunky, and meant to stand out.” It’s not (just) the operations of technology that distinguish these two forms of surveillance, but the socio-political relations they perpetuate and plug into. We end the episode talking about some of Chris’s work on “digital redlining.” Some stuff we reference: • Privacy’s not an abstraction | Chris Gilliard: fastcompany.com/90323529/privacy-is-not-an-abstraction • Caught in the spotlight | Chris Gilliard: urbanomnibus.net/2020/01/caught-in-the-spotlight/ • Luxury surveillance | Chris Gilliard and David Golumbia: reallifemag.com/luxury-surveillance/ • Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness | Simone Browne: dukeupress.edu/dark-matters • Big Tech call center workers face pressure to accept home surveillance | Olivia Solon: nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-workers-face-pressure-accept-home-surveillance-n1276227 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/

Outro: Mr. Suit by New Bomb Turks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VraBz96VbLA We get deeper into the political economy of precision agriculture and how these “innovating” are iterating on traditional forms of enclosure and dispossession, how they operationalize older corporate management philosophies and strategies, and how they plug into the global system of extraction and accumulation. We end the episode on high note by talking about the new right to repair rules being enforced by the FTC. Stuff we reference: Todd Feathers | Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI | Motherboard Vice https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai Alistair Fraser (2018). Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture and its new horizons. The Journal of Peasant Studies https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887 Alistair Fraser (2019). The digital revolution, data curation, and the new dynamics of food sovereignty construction. The Journal of Peasant Studies https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1080/03066150.2019.1602522 Alistair Fraser (2021). ‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming. Journal of Rural Studies https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016721001856 Emily Duncan, Alesandros Glaros, Dennis Z. Ross, and Eric Nost (2021). New but for whom? Discourses of innovation in precision agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8278188/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Outro: St. Lorelei - https://stlorelei.bandcamp.com/track/outside-the-green We kick things off with an announcement about TMK sweeps month. Then we get into a discussion of data politics based on the recent investigation into how ShotSpotter – the “AI-powered” gunshot detector sensors – is being used by police to fabricate fake data for evidence. We wrap up by providing an intro to the political economy of “data grabbing” and precision agriculture – a topic we’ll dive much deeper into on the premium episode this week. Stuff we reference: Todd Feathers | Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI | Motherboard Vice https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xbq/police-are-telling-shotspotter-to-alter-evidence-from-gunshot-detecting-ai Alistair Fraser (2018). Land grab/data grab: precision agriculture and its new horizons. The Journal of Peasant Studies https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1080/03066150.2017.1415887 Alistair Fraser (2019). The digital revolution, data curation, and the new dynamics of food sovereignty construction. The Journal of Peasant Studies https://sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1080/03066150.2019.1602522 Alistair Fraser (2021). ‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming. Journal of Rural Studies https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016721001856 Emily Duncan, Alesandros Glaros, Dennis Z. Ross, and Eric Nost (2021). New but for whom? Discourses of innovation in precision agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8278188/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 7 of Autonomous Technology: “Complexity and the Loss of Agency.” Ed couldn’t be here for this episode, so we’re joined again by David Banks, who really stepped up to provide some great insights into understanding our socio-political relationship to complex technical systems designed to keep us in the dark about how and why the things we rely on actually work—and who they work for. We explore the dialectic between increasing complexity and diminishing agency, the poverty to cultural criticism vs. political analysis, and why technologies are not enchanted objects that grant us magical powers. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf • Read David’s article: Engineered Violence: Confronting the Neutrality Problem and Violence in Engineering: https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/IJESJP/article/view/6604 • Follow David: https://twitter.com/DA_Banks • Listen to Iron Weeds: https://twitter.com/ironweedspod • Listen to Reaction: https://twitter.com/reactionpodcast Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're taking a week off recording so we're unlocking one of our favorite episodes from the Patreon feed for you to enjoy. Cold open: Ghost in the Shell. There is a long list of services that purport to be powered by sophisticated software, but actually rely on humans acting like robots. We discuss a critical concept—whether we call it Potemkin AI, fauxtomation, or ghost work—for understanding how so much so-called artificial intelligence is just a spectacle, a simulation, designed to mystify the labor that really turns the crank of smart systems sold as advanced innovations. They are the humans hidden inside mechanical minds. Some stuff we reference: • Potemkin AI | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/ • The Automation Charade | Astra Taylor: https://logicmag.io/failure/the-automation-charade/ • Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass | Mary L. Gray Siddharth Suri: https://ghostwork.info/ • Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media | Sarah T. Roberts: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen • Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk | Lilly Irani: https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-abstract/114/1/225/3763/Difference-and-Dependence-among-Digital-Workers Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

After way too long, we finally got our friend and comrade Paris Marx—host of the excellent podcast Tech Won’t Save Us—on TMK for a great conversation ranging from the politics of Bitcoin and Tesla to the current state of tech media/criticism and need for counter-propaganda against Silicon Valley. Paris is always in the interviewer seat on TWSU, so we turn things around on him and also ask how he got into leftist analysis of tech and his forthcoming book on the techno-politics of transportation. Follow Paris on Twitter: twitter.com/parismarx Listen to Tech Won’t Save Us: techwontsave.us/ Read The Hammer newsletter: techwontsave.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=3bfbe60f81172d5eff78e0dbe&id=09015cbec3 Support his wonderful podcast: patreon.com/techwontsaveus Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

For a blockbuster of a book club episode, we’re joined by friend of the show David Banks to discuss Chapter 6 of Autonomous Technology: “Technological Politics.” We get into an analysis of reverse adaptation in large-scale socio-technical systems, the ways in which human ends become subjugated to technological means, and the relationship between the imperatives of the technological order and the state. Plus, what Marxist-Leninism could learn from a theory of technological politics—and vice versa. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf • Read David’s article: Lines of Power: Availability to Networks as a Social Phenomenon https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6283 • Follow David: https://twitter.com/DA_Banks • Listen to Iron Weeds: https://twitter.com/ironweedspod • Listen to Reaction: https://twitter.com/reactionpodcast Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We do a deep dive into the ideas of Lina Khan, the newly confirmed chair of the Federal Trade Commission. We discuss her large body of scholarship—digging up some of her lesser known, but arguably more important work—which provides sharp, critical, complex analysis of the political economy of platforms and seeks to revive antitrust regulation as a tool for tackling structural problems of corporate dominance. We also talk about how Khan, in her new position of regulatory authority, could actually make necessary material changes to contemporary capitalism. And, in the process, help create the conditions needed for bigger, better, more radical forms of democratic power. Some stuff we reference: • Market Structure and Political Law: A Taxonomy of Power | Zephyr Teachout and Lina Khan: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1087&context=djclpp • Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox | Lina Khan: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox • Lina Khan’s Power Grab at the FTC | WSJ Editorial Board: https://www.wsj.com/articles/lina-khans-power-grab-at-the-ftc-11625517819 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Rather than our usual doompilled analysis, we take a big dose of dumbpill as we spend the whole episode on a reading series of the stupidest article we have come across in a long time. Malcolm Gladwell – a man whose career is built on being an insanely incurious idiot – got to ride in a Waymo autonomous vehicle. He then wrote about it for Facebook’s newsletter Bulletin. Sorry in advance. Have we misunderstood the future of the automobile? | Malcolm Gladwell | Facebook Bulletin: https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/489595605629557 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

It’s the tech news roundup, yeehaw! We look at a few recent stories in techno-politics worth discussing. First, businesses are blaming Amazon for draining the labor pool, not being exploitative enough, and making workers think they deserve higher expectations. Second, Didi, the largest ride-hailing app in China, has been banned from mobile app stores just days after it’s massive $4.4 billion IPO after an investigation by Chinese antitrust regulators into dubious data collection and cybersecurity practices by tech companies. Third, we lament the massive ecological consequences of “hyperscale” data centers being built in the Arizona desert and elsewhere. Some stuff we reference: • ‘Amazon effect’ sets the tone for US workers’ remuneration https://www.ft.com/content/9e8b9727-7955-44c4-955a-73375a7a20ef • Drought-stricken communities push back against data centers https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/drought-stricken-communities-push-back-against-data-centers-n1271344 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss the second half of Chapter 5 of Autonomous Technology: “Artifice and Order” — diving deeper into the social philosophy and political theory of technology. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Further notes toward a ruthless criticism of digital capitalism — we lay out how the inherent contradictions of the “gig economy” are starting to slip into crisis, the need to recognize and reject the propaganda that has been embedded in our everyday way of thinking and talking about these companies, and the creative accounting practices they use to cover up the absence of value and instances of death. 200 years ago, the Luddites smashed the gig mills used by capital to rob them of autonomy. They did not set out to create a more humane version of machinic dispossession. Today, the task before us all is to do the same. Some stuff we reference: • The Motherboard Guide to the Gig Economy | Edward Ongweso Jr: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbk88/the-motherboard-guide-to-the-gig-economy • Digital Piecework | Veena Dubal: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/digital-piecework • Uber CEO Works on App for a Day, Barely Makes Minimum Wage | Josh Marcus: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/uber-ubereats-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-b1873651.html • Food delivery driver's death wasn't recognised by Uber Eats and his family are still fighting for the insurance | Patrick Begley: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-25/background-briefing-uber-eats-delivery-drivers-death/100239920 • The Taming of Tech Criticism | Evgeny Morozov: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/taming-tech-criticism Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss the first half of Chapter 5 of Autonomous Technology: “Artifice and Order.” This is a really juicy chapter where Winner is really laying out fundamentals for his own theory of technological politics by asking the question of not just “Who governs?” but also “What governs?” So while we set out to get through the whole thing in one episode, to do the discussion and rumination of this analysis the justice it deserves, we decided to break it up into two episodes. We’re doing anti-efficiency praxis here by not giving into the temptations of speed – sometimes you should take it slow. In this half we lay out a series of key concepts for how to understand the immense accumulation of large-scale, complex, interconnected, and interdependent systems that define the conditions of modern society and life. The second half of Chapter 5 will be released on the premium feed next week! You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

As an antidote to the constant glowing profiles of tech executives and venture capitalists, TMK is starting an ongoing, occasional series where we highlight the stories and experiences of radical tech workers: people who are disaffected by the industry, discontented with its broken promises, and committed to working towards different models of funding, building, and using technology for a truly better world. To kick us off we are very pleased to be joined by (returning champion) Wendy Liu and Jason Prado—both longtime tech workers—for an amazing discussion about their time working in Silicon Valley, their political journeys, and the alternative paths they took. Big shout out to the tech workers in the TMK Discord who have inspired this series! Follow Wendy: twitter.com/dellsystem Buy Abolish Silicon Valley: abolishsiliconvalley.com/ Follow Jason: twitter.com/jasonpjason Subscribe to Venture Commune: venturecommune.substack.com/ Check out the Drivers Cooperative: drivers.coop/about-us Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In an action packed episode continuing our updates on ongoing topics of TMK interest, we deconstruct the political economy of massive health data sharing in the US and UK as hospitals seek to capitalize on data and develop AI health applications by signing lucrative deals with tech companies. We then jump over to discuss the Cold War 2.0 that’s heating up between the US/EU and China, with tech policy as a major front in the battle over who will “prevail technologically in the geopolitical great power competition.” Some stuff we reference • Google Strikes Deal With Hospital Chain to Develop Healthcare Algorithms: wsj.com/articles/google-strikes-deal-with-hospital-chain-to-develop-healthcare-algorithms-11622030401 • NHS delays GP data scheme following backlash: ft.com/content/99f440d7-1622-452d-a7ad-b40d84ac50ec • AI prompts a scramble for healthcare data: ft.com/content/376a5494-7237-4ed6-a528-5e45712c148d • Draining the Risk Pool: reallifemag.com/draining-the-risk-pool/ • Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/447 • US Senate passes bill aimed at countering China’s tech sector: ft.com/content/2429f43f-f1bf-4131-aefa-0d20a64b9d17 • Will Europe sign up to Joe Biden’s plan to counter China?: ft.com/content/e4c7df1a-5048-4cf1-8a2d-c9a2d721ba92 • Exporting Chinese surveillance: the security risks of ‘smart cities’: ft.com/content/76fdac7c-7076-47a4-bcb0-7e75af0aadab Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

This week we bring y’all some updates on ongoing topics of TMK interest: things we’ve done whole episodes on in the past but keep rearing the ugly heads in new and horrible ways. First we start by talking about the weird liberal trick of “limitarianism” and the latest bird-brained simping for billionaires. Then we get into a profile of the populist king of spacs, the memelord of investing, Chamath Palihipitiya—and the ongoing financial absurdism that distracts us from actual analysis of more pressing issues. We wrap up by talking about the latest bizarre debate over if BlackRock is bad or blameless for buying homes in bulk. Some stuff we reference: • Is it time to limit personal wealth? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/12/is-it-time-limit-personal-wealth/ • Think twice before changing the tax rules to soak billionaires https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/09/think-twice-before-changing-tax-rules-soak-billionaires/ • The Pied Piper of SPACS https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/07/the-pied-piper-of-spacs • Wall Street isn’t to blame for the chaotic housing market https://www.vox.com/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble • Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0308518X19846514 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 4 of Autonomous Technology: “Technocracy.” We get into different historical ideas of technocracy – from Francis Bacon to Thorstein Veblen – before digging into the political theory of technocracy – the form of its power, the source of its authority, the methods of its legitimation – and then finally relating it to the ascendant (wannabe) God-Engineers of today. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss how the failed promises of smart city megaprojects around the world – really honing in on Africa and a case study of Konza City in Kenya – perfectly encapsulate the brand of colonialism propagated by consultants like McKinsey. The “visions” and “strategies” they sell as ways of achieving prosperity, progress, and prestige are based on a dual ideology of technological and developmental determinism. While these smart cities never materialize in the way their marketing brochures and thought leaders proclaim, they aren’t failures—because they were never meant to actually succeed. Read this fantastic piece of reporting by Carey Baraka in Rest of World: https://restofworld.org/2021/the-failed-promise-of-kenyas-smart-city/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

(Jathan's mic is busted for this episode – sorry!) We hit y’all with a double header about what happens when the cop in our mind is allowed to thrive. First is the psychodrama and that led to a successful member of the liberal professoriate to become a cop just to sate her curiosity and stick it to her mom. Second is the entrepreneurs who prey on the social anxiety and paranoia to whip people into frenzy as a way to sell their technologies of private policing. Some stuff we reference: The Professor Who Became a Cop | Patrick Blanchfield: newrepublic.com/article/162245/rosa-brooks-professor-police-officer 'FIND THIS FUCK:' Inside Citizen’s Dangerous Effort to Cash In On Vigilantism | Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler: vice.com/en/article/y3dpyw/inside-crime-app-citizen-vigilante Who Runs the Streets of New Orleans? | David Amsden: nytimes.com/2015/08/02/magazine/who-runs-the-streets-of-new-orleans.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In our mission to analyse capitalism and technology from the experiences of workers, we would be remiss if we ignored a crucial form of labor that people – across the political and social spectrum – too often pretend does not exists unless they want to condem it: sex work. We’re happy to be joined by Liara Roux – sex worker, activist, and author of the new book Whore of New York: Confessions of a Sinful Woman – to talk about her time working with clients in Silicon Valley and the broader politics, perceptions, and platforms of sex. • Pre-order Liara’s book: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/673854/whore-of-new-york-by-liara-roux/9781913462567/ • Follow Liara: twitter.com/LiaraRoux Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 3 of Autonomous Technology: “The Flaw and its Origins.” First, we dispel the metaphysical arguments based on assertions about how “human nature” relates to modern technology. As Winner says, “These theories pretend to have knowledge” that they could not possibly possess. Second, we deconstruct the grand attempts at “philosophical engineering,” which proclaim that all our socio-technical problems would be solved if we all agreed to adhere to some new ethical blueprint for life. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We look at two new books about Amazon—Fulfillment by Alec Macgillis and Amazon Unbound by Brad Stone—as an occasion to further consider the galactic expansion of this evil empire, the relentlessly sociopathic god-emperor at the top, and bad takes that revere Bezos as a quirky innovator and blame consumer choices in the market for the human misery Amazon causes. We’ve dug into Amazon a lot over the last couple months. But Amazon is big. It contains multitudes and contradictions. There’s always more to cover, to analyze, to track, to just try wrapping our minds around. Some stuff we reference: • Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America | Alec MacGillis: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374159276 • Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire | Brad Stone: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Amazon-Unbound/Brad-Stone/9781982132613 • To Understand Amazon, We Must Understand Jeff Bezos | Ben Smith: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/books/review/amazon-unbound-brad-stone.html • We know about Amazon’s sins. Do we care? | James Kwak: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/we-know-about-amazons-sins-do-we-care/2021/03/18/b7ff73ce-7acb-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: What is Democracy? Outro: Jeff Mangum and Guy Picciotto at the Rolling Jubilee telethon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztyj7kE9tNc Extremely excited to be joined by Astra Taylor – acclaimed author, activist, filmmaker, and dream TMK guest – for a wide-ranging discussion about engaging with big important things like democracy, debt, and technology, about putting politics into practice to improve people’s lives, about paying close attention to not just the operators of the machine, but those who are thrown into its gears, and about so much! Grab Astra’s latest book: haymarketbooks.org/books/1635-remake-the-world Follow Astra: twitter.com/astradisastra Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We're unlocking the first episode of our biweekly TMK book club series – only on Patreon! You can get the other episode, plus more premium content every week, by subscribing at patreon.com/thismachinekills We’re discussing the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought by Langdon Winner. Follow along with us as we take you on a guided tour of a foundational text in technological politics – one that has greatly influenced our own thinking about these issues and which has, for better and worse, remained extremely relevant today. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We give y’all a primer on the debates about the “right to repair.” Corporations and conservative think tankers love spouting bad faith arguments that frame the right to repair as an issue of innovation, property, and nationalism. But their lobbying against it really boils down to running interference in favor of ongoing expansions of rentier capitalism and digital enclosure, all while trying to resolve the dual crises of overproduction and underconsumption. Some stuff we reference: • ‘Right to Repair’ Is Bad for Your Health | Tom Giovanetti: wsj.com/articles/right-to-repair-is-bad-for-your-health-11619986159 • Right to Repair Roundup: One Step Forward, One to the Side | Jerri-Lynn Scofield: nakedcapitalism.com/2020/02/right-to-repair-roundup-one-step-forward-one-to-the-side.html • Your Smartphone Should Be Built to Last | Damon Beres: nytimes.com/2021/04/25/opinion/iphone-apple-electronics-technology.html • Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware | Jason Koebler vice.com/en/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware • Subscriber City | David A. Banks: reallifemag.com/subscriber-city Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We give y’all an update on the state of antitrust politics in the US by riffing on two new books about antitrust that offer two different visions from two senators: Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley. It’s a knock-down drag-out match for the trustbuster title. In the center corner is Klobbering Klobuchar, offering a pretty good history, plenty of fire and fury, but with little weight behind her punches. In the far, far, far right corner is Howling Hawley, doing his damndest to confuse his foes into submission with revisionism, bullshit, and buffoonery. Our referee for this title fight is Matt “The Brawler” Stoller. You won’t wanna miss this pay-per-listen match! Some stuff we reference: • How the Senate’s antitrust chair would take on monopolies | Matt Stoller: washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-the-senates-antitrust-chair-would-take-on-monopolies/2021/04/29/abb7120a-a2a5-11eb-a774-7b47ceb36ee8_story.html • Amy Klobuchar on Breaking Up Giant Corporations | Liaquat Ahamed: nytimes.com/2021/04/26/books/review/antitrust-amy-klobuchar.html • Josh Hawley’s Virtual Reality | Gilad Edelman: wired.com/story/josh-hawley-virtual-reality-book-review/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

We’re joined by Dan Greene, author of an excellent new book, The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope. Dan’s work provides a deep analysis of how public institutions like libraries and schools are being transformed in the image of startups — pivoting away from the communities and missions they ought to serve — and the decades of punitive neoliberal reforms that brought us here. We deconstruct noxious policy slogans like “learn to code” and “digital divide,” and discuss why leftists must pay attention to the radical politics — both actual and potential — of libraries. Grab Dan’s book: mitpress.mit.edu/books/promise-access Follow Dan: twitter.com/Greene_DM Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

The TMK Book Club is now in session! We’re discussing the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought by Langdon Winner. Follow along with us as we take you on a guided tour of a foundational text in technological politics – one that has greatly influenced our own thinking about these issues and which has, for better and worse, remained extremely relevant today. You can find a free pdf of the whole book here: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/AutonomousTechnology.pdf Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/984994360/he-tried-to-organize-workers-in-chinas-gig-economy-now-he-faces-5-years-in-jail We dig deeper into our explorations of technological and financial capitalism in China by discussing an invaluable source for rigorous, ruthless analysis: Chuang, a collective and journal “analyzing the ongoing development of capitalism in China, its historical roots, and the revolts of those crushed beneath it.” We then start getting into a long, detailed, investigative report on the working conditions of platform labor in China. While some ghouls in Western countries might look at the horrors we discuss and say, “See, it could be worse.” We must instead assert, “No, it should be better.” Some stuff we reference: • Delivery Workers, Trapped in the System | Chuang: https://chuangcn.org/2020/11/delivery-renwu-translation/ • Social Contagion: Microbiological Class War in China | Chuang: https://chuangcn.org/2020/02/social-contagion/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

In part two of our analysis of Amazon, we focus on the labor processes and managerial practices within Amazon warehouses. “Factory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost,” Marx wrote in Capital Vol. 1, and through the despotic discipline of dead labour used to dominate living labour, capital “does away with the many-sided play of the muscles and confiscates every atom of freedom [from workers], both in bodily and intellectual activity.” Some stuff we reference: • Machinic dispossession and augmented despotism: Digital work in an Amazon warehouse | Alessandro Delfanti | New Media & Society: sci-hub.mksa.top/10.1177/1461444819891613 • Surviving Amazon | Sam Adler Bell | Logic Magazine: logicmag.io/bodies/surviving-amazon/ • Seasonal Associates | Heike Geissler | Semiotext(e): mitpress.mit.edu/books/seasonal-associate • Chapter 15: Machinery and Modern Industry | Karl Marx | Capital Vol. 1: marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

To conduct a post-mortem investigation on the Amazon warehouse union vote in Bessemer, Alabama, we’re joined by Alex N. Press—staff writer for Jacobin and one of our favorite labor reporters. As Alex wrote recently, “In the United States, every step of the unionization process is stacked against workers. It is a miracle that anyone ever unionizes.” We discuss the militancy of capital, the organizing conditions of labor today, and the battle for building worker power. The deck was stacked. We lost this fight. But the class war wages on. Follow Alex: https://twitter.com/alexnpress Read Alex: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/alex-press • Amazon Waged a Brutal Anti-Union Campaign. Unsurprisingly, They Won. | Jacobin | Alex N. Press: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/amazon-bessemer-union-drive-vote-nlrb • Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers' Industrial Efficiency | Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/flynn/1917/sabotage.htm • How tech workers feel about China, AI and Big Tech’s tremendous power | Protocol | Emily Birnbaum, Issie Lapowsky: https://www.protocol.com/policy/tech-employee-survey/tech-employee-survey-2021 • Amazon's New Algorithm Will Set Workers' Schedules According to Muscle Use | Motherboard | Ed Ongweso: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xeba/amazons-new-algorithm-will-set-workers-schedules-according-to-muscle-use Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: Ghost in the Shell There is a long list of services that purport to be powered by sophisticated software, but actually rely on humans acting like robots. We discuss a critical concept—whether we call it Potemkin AI, fauxtomation, or ghost work—for understanding how so much so-called artificial intelligence is just a spectacle, a simulation, designed to mystify the labor that really turns the crank of smart systems sold as advanced innovations. They are the humans hidden inside mechanical minds. Some stuff we reference: • Potemkin AI | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/ • The Automation Charade | Astra Taylor: https://logicmag.io/failure/the-automation-charade/ • Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass | Mary L. Gray Siddharth Suri: https://ghostwork.info/ • Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media | Sarah T. Roberts: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen • Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk | Lilly Irani: https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-abstract/114/1/225/3763/Difference-and-Dependence-among-Digital-Workers Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available here: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Cold open: Garden Glossary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMRWwjGJHQ It’s time for theory chat! To analyse the techno-politics of smart systems, we need good theories at hand. And we’re joined by the great Liv Agar – philosopher, podcaster, streamer – to discuss the hyper-prescient work of Gilles Deleuze on societies of control and the transition away from disciplinary societies. We’re talking rhizomes, dividuals, passwords, capitalism, power, and smart technology as we break down a critical theory for understanding a society driven mad by control. Follow, listen, read, watch Liv: https://linktr.ee/livagar Some stuff we reference: • Postscript on the Societies of Control | Gilles Deleuze: cidadeinseguranca.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf • Control and Becoming | Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri: uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/attachments/6._deleuze-control_and_becoming_0.pdf • Too Smart | Jathan Sadowski: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/too-smart Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available here: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

This episode is from a guest appearance by Jathan on 4ZZZ Radio Reversal, a community radio show in Brisbane, hosted by great friends of TMK and critical scholars: Anna Carlson and Natalie Osbourne. We had a really fun conversation talking about the ramping up of workplace surveillance, labor organising in the tech sector, the political economy of academia, and luddism as liberation. Enjoy! Check out 4ZZZ (4zzzfm.org.au) and follow Radio Reversal (twitter.com/RadioRevers), Natalie Osborne (twitter.com/DrNatOsborne), and Anna Carlson (twitter.com/annajcarlson) Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available here: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Okay, so the big boat is no longer blocking the Suez Canal. But that doesn’t mean we can go back to ignoring the global networks of capitalism and colonialism that make our world run. Laleh Khalili – author of the brilliant new book, Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula – joins us for a wide-ranging discussion of her rich, historical analysis of global shipping, imperialist infrastructure, and technological fantasy. Grab Laleh’s book: versobooks.com/books/3172-sinews-of-war-and-trade Follow Laleh: twitter.com/LalehKhalili Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available here: bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)

Premium – 57. The Arbiters of Asset Allocation We pick back up on our discussion of market indices and index providers, honing in on the close relationship they have with asset managers, how they exercise private authority by setting standards for corporate governance and evaluating the worthiness of “emerging markets,” and the need to reckon with the authority these kingmakers of finance—these arbiters of asset allocation—have in the world today. Who gave them this great power? Not me! Not you! And yet, here they are, with the ability to wave a wand, change a classification, and magically, instantly, automatically make billions of dollars move from one place to another. Article we discuss: • Steering capital: the growing private authority of index providers in the age of passive asset management | Johannes Petry, Jan Fichtner, Eelke Heemskerk | Review of International Political Economy: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2019.1699147 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills TMK shirts are now available here: https://www.bonfire.com/mech-luddite/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)