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)

302. God is the Machine

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)

309. Does the World Feel $800 Billion Better?

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)

311. Selling Pickaxes for the AI Gold Rush

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 

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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)

313. The Web of Death (ft. Tamara Kneese)

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

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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)

315. Net Zero Change in the Tech Sector (Ft. Mel Gregg)

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)

Patreon Preview – 316. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Ch. 10

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)

317. The Art and Science of Communism, Part 1 (ft. Nick Chavez, Phil Neel)

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)

*Unlocked* – 312. Not Paid Content for Jungle Jim’s

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)

Patreon Preview – 319. A Visit from the Smiling Man (ft. Ed Zitron)

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)

320. How the World Became Uninsurable

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 

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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)

Patreon Preview – 321. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Ch. 11

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)

322. Nvidia: 2 Boom 2 Bust

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)

Patreon Preview – 323. The Supermarket into Prison Pipeline

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 

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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)

324. Dune Dudes 2 // Evicting RENTMaximizer

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)

Patreon Preview – 325. Medium Anxiety

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/ 

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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)

326. The Problem With America’s Ban on TikTok

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 

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Patreon Preview – 327. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Ch. 12

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 

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328. The Universal Science of Advertisement (ft. Lee McGuigan)

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/ 

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Patreon Preview – 329. Surging Forward

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 

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330. The Silicon Empire in Eastern Europe (ft. Erin McElroy)

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   

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Patreon Preview – 331. TMK BC5: Mute Compulsion, Ch. 13

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 

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332. Opening the Vicious Circle of Risk Rating (ft. Ariel Bogle)

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   

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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)

Patreon Preview – 333. JSOC for the Environment

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)

334. Israel’s AI Kill List: “Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy.”

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)

Patreon Preview – 335. Seto Kaiba is My Role Model

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)

336. A History of Fossil Empire in Palestine, Part 1

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)

Premium – 337. A History of Fossil Empire in Palestine, Part 2

[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)

*Unlocked* – 333. JSOC for the Environment

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)

338. Certified Rap Beef // Campus Actions, Deranged Reactions

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)

Patreon Preview – 339. Reality is Downstream from the Unreal Engine

A podcast about technology and political economy /// Agitprop against innovation and capital /// Hosted by Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr., Produced by Jereme Brown /// Hello friends and enemies

Listen anywhere that fine podcasts are distributed. Subscribe at patreon.com/thismachinekills to get premium episodes every week.

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