This Machine Kills

We are joined by Erin McElroy — author of Silicon Valley Imperialism — to first discuss their work as a co-founder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and the important work they are doing on landlord tech, both as an academic and activist. Then we get deeper into their new book that offers a rich, in-depth analysis of how the racial technocapitalism of Silicon Valley has set up imperial outposts in the postsocialist countries of Eastern Europe, specifically Romania. ••• Erin’s book – Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times https://www.dukeupress.edu/silicon-valley-imperialism ••• Erin’s website with their projects, publications, etc – https://www.erinmcelroy.net/ ••• Alex Horghidan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cumsecade Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

In the first part we chat about fast food and the spread of surge pricing to everything, then use some recent announcements in the tech sector to get into the magical thinking and fictitious capital that totally sustains the AI industry all for the grand dream and supreme purpose of squeezing out another 3% annual growth in the economy. ••• Uber-style pricing is coming for everything https://www.vox.com/money/24105250/fast-food-restaurants-dynamic-pricing-algorithm-wendys ••• Scientific Journals Are Publishing Papers With AI-Generated Text https://www.404media.co/scientific-journals-are-publishing-papers-with-ai-generated-text/ ••• Microsoft Hires DeepMind Co-Founder Suleyman to Run Consumer AI https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-19/microsoft-hires-deepmind-co-founder-suleyman-to-run-consumer-ai ••• Saudi Arabia Plans $40 Billion Push Into Artificial Intelligence https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/business/saudi-arabia-investment-artificial-intelligence.html ••• Have We Reached Peak AI? https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

Lee McGuigan, author of 'Selling the American People,' discusses the deep entanglement of advertising with operations research and technology since the 1940s. The podcast explores the evolution of advertising, from traditional methods to data-driven strategies, highlighting the universality of data science in maximizing value. It also delves into the transformation of the industry from 'Mad Men' creatives to 'Math Men' analysts, addressing challenges like scams and monopolization in automated auction systems.

We discuss Chapter 12 – The Power of Logistics – and get deeper into how, as Mau writes, “mobility is power, and means of transportation and communication are weapons,” which capital wields against labor, against government, against nature, against itself. We also illustrate the techno-politics of logistics with yet another reveal that a rapidly rising startup in the space of automating labor – Presto Automation – is actually Potemkin AI. Now that’s the power of logistics as a substitute for the power of technology! ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• AI-Powered Drive-Thru Is Actually Run Almost Fully by Humans https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-07/ai-fast-food-drive-thrus-need-human-workers-70-of-time Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We dig into the latest proposed legislation to ban TikTok — which is quickly moving in the US House with broad bipartisan support — and the jingoistic motivations, the complete lack of concern about any of the actual cultural influence, social impact, economic power, or just empirical reality of this technology, and instead the hyper-fixation on this being a Chinese app rather than an American app. Indeed, the ban bill would force TikTok into becoming American owned — thus becoming a way more pernicious and shitty piece of tech. ••• TikTok Crackdown Shifts Into Overdrive, With Sale or Shutdown on Table | Wall Street Journal https://archive.is/fGfnc ••• TikTok Is For Millennials, It Turns Out https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns ••• The Influencers Getting Paid to Promote Designer Knockoffs From China https://www.wired.com/story/influencers-paid-promote-designer-knockoffs-from-china/ Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We talk for a while about the data monetization deals happening now between platforms like Reddit and AI companies like OpenAI, then get into cultural concerns about how technology mediates our reality, before ending with a social analysis of anxiety as the dominant affect in society right now. ••• Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24080165/google-reddit-ai-training-data ••• Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/ ••• Shutterstock Expands Partnership with OpenAI, Signs New Six-Year Agreement to Provide High-Quality Training Data https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-expands-partnership-openai-signs-new-six-year Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We start with a long chat about Dune 2 – to avoid spoilers, or if you just don’t want to hear about Dune, skip to this timestamp: 34:43. We then get into the FTC / DOJ’s case against the rent maximizing algorithms being used by landlords to collude on price and drive up rents. It’s a real delight seeing antitrust enforcers knock back these obviously problematic technologies and deny the corporations’ totally idiotic legal defense of them. ••• Price fixing by algorithm is still price fixing https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2024/03/price-fixing-algorithm-still-price-fixing Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We look at the intensifying systems of surveillance and control that are being integrated into supermarkets to further exploit labor, monitor customers, and capture profits, while also pushing the increased enshittification of grocery stores. We trace how the grocery store has become less a center of food distribution for communities and more like a prison that controls access to vital commodities in a broader system of capitalist agrobusiness. ••• The secret sauce of Coles’ and Woolworths’ profits: high-tech surveillance and control https://theconversation.com/the-secret-sauce-of-coles-and-woolworths-profits-high-tech-surveillance-and-control-224076 ••• Supermarket ‘dark jobs’ and rapid grocery delivery: Transformations in labour, technology and logistics https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448231201641 ••• FTC Challenges Kroger’s Acquisition of Albertsons https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-challenges-krogers-acquisition-albertsons Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

First we chat about the very dumb debacle with Google’s Gemini AI being “absurdly woke,” when in reality the story here is that they were extremely naive and lazy about how to solve the structural biases of white visual culture. Then we get deeper into Nvidia’s major stock rally after blowing away all expectations with their latest financial reportings – and what this means for the political economy of technology, both AI specifically and the sector broadly. ••• A Sign That Spells: DALL-E 2, Invisual Images and The Racial Politics of Feature Space https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06323 ••• The Deeper Problem With Google’s Racially Diverse Nazis https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/02/google-gemini-diverse-nazis/677575/ ••• Now Google's 'absurdly woke' Gemini AI refuses to condemn pedophilia as wrong - after being blasted over 'diverse' but historically inaccurate images https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13122189/Googles-absurdly-woke-Gemini-AI-refuses-condemn-pedophilia.html ••• AI boom catapults Nvidia into tech’s big league https://www.ft.com/content/1f8b317d-fcce-4f5b-9e54-8315e102ec10 ••• What Bubble? Nvidia Profits Are Rising Even More Than Its Stock https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-26/hedge-funds-unload-tech-stocks-after-going-all-in-before-nvidia ••• The AI craze has companies even 'more overvalued' than during the 1990s dot-com bubble, economist says https://qz.com/ai-stocks-nvidia-overvalued-dot-com-bubble-1851287271 ••• Nvidia's $2 trillion market cap looks bubbly https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/nvidia-valuation-chipmakers-trillion Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)

We discuss Chapter 10 – The Capitalist Reconfiguration of Nature – and get deeper into why capital seeks to subsume nature, generally, and how capital has been wildly successful at subsuming agriculture, more specifically, through a variety of strategies: technological, organizational, financial. Then we take a look at the latest tactic in capital’s war against the non-capitalist planet: Natural Asset Companies. ••• Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital – Søren Mau https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2759-mute-compulsion ••• Nature Has Value. Could We Literally Invest in It? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/business/economy/natural-assets.html Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)