This Machine Kills

We discuss and riff on the People’s AI Assembly, organized by AI Now Institute and More Perfect Union, which just happened in New York City.

••• The People's AI Assembly https://www.youtube.com/live/JZ7DnHoPLLQ

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Jathan chats with journalist Kate Kaye about her new podcast series, Trust Control, all about the history and future of trying to measure trust. We get into different ways of defining trust, proxies for turning trust into quantified scores and “objective” models, motivations for making trust into a metric that can be optimised, and ultimately, the anti-social shift from trust as a dynamic social relationship that is a core part of human interactions to trust as an objective feature of systems with or without humans.

••• Trust Control Series | Kate Kaye https://aitrustcontrol.com/

••• Redtail Media | Kate Kaye https://redtailmedia.org/

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We discuss a deep dive into the ascendency of microdramas – the short-form video series that are already bigger than the conventional film industry in China and are quickly taking over studios in Hollywood. We chat about the financial and cultural antecedents of microdramas, and the strange impacts of these videos on media production and consumption today, and the unevenly distributed futures of AI generated entertainment.

••• Are 60-Second Microdramas the Future of Hollywood, or the End? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/magazine/microdramas-tv-shows-hollywood-entertainment.html

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We get into the new decree from Trump that “artificial intelligence” is now called “super intelligence” – it sounds less fake and more powerful — and the broader currents of tech advice and policy in the Trump administration. Then we discuss how OpenAI and Anthropic are behaving like rogue agents, who are also irresponsible and incompetent to a degree that should be unbelievable.

••• Trump says the US is officially renaming AI to ‘super intelligence’ https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/998816/donald-trump-ai-super-intelligence

••• OpenAI Has Gone Rogue https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/09/ai-hacks-infestation/688806/

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We learn all about how leftists are against any new regulations for AI. It’s the unbelievable return of horseshoe theory as we discuss the curious new discourse cycle being promoted by prominent pundits.

••• The Curious Left-Wing Argument Against New AI Regulations https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/ai-regulation-anti-monopoly-challenge/688707/

••• Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us – and How to Stop It – book review https://www.counterfire.org/article/obsolete-the-ai-industrys-trillion-dollar-race-to-replace-us-and-how-to-stop-it-book-review/

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We jump off from the OpenAI - Hugging Face hacking incident as a way to talk about the misleading, cynical, and hysterical ways we talk about AI and the stranglehold that existential risk has on our framings and discourses. The OAI-HF event shows that rather than treating machine learning as certain kind of technology that does things in ways that can be explained and contextualized, even when our understanding is somewhat murky or incomplete, AI is proffered as an emergent god with mystified intentions, a great becoming that is equally horrifying and awe-inspiring.

••• LLMs are real, AI is fake https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/12/god-in-the-box/

••• We Must Pace the Frontier https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We bring together two different stories about the tech sector and speculative real estate booms. First, how Netflix promises to turn the Jersey Shore into “Hollywood East”. Second, how the data centre bonanza is stretching Wall Street beyond its limits.

••• Can Netflix remake Jersey Shore — and its property market? https://www.ft.com/content/abbc3601-9ebc-4f3a-a317-0b1eee96e5a8

••• The multiplying risks of financing data centres https://www.ft.com/content/9cb63980-cd43-419d-a7e5-42039b9fd01e

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

[We had technical difficulties and had to use a backup recording, sorry!] We chat with JS Tan and Clarissa Redwin — both veteran tech workers and labor organizers — about their new book which chronicles the tech worker movement over the last ten years. JS and Clarissa have been deeply involved in this movement, which gives them the perfect vantage point to trace the catalyzing events and organizing efforts, as well as discuss what went right, what went wrong, and how the tactics for class consciousness and worker resistance must be adapted for the tech sector.

••• Against Tech Oligarch | Book and Tour Dates https://againsttecholigarchy.com/

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We turn our sights down under by taking a closer look at the new all-of-government strategy for AI in Australia’s Interests. Australia has plotted out a bold, progressive vision where AI enthusiasm is mandatory, no is not an option (and. in fact, the lack of choice is actually empowering), and the country, with all its open space and valuable resources, is the next great investment opportunity for foreign capital. But don’t worry, just like mining companies before, tech firms are expected to earn their social license to operate. What does that mean in practice? Just leave the details to the devil.

••• AI in Australia's interests https://www.pm.gov.au/media/ai-australias-interests-0

••• NSW government offers fast-track scheme for data centres that comply with new guidelines https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-17/data-centres-fast-tracked-under-new-nsw-scheme/107043984

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We take a deep dive into New York’s police-surveillance infrastructure, a sprawling leviathan that Mayor Zohran Mamdani was outspoken against during his campaign, but has now inherited and is even warming up to as his administration settles into power.

••• Mamdani’s Surveillance State https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mamdani-surveillance-state.html

••• Walking the Thin Blue Line https://www.thedriftmag.com/walking-the-thin-blue-line/

••• The New York City Police Department’s Domain Awareness System (pdf) https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/Levine%20-%20Interfaces%20-%20The%20New%20York%20City%20Police%20Department%E2%80%99s%20Domain.pdf

Standing Plugs:

••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite

••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble

••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)