Paris Marx is joined by Sasha Luccioni to discuss the catastrophic environmental costs of the generative AI being increasing shoved into every tech product we touch.

Sasha Luccioni is an artificial intelligence researcher and Climate Lead at Hugging Face.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Sasha published a paper looking at the climate impacts of generative AI.
• Paris wrote about the increased emissions at Google and Microsoft, and the consequences of the growing data center buildout.
• Google’s emissions are up 48% in five years, while Microsoft’s are up 30% between 2020 and 2023.
• Bill Gates is telling governments not to “go overboard” with concerns about AI energy use. He’s been much more active in Microsoft’s AI strategizing than he’s admitted publicly.
• Microsoft President Brad Smith says its carbon “moonshot” is much farther away because of generative AI. The company is accelerating its data center construction plans.
• Sam Altman says we can geoengineer the planet if we can’t develop an energy breakthrough to power AI.

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Paris Marx is joined by David Gerard to discuss Jack Dorsey’s decision to leave Bluesky, his obsession with Bitcoin, and his contributions (or lack thereof) to modern technology.

David Gerard is the author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged. He also makes Pivot to AI with Amy Castor.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• David wrote about Jack Dorsey abandoning Bluesky on his blog.
• Business Insider reported on how Dorsey gave money to the far-right founder of Nostr.
• Dorsey was interviewed by Mike Solana on Pirate Wires.
• Dorsey has posted in support of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the response to it is why he deleted his Bluesky account.

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Paris Marx is joined by Jason Koebler to discuss the AI-generated spam filling Facebook, how the platform seems to have given up trying to stop it, and where the internet goes from here.

Jason Koebler is the co-host of the 404 Media Podcast.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Jason wrote about his theory of the zombie internet and what he’s been seeing on Facebook.
• Back in 2018, Motherboard reported on the rules Facebook gave its content moderators.
• Users of Facebook Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero in Angola found out how to make their own video streaming service for free.

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Paris Marx is joined by Jason Hickel to discuss how technology would change in a degrowth society and why it doesn’t make sense to organize society around profit and infinite expansion.

Jason Hickel is the author of Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. He’s also a Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Jason wrote about technology and degrowth and the objectives of democratic ecosocialism for Monthly Review.

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Paris Marx is joined by tante to discuss why it’s hard for Europe to challenge the US and China on tech and why we should change how we think about innovation.

tante is a writer, speaker, and Luddite working on tech and its social impact.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• tante spoke about innovation at re:publica 2024.
• Paris also gave a presentation on data centers.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron wrote an op-ed about shared priorities in the Financial Times.
• Sam Altman successfully lobbied to water down the EU’s AI Act.

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Paris Marx is joined by Nitasha Tiku to discuss how US tech companies are flocking to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to fund their expensive AI ambitions.

Nitasha Tiku is a tech culture reporter at the Washington Post.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Read the pieces Nitasha contributed to on Silicon Valley getting funding from Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and its embrace of the US military.
• Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018. There’s still be no accountability.
• Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met with many Silicon Valley CEOs months before Khashoggi’s murder.
• The United Arab Emirates launched its own AI strategy in 2018.
• The UAE also put Pegasus spyware on the phone of Khashoggi’s wife months before his murder.
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was photographed signing a woman’s chest on June 4.
• Many Arab Americans in Silicon Valley have reported being scared to speak out in support of Palestinians for fear of retaliation.

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Paris Marx is joined by Joseph Cox to discuss how the FBI created an encrypted phone company called Anom to read criminals’ messages and eventually carry out the largest international sting operation by law enforcement.

Joseph Cox is the author of Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever and the host of the 404 Media Podcast.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Read an excerpt of Dark Wire at Wired.
• Joseph wrote about the revelation that Lithuania hosted the Anom interception server and provided the intercepted messages to the FBI.

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Paris Marx is joined by Nora Kenworthy to discuss how people rely on GoFundMe to access healthcare and the further inequities that adds to an already deeply unequal healthcare system.

Nora Kenworthy is the author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare and an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell.

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 made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Nora is doing an online event with the Debt Collective on June 13.
• GoFundMe bought many of its competitors through the 2010s.
• In 2020, GoFundMe posted in a campaign it set up in response to Covid: “We’re in a growth industry: pain.”

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