Republicans Want to Ban AI Regulation, Our New Luddite Pope, and the Obscene Saudi Spectacle
This week on System Crash: The Vatican has spoken and we have a Luddite Pope; the Republicans are pushing a 10-year ban on state AI regulations to sate their tech industry friends; and Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia shows the power and geopolitics behind AI. Plus, Canada’s AI minister, UK artists pushing back on copyright changes, Microsoft layoffs, and more.Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
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The AI Education and Jobs Crisis, OpenAI’s Corporate Drama, and Zuck’s AI Friends
This week on System Crash: AI madness hits a new peak: Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to give everyone AI companions, OpenAI’s boardroom drama gets a new chapter, and the impact of AI on education and work has become a full-fledged disaster. Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
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Patreon Preview: Eric Schmidt’s Pivot to Military AI Salesman
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, pulling back the curtain on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s pivot to a national security hawk using the threat of China to sell artificial intelligence to the military. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.Support the show
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Canada Rejects DOGE, Bezos Caves to Trump, and the Tech Billionaire Signal Club
This week on System Crash: Mark Carney is elected prime minister of Canada with a promise to take on Trump and accelerate AI adoption. Jeff Bezos backs down on Amazon’s plans to display how much tariffs have increased prices. Tech billionaires are radicalizing in a bunch of weirdly named Signal groups. Plus, X users drop, Duolingo replaces workers with AI, Microsoft pulls back on data centers, and more!Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine. Support the show
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50:33
Tesla is Tanking. What That Means for Elon Musk and DOGE ft. Geoff Dembicki
Elon Musk is trying to clean up the mess his DOGE escapades have made for Tesla — and it’s not going very well. Brian and Paris dig into the terrible news he had to share in the company’s earnings call and whether we should really believe his claims about scaling back his DOGE involvement next month. Either way, the right still loves the idea: Paris speaks with DeSmog Global Managing Editor Geoff Dembicki about a recent conference where Canadian conservatives — including an Amazon senior principal in public policy — laid out their vision for how to create a DOGE that can wreak havoc of its own on the Canadian government.Geoff Dembicki wrote about how Canada’s conservatives are planning for their own DOGE.Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
Tech giants like Google and Facebook have conquered — some would say killed — the internet. Elon Musk used his platform to help elect Trump, and Silicon Valley elites want to gut the public sector. OpenAI and Microsoft aim to wipe away millions of jobs. Uber is driving down wages. Apple is impenetrable. Amazon is inescapable. All this high tech, and our quality of life is getting lower. The system has crashed. So, System Crash: a weekly tech news show willing to tell the hard truths about how tech — and the titans who own and operate it — is really transforming the world. Co-hosts Paris Marx and Brian Merchant dissect the stories that matter, break news of their own, offer expert commentary, and interview journalists, whistleblowers, authors, and tech workers and ordinary people fighting back.
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