This Week in Tech (Audio) TWiT 1047: Nerd Harder! - From Cloudflare's Internet Gatekeeping to AI's Labor Threat
19 snips
Sep 1, 2025 
Cory Doctorow, a renowned science fiction author and digital rights activist, joins Shoshana Weissmann, head of digital media at R Street Institute, and Louis Maresca, Microsoft’s Copilot lead. They dive into Cloudflare's role as an internet gatekeeper and the alarming implications of age verification laws. The trio discusses the ethical dilemmas posed by AI in the workplace, privacy concerns from cyberattacks, and challenges in digital ownership. Their lively debate highlights the ongoing struggle for digital rights and the balance between innovation and regulation.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
AI’s Main Sell: Replace Workers
- AI is being pitched mainly as a cost-cutting way to replace workers, not just as a productivity tool.
- That creates a managerial incentive to fire staff and buy AI even when quality suffers.
AI’s Rent-Seeking Economics
- The AI business model often extracts half the worker’s saved wages as vendor rent.
- That economic alignment explains why firms push AI adoption aggressively even when outputs are weak.
Differentiate AI From Automation
- Distinguish automation from AI when proposing solutions to bosses.
- Use automation (Zapier, scripts) for reliable process gains before touting AI as a cure-all.
