We chat with Emily Bender and Alex Hanna — authors of AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want — and pierce the veil of hype by getting into how these systems actually work and, importantly, the work they cannot do despite claims by boosters and doomers alike. Think of datasets like ImageNet or LAION-5B as big vats of pink slime and LLMs like ChatGPT as “synthetic text extruding machines” that turn pink slime into nuggets of text. It’s easy to forget that these magical mystery machines are direct descendants of very unexciting things like “T9 word.” We end the episode by chatting about why we shouldn’t trust the hype about how AI is going to destroy (or revolutionize) the education sector. ••• The AI Con | Emily Bender and Alex Hanna https://thecon.ai/ ••• On the genealogy of machine learning datasets: A critical history of ImageNet https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20539517211035955 ••• Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

[Note: sorry for the lateness, blame sickness. Also, we are doing two premium episodes in a row to change up our schedule because we’re interviewing authors of a new book next week and want it to be a free one. Don’t worry, the next two episodes will be free ones to even things out.] We’ve eaten our veggies, so now it’s time for dessert as we do a full episode reading series of a new profile about Kara Swisher and learn how to dominate the podcast leaderboards by becoming new media entrepreneurs. ••• How Kara Swisher Scaled Even Higher https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/business/media/kara-swisher-podcasts.html ••• Is Scott Galloway the Howard Stern of the Business World? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/style/scott-galloway.html ••• Winners of an ‘Exclusive Invitation’ to Dine With Trump Will Gather Tonight https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-memecoin-dinner.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We talk about Pope Le(t)o’s striking critiques of AI and the needs for luddism to be an intersectional movement. Then we get into the Republicans’ advocacy for AI rights over States’ rights, which contributes to a greater hollowing out of government capacity at all levels in an attempt to usher in the great fracturing of society into zones of special economic interest. Finally we sketch a vision of a bold future of post-apartheid integration sparked by Grok’s obsession with white genocide. ••• Will Pope Leo XIV be an ally against AI? https://www.disconnect.blog/p/will-pope-leo-xiv-be-an-ally-against ••• The Franciscan monk helping the Vatican take on — and tame — AI https://www.ft.com/content/1fa17d8b-5902-4aff-a69d-419b96722c83 ••• Republicans propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/republican-budget-bill-ai-laws ••• Republicans Try to Cram Ban on AI Regulation Into Budget Reconciliation Bill https://www.404media.co/republicans-try-to-cram-ban-on-ai-regulation-into-budget-reconciliation-bill/ ••• AI agents: from co-pilot to autopilot https://www.ft.com/content/3e862e23-6e2c-4670-a68c-e204379fe01f ••• Insurers launch cover for losses caused by AI chatbot errors https://www.ft.com/content/1d35759f-f2a9-46c4-904b-4a78ccc027df Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We chat with linguist and cognitive scientist Hagen Blix about his new book Why We Fear AI (co-authored with computer scientist Ingeborg Glimmer) about how the technical qualities of AI – especially LLM chatbots – take the alienation (and seemingly alien power) of capital to the next level. What happens when the social logic of capital — which appears to be a motive force with no motivator — is channeled through generative technologies that appear to be texts with no author? People see an entity that must be feared and worshipped. ••• Why We Fear AI | Hagen Blix & Ingeborg Glimmer https://www.commonnotions.org/why-we-fear-ai ••• https://www.If A.I. Systems Become Conscious, Should They Have Rights? nytimes.com/2025/04/24/technology/ai-welfare-anthropic-claude.html ••• Marx’s Comments on James Mill http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We take a deep dive into the lesser-known industry of “pharmacy benefits managers” (PBMs) which are parasitical companies that sit in the middle of the incredibly consolidated and vertically integrated market of pharmaceuticals <=> hospitals <=> insurers <=> pharmacy benefits managers <=> pharmacies. Through the simple administrative business of making lists of drugs and networks of pharmacies, PBMs have managed to carve out a multi-billion dollar rent-seeking industry premised on controlling (and jacking up) how much drugs cost and where you can get them—and extracting as much money as possible from people who need those drugs. ••• Timeline of FTC lawsuit against PBMs and relevant documents: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/221-0114-caremark-rx-zinc-health-services-et-al-matter-insulin ••• Concurring Statement of Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Ferguson-Statement-Pharmacy-Benefit-Managers-Report.pdf ••• Market Power and Inequality: The Antitrust Counterrevolution and Its Discontents | Lina Khan and Sandeep Vaheesan https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2790/ ••• Inside the Mafia of Pharma Pricing | Matt Stoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/inside-the-mafia-of-pharma-pricing ••• A brief look at current debates about pharmacy benefit managers https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-brief-look-at-current-debates-about-pharmacy-benefit-managers/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

It’s slop world, baby! We get into how the internet has become choked by artificial intelligence systems focused on the endless production, circulation, and consumption of slop and shit. This is driven by the continual capture and recapture of deep fried forms of value, instead of actually producing anything new or useful. This leads to an internet that is hostile to human existence—where people are unwelcomed and unnecessary. We trace the degradation of the internet from information superhighway to hostile architecture to abandoned infrastructure. ••• Welcome to slop world: how the hostile internet is driving us crazy https://www.ft.com/content/5d06bbb4-0034-493b-8b0d-5c0ab74bedef ••• AI hype is drowning in slopaganda https://www.ft.com/content/24218775-57b1-4e9f-ba64-266a3239cf27 Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We return to an old enemy of the show by discussing the latest developments in the crypto industry. We trace how crypto has evolved from a grift largely focused on defrauding retail investors into a grift now focused on creating financial infrastructure to facilitate very direct and obvious forms of political influence peddling. Of course, the Greater Idiot Theory still holds as many investors still think that bitcoin is a hedge against the stock market and a reservere of stable value in a volatile economy, but the crypto industry is now driven by the needs of the greatest idiots of them all: Donald J. Trump and Family. Also, here are links for the pictures we were joking about in the beginning: https://x.com/captgouda24/status/1913254322864894178 and https://x.com/luke_d_ismas/status/1913406583188369497 ••• Crypto Crime is Legal | Molly White https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-81/ ••• Trump’s Newest Grift: Building a Cryptocurrency Empire While Destroying its Regulators | Molly White https://www.citationneeded.news/trump-crypto-empire/ ••• TMK in the New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/21/how-to-survive-the-ai-revolution Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We are joined by yet another TMK favorite, Quinn Slobodian, who is author of Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right. We discuss Quinn’s analysis of “new fusionism” or a mutant strain of neoliberalism that crystallized in the 1990s, which sought to ground and defend neoliberal policies through their own bastardization of biological sciences — cognitive, behavioral, evolutionary, genetic, and so on. They then used scientism to justify and propagate political ideas and economic models based on hardwired human nature and hierarchical differences between races, cultures, and intelligence. The fringes of the 1990s have now become the mainstream of the 2020s. ••• Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right | Quinn Slobodian https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9781890951917/hayeks-bastards Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We have a big chat with Malcolm Harris about his new book — What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis — which takes seriously the fact that “the whole total world is in crisis” and then seriously advances three different ways to understand, confront, and overcome these disastrous conditions. We walk through the pathways that Malcolm stakes out — marketcraft, public power, and communism — and use the bland discourse around Abundance as a foil for the far more incisive analysis he lays out in What’s Left. ••• What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis | Malcolm Harris https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/whats-left/9780316577434/ ••• Malcolm’s book tour https://linktr.ee/WhatsLeftTour ••• Malcolm’s review of Abundance https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundance-harris Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We are joined by Katie Wells — Director of Research at Groundwork Collaborative — to discuss her new report with the Fairwork Project which examines the current labor conditions in the gig platform market in the US. We chat about how core features of the broader economy are becoming extremely abnormal — prices are no longer fixed and standard, income is piecemeal and unstable, people can use short-term credit to buy their fast food dinner, platform services are integrating with and replacing government services. The abnormalities keep piling up until they become the new normal. Plus we draw connections between the managerial techniques of platform companies and private equity firms. ••• Fairwork US Ratings 2025: When AI Eats the Manager https://fair.work/en/fw/publications/fairwork-us-ratings-2025/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We try to figure out what the fuck is happening in the US as we chat about the low rent car commercial at the White House, the human shields of cops protecting Tesla dealerships, how Musk has become (by his own actions) a scapegoat for the public’s hatred, and the ongoing disintegration of social bonds and moral solidarity under a fascist regime. Plus a new data analysis system called ShadowDragon that is supercharging the surveillance capabilities of ICE, DEA, DoS, and more. We endeavor to analyze the abyss, organize against the abyss, but not get caught staring into the abyss. ••• Stalled Audits and a Skeleton Staff: Inside Trump’s War on the I.R.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/us/politics/irs-taxes-trump-musk-federal-workers.html ••• The Abduction of Mahmoud Khalil https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-abduction-of-mahmoud-khalil ••• Yale Suspends Scholar After A.I.-Powered News Site Accuses Her of Terrorist Link https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/us/yale-suspends-scholar-terrorism.html ••• The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is Monitoring https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We dig into a grand theory that Ed is building through a series of essays on the AI industry and the Silicon Valley Consensus, or how “a bunch of independent profit-seeking actors have converged on sustaining a certain technology through a frenzy of overbuilding, overvaluing, and overinvesting in order to realize excessive gains that can be translated into political power aimed at restructuring society.” ••• The Silicon Valley Consensus & AI Capex (Part 1) https://thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-silicon-valley-consensus-and Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We run through a roundup of recent stories about how different types of AI are already having real, material, immediate impacts on people’s lives — including AI facial recognition used by police to shortcut actually investigating crimes, AI systems used by bosses to monitor, control, and threaten to replace human workers, AI tools for coding that are actively deskilling programmers. Across these examples, AI is treated as a convenient justification and scapegoat by those who use the systems to do awful things to other people. Then we end on up note about a new organization that’s training lawyers and advocates how to fight back against forms of algorithmic discrimination by government agencies. ••• Arrested by AI: Police ignore standards after facial recognition matches https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/police-artificial-intelligence-facial-recognition/ ••• Your boss is watching https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/24/1111664/worker-monitoring-employee-surveillance/ ••• AI is Creating a Generation of Illiterate Programmers https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-illiterate-programmers ••• New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-learning ••• Rage Against The Algorithm https://www.levernews.com/rage-against-the-algorithm/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We chat with Eric Blanc — author of the new book We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big — about how the model of labor organizing through grassroots, horizontal movements is taking off in a huge way. This growing model of worker-to-worker organizing is challenging the conventional model of large, hierarchical unions. By enrolling millions of new workers into the labor movement, worker-to-worker organizing is building a stronger base for greater victories with long-lasting impact. Effective labor organizing is crucial for advancing social equality and democratic power—and our models of organizing should embody those values. ••• We Are the Union | Eric Blanc https://www.ucpress.edu/books/we-are-the-union ••• Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee https://workerorganizing.org/ ••• Save Our Public Services https://actionnetwork.org/forms/thank-you-for-taking-action-stay-in-the-fight/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We dig into DOGE. After some background on what Musk and his harem of broccoli-headed bozos have been up to as they strip the copper out of federal agencies, we zoom out to ask where did DOGE come from? Not just literally, but also politically (as a right-wing project of weaponizing and hollowing out the administrative state), materially (as the next phase in the relationship between tech/finance capital and the state), and ideologically (as the convergence of multiple right-wing movements who find common ground in Trump and Musk). In other words, we ask the question on everybody’s mind: Who let the DOGE out? ••• Speed up the Breakdown | Quinn Slobodian https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/02/15/speed-up-the-breakdown/ ••• The federal tech workers facing down DOGE | Brian Merchant https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-federal-tech-workers-facing-down ••• At Oval Office, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Federal Fraud Without Proof https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/trump-musk-oval-office.html ••• Trump and Musk Hunt for Corruption, Very Selectively https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/us/politics/trump-musk-corruption.html ••• Elon Musk’s Business Empire Scores Benefits Under Trump Shake-Up https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/elon-musk-companies-conflicts.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Jathan sits down with Sunaura Taylor—author of Disabled Ecologies—in her lab at UC Berkeley to discuss her excellent work which brings together critical disability studies with enironmental justice. Against the backdrop of her research on toxic waste dumps, military industires, racial capitalism, injured communities, and social movements in Tuscon, AZ, we explore the “expansive webs of injury” that now entrap everybody, giving rise to what Sunaura calls the Age of Disability. ••• Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert | Sunaura Taylor https://www.ucpress.edu/books/disabled-ecologies ••• Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation | Sunaura Taylor https://thenewpress.com/books/beasts-of-burden Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Ed and Jathan are together in the San Francisco Bay Area huddled over a single mic like a fire keeping us warm as we record an episode about DeepSeek before running off to our book launch event at City Lights (thanks all the wonderful TMK fans who made it a packed house!). DeepSeek, the disruptive new LLM from a Chinese startup / hedge fund, is being hailed as Silicon Valley’s “Sputnik moment.” We dig into how DeepSeek challenges the fundamental economics of the AI industry, while casting a skeptical eye on claims that DeepSeek solves any of the real problems of AI—financial, social, or political. ••• Deep Impact | Ed Zitron https://www.wheresyoured.at/deep-impact/ ••• DeepSeek sends a shockwave through markets https://www.economist.com/business/2025/01/27/deepseek-sends-a-shockwave-through-markets ••• The real meaning of the DeepSeek drama https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/01/29/the-real-meaning-of-the-deepseek-drama ••• OpenAI targets $300bn valuation in SoftBank-led funding round https://www.ft.com/content/2c697ff8-dfe9-4c42-a328-d21216293aa3 Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Ed is back from his gonzo reporting trip at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We hear all about the biggest themes, the most stupid products, the most dangerous lies, and the mountains of bullshit being created in the place where futures are made—or, at least, where expectations are manufactured and where beliefs are harvested. ••• Jathan’s essay on AI and Tinkerbell: https://futurism.com/ai-tinkerbell Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

[Due to the relevance of this episode — and requests from listeners in LA — we decided to make this week the free episode.] We get into the crossover between the LA wildfires and the FIRE industry – finance, insurance, real estate. Where most people see a hellscape of risk and loss, the FIRE industry also sees a landscape of opportunity and profit. First are reports of landlords and investors never letting a good crisis go to waste as the latter jack up rents for people who need places to stay after losing everything, while the former snatch up burnt homes using the discounts code “devastation.” Second we then get into the simple narratives and material dynamics of how the insurance industry is dealing with the wildfire’s aftermath by leaning into their victim complex while also hiking rates, restricting policies, denying claims, and agitating for regulatory changes. ••• We All Live in the Firestorm: Infinite Crisis and the LA Wildfires https://thetechbubble.substack.com/p/we-all-live-in-the-firestorm-infinite ••• Real Estate Vultures Eye Middle-Class Enclave of Ravaged LA https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-15/fire-ravaged-altadena-attracts-real-estate-vultures-eyeing-deals ••• Experts say Los Angeles rental prices will ‘inevitably’ spike post-wildfires https://fortune.com/2025/01/11/los-angeles-rental-prices-will-inevitably-spike-post-wildfires-experts/ ••• The costly calamity in Los Angeles https://www.ft.com/content/1ada4ad5-d992-42a2-89d9-99063883f91d ••• L.A. Is Burning. Will Insurance Companies Take Advantage? https://newrepublic.com/article/190048/california-insurance-los-angeles-fires ••• We Will All Be Paying For L.A.’s Wildfires https://www.levernews.com/we-will-all-be-paying-for-l-a-s-wildfires/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We round up and run down many of the big themes that we think will be important in the coming year and demand our sustained critical attention. Our analysis spans from the new golden age of crypto to further consolidation in the (corporate) venture capital industry, from the ramping up of investment and partnerships in the market for military technology to the ways in which AI will keep growing as a story about the collisions between multiple massive interconnected infrastructures. Standing Plugs: ••• Register for Jathan’s book launch in San Francisco on January 30th: citylights.com/events/jathan-sadowski-the-mechanic-and-the-luddite/ ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for more analysis in our premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)