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PODCAST

This Machine Kills

This Machine Kills

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.

technology

All Episodes

01:18:11

431. How Amazon Workers are Organizing for Climate...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/11/12

[This episode was recorded before Amazon announced its massive layoffs.] We chat with Eliza and Dawn from the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice about their organizing campaigns and how they are holding Amazon to account for its promises about sustainability and applying pressure on Amazon’s leadership to make them recognize important issues that they otherwise ignore. We get into the ways that the roll-out of AI and build-out of data centres has catalyzed critical discussions among Amazon workers

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00:08:13

Patreon Preview – 430. Bring the Pain

This Machine Kills ·

2025/11/06

We chat about some of our favorite rubes and dolts in tech media before then getting into the massive layoffs across Amazon and Meta, how the need to continue over-investing into AI capex is driving the gutting of opex in the form of labor costs, and why the bubbly cycles of capital investment and accumulation at all costs will continue until Silicon Valley is made to feel the pain of their own mistakes.••• Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say

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01:30:30

429. The Nature of Capital and Freedom (ft. Alyssa...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/10/27

We’re joined by Alyssa Battistoni — author of Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature — to discuss her new book which is really just Marxist political theory at its finest. We get into capitalism’s relationship to nature, the ways in which capital absorbs and subsumes so much of our world into its systems, restructuring and controlling so many social/natural processes through its logics. But also even more importantly, the great many ways that capital engages in withdrawal and retreat from

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00:06:17

428. Patreon Preview – Antichrist Superstartup

This Machine Kills ·

2025/10/22

We start by asking some questions about political control over police forces before jumping into a discussion about Erebor, the new Silicon Valley bank founded by Palmer Luckey and Joe Lonsdale with backing from Peter Thiel, which leads us nicely into an exegesis of Thiel’s deeply scholastic interpretation of the biblical revelations contained within One Piece—plus some choice bits from Antichrist lecture series.••• US approves new bank backed by billionaires with ties to Donald Trump

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01:18:17

427. Many Worlds of Extraction (ft. Laleh Khalili)

This Machine Kills ·

2025/10/13

We chat with Laleh Khalili — author of Extractive Capitalism: How Commodities and Cronyism Drive the Global Economy — about the different systems, footsoldiers, and circuits of extraction that are essential to capitalism. We take a tour of the great many worlds of extraction: from sand mines and oil fields, to management consultants and chemical engineers, to surveillance systems and genocidal colonialism — all of which are connected together by the imperatives of extraction. Marx said that

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00:07:46

Patreon Preview – 426. The Road to Hell is Paved with...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/10/08

We play another game of Where in the World is Edward Ongweso — and you’ll never guess. We pull together a few stories. First, further evidence of the AI productivity paradox and the fact that nearly every company is excited about AI, but none of them can figure out how exactly it is beneficial or profitable. Second, this includes the companies making AI, which is why they have fallen back on the one thing they know how to do: surveillance for targeted advertisement. Third, a nasty down-stream effect

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01:35:37

425. The Oxymorons of Green Capitalism (ft. Thea...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/09/29

We are joined by Thea Riofrancos — author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism — to chat about the many frontiers, tensions, and futures of green capitalism. How do we understand a system that is oxymoronic in its contradictory nature? How do we trace the political economies, material infrastructures, and extractive industries that are in the process of defining a planetary path dependency? Why do we need to spend a lot more time thinking about lithium? With the help of Thea’s sharp

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00:08:05

Patreon Preview – 424. Me and My AI

This Machine Kills ·

2025/09/23

We chat about the growing genre of personal literary essays about AI where the literati at places like the New Yorker pen long essays laying out their thoughts, worries, and ultimate embrace of AI. But as with most personal essays, we end up learning more about the foibles and anxieties of the authors than anything material about the thing they are writing about. Big shout out to the excellent piece in N+1 we discuss in this episode, which turns the sights of literary criticism on this genre of

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01:20:26

423. Violence, Fast and Slow

This Machine Kills ·

2025/09/17

We discuss the assassination of Charlie Kirk and its potential role as a catalyst of further violence and blowback by right-wing forces who want to avenge a martyr, by left-wing groups who want to kick off years of lead, or perhaps as simply another immense yet ephemeral moment in a strange world where “our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles.” Then we segue expertly to talking about a new essay on “the weaponized world economy,” which adds great detail and depth to our

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00:06:38

Patreon Preview – 422. Demon Valley

This Machine Kills ·

2025/09/10

Join us as we dive into the life and mind of Nicole Shanahan, a tech billionaire who is now the self-anointed demon hunter of Silicon Valley and Burning Man. There is soul-corrupting psycho-politics everywhere for those with eyes to see.••• ‘Demonic’: Silicon Valley Billionaire Blasts Burning Man https://www.thenerdreich.com/demonic-silicon-valley-billionaire-blasts-burning-man/ ••• The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It? https://www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/

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01:22:33

421. To AGI, or Not to AGI, That is the Question

This Machine Kills ·

2025/09/03

With the announcement of a new $100 million Super PAC for pro-AI political influence, lines are being drawn between different styles of AI boosterism in Silicon Valley. There are those who worship at the altar of AGI and believe any other position is an intolerable impediment to innovation. There are those who want the tech sector to focus on using existing AI systems for everyday economic applications. And there are those who see AI as a techno-realpolitik power struggle over who is gonna kick

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00:06:27

Patreon Preview – 420. Long Live the Moron Kings

This Machine Kills ·

2025/08/27

We got a fun one as we chat about a contemptuous profile of the fringe futurists, biohacker kooks, wealthy technocratics, and wannabe philosopher kings who have combined their vast resources and grand dreams to pursue a single mission: immortality.••• How to Live Forever and Get Rich Doing It https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/11/how-to-live-forever-and-get-rich-doing-it Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

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01:18:27

419. The Launch of a Stillborn God

This Machine Kills ·

2025/08/20

We chat about the disappointing launch and critical reception of GPT-5 and what this massive claims-reality gap tells us about how an overactive industry, propelled by grand social forces of capital accumulation, are ultimately producing “normal” or “mid” technologies. Plus, we get into the productivity paradox that plagues AI.••• Does AI really boost productivity at work? Research shows gains don’t come cheap or easy

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00:08:52

Patreon Preview – 418. The Trump Pump

This Machine Kills ·

2025/08/15

[Apologies for the tardiness, Jereme is moving house, that shit takes a lot of time and work, so it delayed production.] We first chat about how Trump’s Transportation Department will be “unleashing American drone dominance,” then we get into the thick morass of the Trump family’s ongoing entanglements with the crypto industry—and how both sides of this partnership are deeply, financially dependent on each other. ••• US proposes new drone rules that could lead to Starbucks, Amazon deliveries

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01:15:07

417. Whose AI Bubble Is It Anyways? (ft. Paris Marx,...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/08/06

In this episode, Ed chats with Paris Marx and Brian Merchant about artificial intelligence and the political coalitions behind its development in the United States and abroad. Are we all living in the same AI bubble? Europe, China, and America all have different visions for what their ideal global value chain looks like when it comes to AI—its raw material inputs, chips, data centers, invisible laborers, regulatory standards, data sets, models, and applications. Whose vision will win out and

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00:08:40

Patreon Preview – 416. The Neverending Race

This Machine Kills ·

2025/07/31

We chat for a bit about Trump’s AI Action Plan – more to come on this next week – before getting into broader questions about Silicon Valley imperialism, American force projection and soft power through AI, the endlessly convenient competition against China, the impossibility of winning an AI arms race with no defined finish line, among other things. Plus a new addition to our tech freak watch.••• Come to Jathan’s book launch in Melbourne on August 14th at 6:00pm! There will be fun conversation,

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01:24:17

415. It’s Time to Build… Radical Policy for AI (ft....

This Machine Kills ·

2025/07/22

We are joined by Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West — co-directors of the AI Now Institute — to discuss their excellent new Landscape Report on Artificial Power. We discuss Trump’s AI Action Day and his administration’s use of AI as an alibi to justify further consolidating wealth and power into a few hands, while making vague promises about economic growth and technological progress, without actually delivering any material benefits to everyday people. We then get into the AI Now Institute’s Roadmap for

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00:07:19

Patreon Preview – 414. Deus Ex Zuck

This Machine Kills ·

2025/07/16

After chatting about Ed’s trip to Greece, we turn our sights on the incredible amount of money that Mark Zuckerberg is spending to poach big names from across the tech sector and assemble the greatest crossover event in AI history. What could possibly make this level of investment into creating the Meta Superintelligence Lab a worthwhile endeavor? We lay out the Meta logic as it seems to be playing out.••• Here’s What Mark Zuckerberg Is Offering Top AI Talent

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01:24:21

413. ScamGPT – How AI Supercharges Fraud (ft. Alice...

This Machine Kills ·

2025/07/09

We chat with Alice Marwick — director of research at Data & Society — about a new report she co-authored on how generative AI is now unleashing a new world of scams and fraud. AI is supercharging the business of scamming by making it easier and cheaper than ever to deploy sophisticated scams at scale. Scams are now automated, ubiquitous, and dynamic. The victims of AI-fuelled fraud are not just traditional demographics like older people. We get into types of fraud like pig butchering and harpoon

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00:05:09

Patreon Preview – 412. Sweat Your Genetic Assets

This Machine Kills ·

2025/07/02

We dive into Nucleus Genomics, a startup backed by the Founders Fund, that wants to help you evaluate, rank, and name your embryos in a pre-IVF dashboard designed for “genetic optimization.” We talk about the junk science and wild ideologies that drive these desires to treat your genes and children like assets to be managed – with the ultimate goal of creating and enforcing a society ordered by genetic hierarchies. We then wrap up by tying these biotech visions to their AI counterparts in the

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454 results

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