The Machinist

The Threat of Data Colonialism w/ Ulises A. Mejias & Nick Couldry

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Podcast: Tech Won't Save Us (LS 57 · TOP 0.5% what is this?)
Episode: The Threat of Data Colonialism w/ Ulises A. Mejias & Nick Couldry
Pub date: 2024-10-24

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Paris Marx is joined by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry to discuss how Silicon Valley's extractive data collection regime and the power it grants them resembles a much older form of exploitation: colonialism.

Ulises A. Mejias is a professor of Communication Studies at SUNY Oswego and Nick Couldry is a professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics. They are the co-authors of Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back and among the co-founders of the network Tierra Común.

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 Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

  • Read an excerpt of Ulises and Nick’s book.
  • Ulises has helped advance the Non-Aligned Technologies Movement.
  • The World Economic Forum and Accenture published a report on governance of AI.
  • Geoffrey Hinton was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics. Paris wrote about why we shouldn’t trust his assessment of AI.
  • Google told the UK Labour government it will be left behind in the AI race if it doesn’t do what the company demands.
  • Data centers use 21% of electricity in Ireland, and number that could jump to 31% within the next three years.
  • Home building in West London could be restricted until 2035 because data centers have used up the available energy.
  • Kenya is being drafted into the US’s anti-China tech alliance, which includes building data centers while ignoring the poor working conditions of data labelers and content moderators.

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    The MachinistBy The Syllabus / Listen Notes