Episodes

  • 411. Big Easy’s Big Brother

    411. Big Easy’s Big Brother
    Jun 25 2025
    We get into a secret partnership between the New Orleans Police Department and Project NOLA, a private nonprofit organisation that owns and operates an extensive network of cameras blanketing New Orleans. For years, Project NOLA has been running live facial recognition through their cameras and sending automated notifications to the police when a match is made using Project NOLA’s privately maintained list of “wanted people.” By going through an unofficial private partner, police have been able to sidestep and undermine legal prohibition on their use of AI technologies like facial recognition. We get into the history of using New Orleans as a testbed for policing technology, the dangerous precedent being set by this public-private relationship, and how this surveillance nightmare is on track to become even more expansive and unleashed thanks to potential policy changes. ••• Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/19/live-facial-recognition-police-new-orleans/ ••• A bad facial recognition match costs Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto's office. See how much https://www.nola.com/news/jefferson_parish/facial-recognition-sheriff/article_3ed262bc-e360-4383-82fb-728b3783cb93.html ••• New Orleans City Council proposed ordinance https://cityofno.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=42&clip_id=5115&meta_id=741682 Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • Patreon Preview – 410. Palantir’s Psychohistory

    Patreon Preview – 410. Palantir’s Psychohistory
    Jun 18 2025
    We chat about Palantir and their role in enacting Trump’s executive order for a unified database across federal agencies and a master profile for every individual — and their larger role in bringing about the glorious new age of theocratic techno-nationalism for the West. ••• Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html ••• ICE Just Paid Palantir Tens of Millions for ‘Complete Target Analysis of Known Populations’ https://www.404media.co/ice-just-paid-palantir-tens-of-millions-for-complete-target-analysis-of-known-populations/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    7 mins
  • 409. The Breakup Meltdown

    409. The Breakup Meltdown
    Jun 11 2025
    It’s a real friends and enemies episode of TMK. We get into the messy breakup between Trump and Musk, then talk about the rekindling relationship between Palmer Luckey and Mark Zuckerberg, before ending with OpenAI trying to forge a new tier lists of countries who support “democratic AI” (aka friends of America), countries who aren’t yet doing enough to support “democratic AI” but could upgrade to friend status, and countries who are “CCP-led China” (aka enemies of America), plus we learn more about a man who Sam Altman describes as a “dear personal friend.” ••• Live Updates: Trump Threatens to Cut Musk’s Government Contracts as Online Feud Escalates https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/05/us/trump-elon-musk ••• Builder.ai Faked Business With Indian Firm VerSe to Inflate Sales, Sources Say https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-30/builder-ai-faked-business-with-indian-firm-verse-to-inflate-sales-sources-say ••• Builder.ai collapses after revelation that its "AI" was hundreds of engineers techspot.com/news/108173-builderai-collapses-after-revelation-ai-hundreds-engineers.html ••• Meta Fired Palmer Luckey. Now, They’re Teaming Up on a Defense Contract. https://www.wsj.com/tech/meta-army-vr-headsets-anduril-palmer-luckey-142ab72a ••• Whose National Security? OpenAI’s Vision for American Techno-Dominance https://theintercept.com/2025/06/03/openai-sam-altman-trump-china/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • 408. Synthetic Text Extruder Hype (ft. Emily Bender, Alex Hanna)

    408. Synthetic Text Extruder Hype (ft. Emily Bender, Alex Hanna)
    Jun 4 2025
    We chat with Emily Bender and Alex Hanna — authors of AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want — and pierce the veil of hype by getting into how these systems actually work and, importantly, the work they cannot do despite claims by boosters and doomers alike. Think of datasets like ImageNet or LAION-5B as big vats of pink slime and LLMs like ChatGPT as “synthetic text extruding machines” that turn pink slime into nuggets of text. It’s easy to forget that these magical mystery machines are direct descendants of very unexciting things like “T9 word.” We end the episode by chatting about why we shouldn’t trust the hype about how AI is going to destroy (or revolutionize) the education sector. ••• The AI Con | Emily Bender and Alex Hanna https://thecon.ai/ ••• On the genealogy of machine learning datasets: A critical history of ImageNet https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20539517211035955 ••• Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • Patreon Preview – 407. Burn Notice

    Patreon Preview – 407. Burn Notice
    May 29 2025
    [Note: sorry for the lateness, blame sickness. Also, we are doing two premium episodes in a row to change up our schedule because we’re interviewing authors of a new book next week and want it to be a free one. Don’t worry, the next two episodes will be free ones to even things out.] We’ve eaten our veggies, so now it’s time for dessert as we do a full episode reading series of a new profile about Kara Swisher and learn how to dominate the podcast leaderboards by becoming new media entrepreneurs. ••• How Kara Swisher Scaled Even Higher https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/business/media/kara-swisher-podcasts.html ••• Is Scott Galloway the Howard Stern of the Business World? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/style/scott-galloway.html ••• Winners of an ‘Exclusive Invitation’ to Dine With Trump Will Gather Tonight https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-memecoin-dinner.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    7 mins
  • Patreon Preview – 406. The Golden Path

    Patreon Preview – 406. The Golden Path
    May 20 2025
    We talk about Pope Le(t)o’s striking critiques of AI and the needs for luddism to be an intersectional movement. Then we get into the Republicans’ advocacy for AI rights over States’ rights, which contributes to a greater hollowing out of government capacity at all levels in an attempt to usher in the great fracturing of society into zones of special economic interest. Finally we sketch a vision of a bold future of post-apartheid integration sparked by Grok’s obsession with white genocide. ••• Will Pope Leo XIV be an ally against AI? https://www.disconnect.blog/p/will-pope-leo-xiv-be-an-ally-against ••• The Franciscan monk helping the Vatican take on — and tame — AI https://www.ft.com/content/1fa17d8b-5902-4aff-a69d-419b96722c83 ••• Republicans propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/republican-budget-bill-ai-laws ••• Republicans Try to Cram Ban on AI Regulation Into Budget Reconciliation Bill https://www.404media.co/republicans-try-to-cram-ban-on-ai-regulation-into-budget-reconciliation-bill/ ••• AI agents: from co-pilot to autopilot https://www.ft.com/content/3e862e23-6e2c-4670-a68c-e204379fe01f ••• Insurers launch cover for losses caused by AI chatbot errors https://www.ft.com/content/1d35759f-f2a9-46c4-904b-4a78ccc027df Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    9 mins
  • 405. AI is the Demon God of Capital (ft. Hagen Blix)

    405. AI is the Demon God of Capital (ft. Hagen Blix)
    May 13 2025
    We chat with linguist and cognitive scientist Hagen Blix about his new book Why We Fear AI (co-authored with computer scientist Ingeborg Glimmer) about how the technical qualities of AI – especially LLM chatbots – take the alienation (and seemingly alien power) of capital to the next level. What happens when the social logic of capital — which appears to be a motive force with no motivator — is channeled through generative technologies that appear to be texts with no author? People see an entity that must be feared and worshipped. ••• Why We Fear AI | Hagen Blix & Ingeborg Glimmer https://www.commonnotions.org/why-we-fear-ai ••• https://www.If A.I. Systems Become Conscious, Should They Have Rights? nytimes.com/2025/04/24/technology/ai-welfare-anthropic-claude.html ••• Marx’s Comments on James Mill http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Patreon Preview – 404. The Parasites that Control Pharmaceutical Prices

    Patreon Preview – 404. The Parasites that Control Pharmaceutical Prices
    May 7 2025
    We take a deep dive into the lesser-known industry of “pharmacy benefits managers” (PBMs) which are parasitical companies that sit in the middle of the incredibly consolidated and vertically integrated market of pharmaceuticals <=> hospitals <=> insurers <=> pharmacy benefits managers <=> pharmacies. Through the simple administrative business of making lists of drugs and networks of pharmacies, PBMs have managed to carve out a multi-billion dollar rent-seeking industry premised on controlling (and jacking up) how much drugs cost and where you can get them—and extracting as much money as possible from people who need those drugs. ••• Timeline of FTC lawsuit against PBMs and relevant documents: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/221-0114-caremark-rx-zinc-health-services-et-al-matter-insulin ••• Concurring Statement of Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Ferguson-Statement-Pharmacy-Benefit-Managers-Report.pdf ••• Market Power and Inequality: The Antitrust Counterrevolution and Its Discontents | Lina Khan and Sandeep Vaheesan https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2790/ ••• Inside the Mafia of Pharma Pricing | Matt Stoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/inside-the-mafia-of-pharma-pricing ••• A brief look at current debates about pharmacy benefit managers https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-brief-look-at-current-debates-about-pharmacy-benefit-managers/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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    8 mins