This Machine Kills

We spike our blood pressure with a discussion about recent reporting on the systems used by health insurers to automate rejecting claims. It’s one of those classic situations we all know and love: hum...

14 Maj 20235min

We get into Evgeny Morozov’s latest essay on the geopolitical interests and military neoliberalism that’s really driving the AI arms race. Morozov traces today’s developments back to the Cold War – no...

6 Maj 20231h 27min

We cruise into the drive-thru of Taco Bell’s Innovation Lab and discuss the strange sublime of food that has been industrially engineered to hit every pleasure center in your brain, while also profani...

3 Maj 20236min

We are very pleased to be joined by Sarah Myers West— managing director of AI Now Institute and former Senior Advisor on AI to the FTC—to discuss their excellent new report, 2023 Landscape: Confrontin...

28 Apr 20231h 16min

Returning champion David A. Banks joins us for a supersized discussion about his new book, The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America. How do cities have to act like social med...

23 Apr 20231h 55min

We talk about the federal intelligence agencies being big fans of great books and movies, and writing about them in their little newsletters. Then move on to a big discussion about how the tech indust...

18 Apr 20236min

We go in-depth on an article that has not received the attention it is due: an investigation into an automated welfare fraud system in the Netherlands, which is based on unprecedented access to the ma...

14 Apr 20231h 28min

We cruise through a few topics: talk about the anti-China alliance between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill pushing to ban TikTok; the bizarre post-mortem on SPACs published by their biggest booster, C...

11 Apr 20238min