Month: July 2021

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This Machine Kills - *Unlocked* – Potemkin AI

We're taking a week off recording so we're unlocking one of our favorite episodes from the Patreon feed for you to enjoy. Cold open: Ghost in the Shell. There is a long list of services that purport to be powered by sophisticated software, but actually rely on humans acting like robots. We discuss a critical concept—whether we call it Potemkin AI, fauxtomation, or ghost work—for understanding how so much so-called artificial intelligence is just a spectacle, a simulation, designed to mystify the labor that really turns the crank of smart systems sold as advanced innovations. They are the humans hidden inside mechanical minds. Some stuff we reference: • Potemkin AI | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/ • The Automation Charade | Astra Taylor: https://logicmag.io/failure/the-automation-charade/ • Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass | Mary L. Gray Siddharth Suri: https://ghostwork.info/ • Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media | Sarah T. Roberts: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen • Difference and Dependence among Digital Workers: The Case of Amazon Mechanical Turk | Lilly Irani: https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article-abstract/114/1/225/3763/Difference-and-Dependence-among-Digital-Workers Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
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Consider This from NPR - Who Pays When Sea Levels Rise?

Rising seas are threatening coastal communities around the world, which will need billions of dollars to protect themselves. It's clear the water is coming. What's not clear is who pays.

This tension is playing out on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, where the wealthiest companies in the world have built their headquarters next to low-income communities of color. Both need protection, but as cities there plan massive levee projects, they're struggling to figure out what's fair. Will the cost fall on taxpayers or private landowners who benefit the most?

NPR climate correspondent Lauren Sommer reports from San Francisco.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: US Senate Banking Committee Asks ‘What Are Cryptocurrencies Good For?’

Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren paint bitcoin’s populism as phony marketing.

This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.

Today on the Brief:


In today’s main discussion, NLW addresses not one, not two but three crypto hearings today spread across the Senate and House. One with a focus on ransomware, another on central bank digital currencies and the last a wide-ranging outlook at the value of cryptocurrencies versus their perceived risks. 

One of the notable themes from the Senate Banking Committee hearing was disbelief in cryptos as populist, democratizing, decentralizing tools for remaking finance. Instead, political opponents argued that they were just the play places for shadowy cabals of miners and “super coders” (yes, that’s a term they really used).

More concerning is the argument that cryptos are increasingly a threat to the larger financial system. Where does crypto stand in the eyes of regulators following the hearings?

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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.

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The Breakdown is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Sarah Silbiger/Stringer/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.

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Time To Say Goodbye - The Young Congee Marx

Hello from Philly, Berkeley, and Pasadena!

This week, we talk about the Tokyo Olympics, food appropriation in Oregon, and Raoul Peck’s film The Young Karl Marx (2017).

* What are people protesting in Tokyo? In this pandemic moment, who are the Olympics for? Plus: props to young women weightlifters and skateboarders.

* Why are Asian Americans so mad about congee? (And why are white restaurateurs in Oregon so prone to getting in race trouble?)

* What did “The Communist Manifesto” mean in the time and place it was written? Does its analysis apply today? Why did Peck make this movie? (good film review here). Bonus: brief comparison to another origin-story biopic Amadeus (1984).

(For more on the women’s work around these famous men, Tammy recommends biographies of Eleanor Marx, Karl’s daughter, and the French film Mozart’s Sister.)

(And Andy laoshi suggests reading the original Marx from the film: Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1846) on the “young Hegelians”; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Proudhon; and ofc what we simply call “The Manifesto” (1848)).

We were stoked to meet so many of you at our recent IRL in Berkeley. If you want to take part in such events and our raging Discord, join our membership club at Substack or Patreon. And please get in touch via Twitter or email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com).

Thank you!



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The Commentary Magazine Podcast - The Anti-Patriotic Olympics

American athletes are having a tough time at the Olympics. On today’s podcast, we suggest various causes, among them that there is no longer a psychic benefit to be gleaned from representing your country in these games. We also wonder at the competency of American politicians and the potential horrors awaiting Afghanistan as we pull out. Give a listen. Source

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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know - CLASSIC: Does Being Wealthy Make You A Bad Person?

It's often said money can't buy happiness -- but what exactly can it do? Could it change the way you think? ...could it make you a bad person? Listen in to this classic episode to learn more.

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CBS News Roundup - World News Roundup: 07/27

Controversial committee investigating the January 6th attack holds its first public hearing. Increasing vaccine mandates. Simone Biles out at the Olympics. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.

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Headlines From The Times - A drying lake in Oregon attracts the far right

Today, in Episode 2 of our Drought Week series, we go to Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon. As water shortages become a permanent part of life in the American West, battles are brewing everywhere for what little remains. Even in long-verdant areas like the Beaver State.

We’ll talk to L.A. Times reporter Anita Chabria and Don Gentry, the chairman of the Klamath Tribes. The tribes get first rights to the water of Upper Klamath Lake, which they use to help sustain a fish important to their culture. But farmers are angry because they’re not getting any water this year. Now, members of the far right are coming in to try to exploit the tension.

After that story, stick around to hear Nick Itkin talk about how he got into fencing and came to represent the United States in the Tokyo Olympics. 

More reading:

Racism, drought and history: Young Native Americans fight back as water disappears

Water crisis reaches boiling point on Oregon-California line

As drought slams California and Oregon, Klamath farmers grow fish to quell a water war