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

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)

340. With AI Friends Like These, Who Needs Society?

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)

Patreon Preview – 341. Cyber Freak Beat

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)

342. Superalignment with Sam Altman’s Values

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)

Patreon Preview – 343. Broken Windows Redux

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)

344. How Uber Weaponizes Complexity to Abuse Workers and Bully States

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)

Patreon Preview – 345. Thuggish Ruggish Live Nation

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)

346. The Insulin Empire, Part 1 (ft. Athena Sofides)

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)

Patreon Preview – 347. The Insulin Empire, Part 2 (ft. Athena Sofides)

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)

348. Lost Futures of AI (ft. Evgeny Morozov)

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.

342. Superalignment with Sam Altman’s Values

This Machine Kills

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