Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss how tech CEOs are pushing a new generation of AI-powered smart glasses by promising they’ll be stylish and indispensable to workers in a desperate attempt to convince us we should want their luxury surveillance gadgets.

Chris Gilliard is the co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and is working on a book called Luxury Surveillance.

Tech Won’t 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 Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Harvard students used Meta glasses to dox strangers.

Apple tinkered with its AI shortly after Trump was inaugurated.

AI may start answering 911 calls.

Studies are suggesting that AI may be making doctors worse at diagnosing cancer.

Rob Horning has written about overreliance on AI.

Chris mentioned Emily Bender and her analogy comparing LLMs to plastic.