Self-Driving Cars and the Illusion of Automation

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss her new novel dealing with the human labor behind self-driving cars and the challenges of being a good tech critic.

Joanne McNeil is the author of Wrong Way and has written for Dissent Magazine, New York Magazine, and The Nation.

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 produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Joanne has written about the need for tech critics that aren’t insiders and tech media warming back up to Facebook.
• Paris wrote about the recent scandal around GM’s Cruise division.
• In 2014, Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and gave a speech that skewered capitalism.
• Joanne’s fictional tech founder was in part inspired by Holacracy and Dan Price.
• The fantasy of self-driving cars is highly reliant on remote drivers.

Support the show