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

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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)

231. Paris Syndrome

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!

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)

Matt Christman goes off live on http://www.twitch.tv/chapotraphouse
Topics: What happens when you die.

Grill Stream

243 - Spoiler Alert: What Happens When You Die 03.24.23

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)

245. Shook Ones (Tech Style)

We talk Harry Belafonte, Philadelphia, AOC, etc. But first, former president Donald J Trump breaks it down dialectical style.

SORRY THE AUDIO WAS FUCKED UP, I FIXED IT MY BAD Y'ALL

SHOWS

PAID PROTEST
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JAKE IN AUSTIN
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MERCH
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PATREON + DISCORD
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Leneen (FIXED AUDIO, SORRY MAN)

Yeah I'm thinking we're back. Back with a big one. Back with Bono. He wrote a memoir called Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story and we're podcasting all about it. Well, not all about it, but about half of it, because Bono's book is so meaty that it requires a two-part podcast. We dig into Bono's early life in bubblin' Dublin, the crucial single week where he asked out his wife and joined U2, his political awakening and initial transition into "foreign dignitary," and the time he made a Parmesan cheese sandwich at Paul McGuinness's house. It's a wild ride, and an Irish one. Missed you guys :)

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Songs in the episode:
"With Or Without You (8-Bit U2 Cover)" - 8-Bit Misfits
"Teenage Kicks" - The Undertones
"I Will Follow" - U2
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" - U2
"Pride (In The Name of Love)" - U2
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" Band Aid
"Where The Streets Have No Name" - U2
"Where The Streets Have No Name (Live)" - The Killers
"Big Boy" - Viagra Boys and Jason Williamson
"The Fly" - U2

And Introducing

#116 BONO! pt. 1

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)

253. The Cold War Origins and Future of Today’s AI

BPRA, WGA, NJP (No Jake Podcast), it's all here

Up The WGA
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https://nedadavarpanah.com/

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON + DISCORD
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Big Sky Country w/ Neda Davarpanah

more pai mei please 

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generationlosspod@gmail.com

352 // Kill Bill (2003,2004)

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

This Machine Kills

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