Episodi
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Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss the fallout from the US election, what it means for the tech industry, and more importantly, what it might mean for all of us. They also celebrate the show hitting 250 episodes!
Brian wrote about the results of the election on his newsletter.Paris wrote about why we need to remember who enabled Elon Musk to obtain his power.There are already reports of advertisers returning to Twitter/X to gain favor with Musk and Trump.OpenAI is moving away from its original non-profit status.Uber chief legal officer Tony West told Kamala Harris to stop attacking big business.
Brian Merchant is a longtime tech writer and author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
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Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldnât go to waste. Starting this week, weâre releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Hereâs a preview of this weekâs premium episode with Ali Alkhatib, Logic(s) data editor and former interim director of the Center for Applied Data Ethics. For the full interview, support the show over on Patreon.
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Paris Marx is joined by tante to discuss troubling developments in the open source world as Wordpress goes to war with WP Engine and a new definition of open source AI doesnât require being open about training data.
tante wrote about the problem with the Open Source Initiativeâs definition of open source AI.Check out this link for the full breakdown on the Wordpress drama.Wordpress changed its trademark guidelines on September 19 regarding the use of the WP abbreviation.Tumblr and Wordpress started selling user data for AI training earlier this year.A lot of the controversy around Richard Stallman started blowing up in 2019.
tante is a sociotechnologist, writer, speaker, and Luddite working on tech and its social impact.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss all the money Elon Musk is pouring into the US election and what Silicon Valleyâs political influence will mean regardless of who becomes president.
The New York Times reported on Elon Muskâs efforts to get Trump elected in the final two weeks of the campaign.The Pennsylvania district attorney sued Elon Muskâs PAC to stop his $1 million giveaways.Marc Andreessen wrote the Techno-Optimist Manifesto and the Little Tech Agenda.FTX was up to way more shady things that didnât make it into the first trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. The second didnât go ahead after he was found guilty in the first.The canvassing operation for Trump by Elon Musk's PAC has been flagged as potentially fraudulent.The US Supreme Courtâs Chevron decision will have significant consequences for federal regulators.
Jacob Silverman is the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, coming in September 2025 from Bloomsbury. His book Easy Money is now available in paperback.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Tech billionaires are embracing extreme right-wing politics. Itâs not just to enhance their power, but to try to realize a harmful vision for humanityâs future that could see humans merging with machines and possibly even living in computer simulations. Will we allow them to put our collective resources behind their science fiction dreams, or fight for a better future and a different kind of technology to go along with it? This is episode 4 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Wonât Save Us.
Postdoctoral candidate at Case Western Reserve University Ămile P. Torres, features reporter at The Information Julia Black, Goldsmiths University lecturer Dan McQuillan, and former head of the Center for Applied Data Ethics Ali Alkhatib were interviewed for this episode.Pieces by Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, and an interview with Elon Musk were cited.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry to discuss how Silicon Valley's extractive data collection regime and the power it grants them resembles a much older form of exploitation: colonialism.
Read an excerpt of Ulises and Nickâs book.Ulises has helped advance the Non-Aligned Technologies Movement.The World Economic Forum and Accenture published a report on governance of AI.Geoffrey Hinton was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics. Paris wrote about why we shouldnât trust his assessment of AI.Google told the UK Labour government it will be left behind in the AI race if it doesnât do what the company demands.Data centers use 21% of electricity in Ireland, and number that could jump to 31% within the next three years.Home building in West London could be restricted until 2035 because data centers have used up the available energy.Kenya is being drafted into the USâs anti-China tech alliance, which includes building data centers while ignoring the poor working conditions of data labelers and content moderators.
Ulises A. Mejias is a professor of Communication Studies at SUNY Oswego and Nick Couldry is a professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics. They are the co-authors of Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back and among the co-founders of the network Tierra ComĂșn.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Sam Altman is clear: heâs ready to sacrifice anything for his AI fantasies. But are we? We dig into why generative AI has such extreme energy demands and how major tech companies are trying to rewrite climate accounting rules to cover how much their emissions are rising. AI isnât just churning out visual slop; itâs also being used to transform how our society works and further reduce peopleâs power over their lives. Itâs a disaster any way you look at it. This is episode 3 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Wonât Save Us.
Hugging Face Climate Lead Sasha Luccioni, Associate Professor in Economics Cecilia Rikap, former head of the Center for Applied Data Ethics Ali Alkhatib, Goldsmiths University lecturer Dan McQuillan, and Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute Alex Hanna were interviewed for this episode.Interviews with Sam Altman and Brad Smith were cited.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Julia Black to discuss who Curtis Yarvin is and how his anti-democratic, far-right writings have influenced the politics of Silicon Valley and the wider American extreme right.
Julia wrote about Curtis Yarvin and his ideas for The Information. She also wrote about the Musk-aligned tech CEOs trying to shape how we think about the future.Paris wrote about Marc Andreessenâs Techno-Optimist Manifesto.The Dark Enlightenment is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian political project.Gil Duran wrote about the Reboot Conference and how it put the connections between the tech industry and the Heritage Foundation on display.The Heritage Foundation is flooding federal agencies with thousands of information requests to identify government employees to be purged under a second Trump administration.Peter Thiel wanted Balaji Srinivasan to become head of the Federal Drug Administration under the Trump presidency.According to Nick Land, hyperstition refers to ideas that bring themselves into being.
Julia Black is a features reporter on The Informationâs Weekend Team.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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As hyperscale data centers move into communities, they come with significant water and energy demands that some are not willing to put up with. We go to Ireland, Spain, and Chile to learn about the effects of data centers on the ground and why some communities are fighting back. Theyâre asking whether the tradeoffs theyâre being expected to make are really necessary. This is episode 2 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Wonât Save Us.
People Before Profit TD Brid Smith, Tu Nube Seca Mi RĂo organizer Aurora Gomez Delgado, and Kingâs College London lecturer Sebastian Lehuede were interviewed for this episode.Some pieces by Dara Kerr in NPR, Sarah Emerson and Emily Baker-White in Forbes, and Hannah Daly in The Irish Times were cited.A full transcript can be found on the showâs official website.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the past year of Israel's actions in Palestine and the innovations in war technology being used to carry out what the ICJ has deemed a "plausible" genocide in Gaza.
Spencer wrote a piece marking a year since October 7 for Zeteo. Heâs also written about the Lebanon pager attack and Israelâs innovation with quadcopters.Yuval Abraham has written about the use of AI in Gaza and how Israel is relying on US cloud companies for military purposes.Roberto GonzĂĄlez wrote a paper about the links between Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.
Spencer Ackerman is a Pulitzer-prize winning author of Reign of Terror. Heâs a contributor at Zeteo and publishes the Forever Wars newsletter. Heâs also writing a new series of Iron Man comics that come out very soon.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the dominant players in the cloud market. Around the world, theyâre building massive hyperscale data centers that they claim are necessary to power the future of our digital existence. But they also increase their power over other companies and come with massive resource demands communities are getting fed up with. Is their future really the one we want? This is episode 1 of Data Vampires, a special four-part series from Tech Wonât Save Us.
Senior cloud consultant Dwayne Monroe and Associate Professor in Economics Cecilia Rikap were interviewed for this episode.Interviews with Jeff Bezos and The Oregonian journalist Mike Rogoway were cited.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The show is hosted by Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Karl Bode to discuss how Mark Zuckerberg's makeover and the PR campaign thatâs accompanied it shouldnât distract from the ongoing harms of his company.
Paris wrote about the problem with the âZuckessanceâ for Disconnect.The New York Times published an article about the political evolution of Mark Zuckerberg.Facebookâs Free Basics was widely called out for being a form of digital colonialism.Joel Kaplan was a key figure within Facebook defending right-wing content from effective moderation.Neil Postman wrote the book Amusing Ourselves to Death in 1985.
Karl Bode is a freelance tech journalist and consumer rights reporter.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Tamara Kneese to discuss the difficult question of what happens to our digital presence after we die and why some tech billionaires are so desperate to make themselves into chatbots.
Tamara wrote some pieces on AI and death for Wired and The Baffler.
Tamara Kneese is a researcher, organizer, and author of Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss the recent ruling that Google is a monopolist, what consequences it might face, and what lessons we can learn from the Microsoft antitrust case in the early 2000s.
Rob has written about the Google antitrust case and its likely outcomes.Paris also wrote about why it wonât solve the problems with the internet.Watch a highlight reel of Bill Gates' deposition on YouTube.Google has been deemed to have an illegal monopoly in online search.A second trial over Googleâs monopolistic position in the online ads market is ongoing.The Obama administration let Google off the hook a decade ago.Some tech billionaire donors are pushing Kamala Harris to remove Lina Khan as head of the Federal Trade Commission if she becomes president.
Rob Larson is the author of Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More and Professor of Economics at Tacoma Community College.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Matt Pearce to discuss how Google sidestepped two California bills aimed at funding journalism and how major tech companies are transforming the web to make hyperlinks less relevant.
Matt wrote about the disingenuous arguments against the California Journalism Preservation Act and the changing nature of hyperlinks online.Google sidestepped the two California bills to carve out a separate deal that includes funding for an AI initiative.When you compare per capita public broadcast funding across wealthy nations, Canada is near the bottom, but the United States is barely on the chart.Google will distribute $100 million to news publishers in Canada after a bargaining process there.Digital media companies have been doing layoffs and shutting down in droves.The New York Times used AI to assist in identifying the deadly weapons Israel is using against the people of Gaza.The Media Ecosystem Observatory looked at the effects of Meta's news ban on its platforms in Canada.
Matt Pearce is the President of Media Guild of the West and a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Taylor Welling and Kathryn Friesen to discuss how they formed wall-to-wall unions in the video game industry and their thoughts on broader challenges like layoffs and corporate consolidation.
OneBGS and the World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild each won their union votes in July 2024.More video game workers have already been laid off in 2024 than did in all of 2023.Microsoft and the Communication Workers of America signed a labor neutrality agreement in 2022, to take effect 60 days after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard closed. In May, that agreement was extended to ZeniMax Studios.Microsoft laid off 1,900 gaming workers in January and closed four internal studios in May.Blizzard provides swords, shields, and helmets to employees celebrating 5, 10, and 20 years at the company.The ZeniMax Workers Union struck an agreement with their employer on the use of AI.Nicole Carpenter at Polygon put together a list of video game unions and an explainer on the rise of video game unions.Communication Workers of America has more information on unionizing as part of their CODE-CWA campaign.
Taylor Welling is a producer and union member at OneBGS and Kathryn Friesen is quest designer and member of the World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Mohammad Khatami and Gabi Schubiner to discuss the complicity of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in Israelâs ongoing genocide in Gaza and how tech workers are organizing to stop it.
Find out more about No Tech for Apartheid from their website. Microsoft workers have also launched No Azure for Apartheid.Yuval Abraham reported on the Israeli militaryâs use of Amazon, Google, and Microsoftâs cloud services and AI in Gaza.Mohammad wrote about being fired by Google in The New Arab.Gabi refers to JWCC, with is a reference to the Department of Defense Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle.Google fired 50 workers earlier this year for organizing over its ties to Israel.The Information reported on how many Arab Americans in tech are scared to speak out in support of Palestinians for fear of retaliation.In 1970, Polaroid workers under the banner of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement began the first anti-apartheid boycott of a US company by organizing against their employerâs complicity in South African apartheid.The IBM Black Workers Alliance was central to the anti-apartheid campaign at that company.
Mohammad Khatami and Gabi Schubiner are former Google software engineers and organizers with No Tech for Apartheid.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Molly White to discuss why the crypto industry is spending millions on this election cycle and Coinbaseâs potential breach of election finance law.
Molly wrote about the Coinbase campaign finance violation and Donald Trumpâs Bitcoin conference speech in her newsletter.Paris wrote about some of the concerns about Kamala Harrisâ stance on tech.Fairshake spent $10 million on attacks ads against Katie Porter in California. It spent millions more targeting Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.The crypto industry hates SEC head Gary Gensler, who is leading the regulatory effort against cryptocurrency.
Molly White writes the Citation Needed newsletter. She is the creator of Web3 Is Going Just Great and Follow the Crypto.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Hussein Kesvani to discuss the far-right attacks that happened after the Southport stabbing in the UK and how larger structural issues in media, politics, and tech laid the groundwork for violence against visible minorities.
The stabbing in Southport resulted in the deaths of three children and injuries to eight children and two adults.After days of far-right attacks, there were large anti-fascist and anti-racist demonstrations across the UK.Some fascists attacked hotels housing asylum seekers, but in places like Bristol, locals started defending the hotels.In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell delivered the ârivers of bloodâ speech.Elon Musk has been sharing a series of incendiary posts and false information that have helped fuel these attacks.The billionaireâs changes to Twitter have helped fuel right-wing misinformation.
Hussein Kesvani is a co-host of Trashfuture and Ten Thousand Posts.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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Paris Marx is joined by Luke LeBrun and Rachel Gilmore to discuss Shopify's connection to right-wing politics, through its interpersonal connection to a far-right news outlet and its reluctance to enforce its content policy on users selling hateful merchandise through their platform.
Luke reported on Shopify COO Kaz Nejatianâs involvement in and funding of a right-wing Canadian ânewsâ website called True North.Rachel reported on Shopifyâs decisions not to disable support for stores that sell fraudulent goods and promote hate thatâs in violation of their Acceptable Use Policy. She recently pointed out a series of stores Shopify still supports that sell Nazi memorabilia.Last year, an anonymous former Shopify worker spoke out about the right-wing culture at the company. Rachel confirmed the person had worked for Shopify.In 2022, Tobi Lutke was granted a âfounderâs share,â guaranteeing him 40% voting power. 46% of shareholders voted against the proposal.Shopify found itself in the spotlight in 2021 when employees found a noose emoji had been added to the companyâs Slack system.Shopify President Harley Finkelstein has been publicly opposing plans to raise taxes on capital gains. Only 0.13% of Canadians will be paying more tax under the plan.Some right-wing figures in Canada deny the truth of the residential schools.
Luke LeBrun is the editor of PressProgress and Rachel Gilmore is an independent journalist.
Tech Wonât Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
Also mentioned in this episode:Support the show
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