System Crash

This week on System Crash: A new poll shows that nearly half of all teens wish the internet simply did not exist, and what can we say, the children are the future. Meanwhile, the reason why the kids hate the internet are dead set on making it all worse: Google and Microsoft announced their plans to continue stuffing AI into every available surface—the future they see is 100% AI-generated. Plus, SpaceX flexes its legislative muscle in Texas, an AI-generated book list makes it into print, Netflix gets the rights to Sesame Street, and more!

You can find Satya Nadella’s Bloomberg profile here.

Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.

Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.

Support the show

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

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

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

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

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

In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders to dig into how science fiction shaped Elon Musk, and how Musk uses it to shape his own mythology. We explore the problems with how Musk interprets (and fails to interpret) sci-fi stories, and the ways sci-fi memes are deployed to justify the visions of the future tech billionaires are trying to realize. Annalee and Charlie Jane also share their thoughts on where they find hope in this moment, and how science fiction can help us through it.

Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.

Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.

Support the show

Liberation Day has come and gone, leaving Brian and Paris to pick up the pieces. So the Trump administration may or may not have used ChatGPT to whip up its half-assed plans to instigate a global trade war, which tanked the market for days on end before Trump hit the pause button. There’s still much wreckage to sort through: Elon Musk is furious at Trump’s top trade adviser, China isn’t giving in, and electronics are about to get a lot more expensive. We dig into what all this means for big tech, Elon’s status at the White House, and your iPhone—and what it all says about the way team Trump wields power and thinks about American workers.

Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.

Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.

Support the show

After a few weeks of digging into Elon Musk’s past, Brian and Paris are taking a little break to dig into recent tech developments. They discuss the troubles facing Tesla, OpenAI’s new funding round, and the despicable display of AI-generated Studio Ghibli images circulating on social media. Plus, they discuss some important labor stories and how Google’s AI Overviews are hurting website traffic.

Brian mentioned an article called “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism.”

Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.

Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.

Support the show

In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, Ludicrous author and Autonocast cohost Ed Niedermeyer joins the show to dig into the history of how Elon Musk took over and reshaped Tesla, how he built the company through deception, and why it’s not a vulnerable part of his corporate empire.

Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.

Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.

Support the show