Julian Feeld of The QAnon Anonymous Podcast joins Abby Martin to discuss the origins of the movement, what the media got wrong, what it has evolved into and it's resonance among those in power: from Elon Musk to Republicans in Congress. 

Check out the work of QAA at https://www.qanonanonymous.com
FOLLOW Julian at https://twitter.com/julianfeeld
SUPPORT Empire Files, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, at https://www.patreon.com/empirefiles

The QAnon Era w/ Julian Feeld

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   

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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)

225. How AI Makes Living Labor Undead

Everything you remember about the Cambridge Analytica scandal is probably wrong—from its power to swing elections to the so-called whistleblower who saved democracy. Julian Feeld of The QAnon Anonymous Podcast is back to discuss their major revelations about this memory-holed story. 

Check out QAA's investigation here: https://www.qanonanonymous.com
FOLLOW Julian at https://twitter.com/julianfeeld
SUPPORT Empire Files, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, at https://www.patreon.com/empirefiles

MUSIC by Anahedron

Cambridge Analytica: The Mindf*ck That Wasn’t

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   

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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)

227. Don’t Bootstrap the Eschaton

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)

234. Supermarket Data Sweep!

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)

238. Ventures in Capitalist Innovation, Part 1: History and Mechanics

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)

*Unlocked* – 241. Euthanasia of Silicon Valley Bank (ft. Brian Merchant)

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)

243. GPT-4 and the Politics of OpaqueAI (ft. Abeba Birhane)

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)

249/250. We Built This City on Authenticity (ft. David A. Banks)

Hosts Josh and Jamie and special guests Brendan James and Noah Kulwin (of Blowback) discuss 80s Red Scare anti-communist action trash made by legitimate right-wing psychos with a double feature of John Milius' RED DAWN (1984) + Joseph Zito's RED SCORPION (1988). Next week's episode is a patron-exclusive bonus episode on Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT (1972) and WIZARDS (1977), you can get access to that episode (and all past + future bonus episodes) by subscribing to our $5 tier on Patreon: www.patreon.com/sleazoidspodcast

Intro // 00:00-10:33
RED DAWN // 10:33-1:29:51
RED SCORPION //1:29:51-2:31:14
Outro // 2:31:14-2:35:14

Check out Brendan and Noah's podcast:
https://blowback.show/

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Josh's Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/thejoshl

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287 - RED DAWN (1984) + RED SCORPION (1988) ft. Brendan James & Noah Kulwin

For our very special 100th episode we go into the new Paris Hilton documentary, which leads us to a discussion on the murders, suicides, rapes and disappearances frequently found in the Troubled Teen Industry, and Brace's experience with the same. Thanks to all you gumshoes for listening -- stay to the end for the full TrueAnon theme music!!!

Episode 100: Brat Camp

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

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238. Ventures in Capitalist Innovation, Part 1: History and Mechanics

This Machine Kills

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