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Speaker 1: the Internet, please check out our patreon. There you can
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Speaker 2: We have these people who are very socially isolated and
Speaker 2: have difficulty relating to other people. Think trying to design
Speaker 2: or trying to dream up what society is going to
Speaker 2: look like for everybody else.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge Todd and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, technology felt exciting. It was when we first
Speaker 1: got the old school, non Facebook affiliated Instagram app remember
Speaker 1: the Sienna filter.
Speaker 3: Ough, I loved it.
Speaker 1: We were talking about commercial space the very first iPad debuted.
Speaker 1: The vibe seemed to be that Silicon Valley geniuses were
Speaker 1: bestowing gifts to us in the form of new technology,
Speaker 1: and our job was to be in awe of these
Speaker 1: gifts and to say thank you. So there was a
Speaker 1: lot of optimism around technology and it was easy to
Speaker 1: think about it as being an unquestionable force for good.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's why when you look back at that time,
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of critical questions about technology and
Speaker 1: the people who make it and whether or not that
Speaker 1: technology was actually contributing to a better future, one that
Speaker 1: we'd actually want. That's a dynamic that Paris Marx says
Speaker 1: has led to tech leaders getting really used to being
Speaker 1: able to do whatever they want, and Paris is trying
Speaker 1: to course correct.
Speaker 2: I'm Paris Marx, I host the Tech Won't Save Us podcast.
Speaker 1: Tech Won't Save Us starts from the premise that we
Speaker 1: all need to be questioned in technology and Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: tech billionaires about what kind of futures they're actually contributing to.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to conversations around things like AI
Speaker 1: and its potential to change the world, Paras says, we're
Speaker 1: at risk of kind of mirroring the same dynamic that
Speaker 1: happened in the twenty tens, letting the people who build
Speaker 1: the technology set the terms.
Speaker 2: Into the early twenty tens and stuff like that, Like
Speaker 2: it was very positive around tech and what tech was doing,
Speaker 2: and like all these startups that were forming and how
Speaker 2: these big companies were like growing, and this was going
Speaker 2: to be the way that you know, we were going
Speaker 2: to have prosperity again. Because this tech industry was going
Speaker 2: to like drive a ton of job creation and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, and so there was a real desire not
Speaker 2: to kind of look at the potential consequences, to not
Speaker 2: look at the downsides of this industry and these business models.
Speaker 2: And now I feel like part of kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: we have seen a more critical view in the past
Speaker 2: number of years, especially since twenty eighteen, and I feel
Speaker 2: like part of that is not just kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, waking up to what is actually happening, but
Speaker 2: also reckoning with the consequences of not you know, looking
Speaker 2: at the potential downsides of the companies through those years,
Speaker 2: through the early twenty ten you know period, And now
Speaker 2: we're kind of trying to catch up and trying to
Speaker 2: be like, whoa, what have we unleashed unto the world.
Speaker 2: And now there's a real kind of desire to you know,
Speaker 2: not just criticize the Elon Musks and Jeff bezos Is
Speaker 2: of the world, but to say, like, we really bought
Speaker 2: into a lot of this stuff that Silicon Valley was
Speaker 2: selling us around how all we need is kind of
Speaker 2: new innovative technologies created by Google and Facebook and whatever,
Speaker 2: and that's going to make the world a better place,
Speaker 2: and we can see that that didn't work out, and
Speaker 2: so now we need to actually think a lot more
Speaker 2: critically about what these tech companies are telling us, but
Speaker 2: also how we address these really serious problems that do
Speaker 2: exist in society and aren't going to be solved from
Speaker 2: a shiny new technology.
Speaker 1: What do you think some of those consequences of not
Speaker 1: asking those questions during that time and technology, What do
Speaker 1: you think some of those consequences have been?
Speaker 2: Oh, there are a ton, right, like the easy ones.
Speaker 2: The point too, that like the mainstream would know about
Speaker 2: is like, you know, the social media platforms and like
Speaker 2: all they've done, and like we love to kind of
Speaker 2: hate Facebook, and I'm totally on board for hating Facebook, right, Like,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, but I think that it's much
Speaker 2: bigger than that, right, Like, sure, we had the Cambridge
Speaker 2: Analytica like leaks and the scandal around that, and like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that that was kind of misconstrued
Speaker 2: a bit as saying, like, h it was because Facebook
Speaker 2: like manipulated the populations of the UK and the US
Speaker 2: and all this stuff that we had this really terrible
Speaker 2: turn in our politics. And I don't think that that's
Speaker 2: actually accurate. I think it's a misreading of what actually happened.
Speaker 2: And like, I think that there are just things happening
Speaker 2: in our politics for reasons that are not technological, you know,
Speaker 2: that are kind of affecting what people are doing, which
Speaker 2: is really unfortunate. But I think that like much more fundamentally,
Speaker 2: and I think the piece that we tend to ignore
Speaker 2: a lot more is what this actually meant for workers
Speaker 2: as well. Right, Like, obviously, we had this massive boom
Speaker 2: in tech workers and people working in the tech industry
Speaker 2: that were making good salaries and like doing these startups
Speaker 2: and all this kind of stuff, and the media like
Speaker 2: very interested in that story, right in how there were
Speaker 2: these workers who were making all this money, they had
Speaker 2: great benefits when they went to their jobs, like free
Speaker 2: lunch and gyms and I don't know all the other
Speaker 2: stuff that tech workers get. But then, like the tech
Speaker 2: industry was also very like, very clearly involved in affecting
Speaker 2: and attacking like the rights of workers in many different industries,
Speaker 2: not just in the United States or in other Western countries,
Speaker 2: but like around the world as well, Right, And I
Speaker 2: feel like we have not really kind of grappled with
Speaker 2: that as much through the gig economy and of course
Speaker 2: the Ubers of the world and things like that, you know,
Speaker 2: explicitly attacking the regulations on the taxi industry and ensuring
Speaker 2: that this profession gets turned into this kind of unregulated
Speaker 2: contractor model where these people are like completely subjected to
Speaker 2: the rules of like Uber and the rules of these
Speaker 2: gig companies. But then also like much more than that,
Speaker 2: you know, you think about Amazon rolling out out rhythmic
Speaker 2: management across its warehouses and turning warehouse work from like
Speaker 2: a unionized industry where people could make good money to
Speaker 2: like basically your equivalent of a minimum wage job or
Speaker 2: just a little bit above minimum wage. Right, that's kind
Speaker 2: of like the standard if you're in a community. Right,
Speaker 2: it's the new kind of Walmart is working at the
Speaker 2: Amazon warehouse and this really changes, like, you know, then
Speaker 2: you also have the like one of the things that
Speaker 2: I think is pernicious here actually is that, like through
Speaker 2: the mid twenty tens, we had this narrative that automation
Speaker 2: and AI we're going to wipe out all these jobs, right,
Speaker 2: and we're kind of seeing repeats of that right now
Speaker 2: with the whole generative AI boom. But like that moment,
Speaker 2: we have all this these narratives around it and we're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, the robots are going to take our jobs.
Speaker 2: But actually what happens is the tech companies like deploy
Speaker 2: all these technologies to like decimate the labor rights of
Speaker 2: people across the economy, and we just kind of ignore
Speaker 2: that picture of it. But I think that's much more
Speaker 2: consequential and I think we should be paying more attention
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: You have a great piece about this called tech Giants
Speaker 1: are building a dystopia of desperate workers and social isolation,
Speaker 1: where you write tech companies like Amazon and Uber are
Speaker 1: creating a society divided between the served and their servants,
Speaker 1: where the friction of in person interaction is eliminated. That
Speaker 1: friction is the stuff of social connection. A world without
Speaker 1: it is nightmarish. And I've talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and it's not something that I feel
Speaker 1: great about talking about. Which is that during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which was so hard for all of us, I definitely
Speaker 1: got I mean I've used.
Speaker 3: The word addiction.
Speaker 1: I got addicted to buying quick crap on Amazon that
Speaker 1: I didn't need to give myself a quick serotonin boost
Speaker 1: because I was miserable, just like everybody else.
Speaker 3: I got addicted to not.
Speaker 1: Cooking and ordering Uber eats, And when I had to
Speaker 1: take a step back and look at what I was
Speaker 1: contributing to personally me bridget, it was really hard. It
Speaker 1: was hard to see not only that I had been
Speaker 1: so easily conditioned into not thinking about the person who
Speaker 1: was bringing me my Uber eats, the person who was
Speaker 1: leaving whatever I did, what ever dumb thing I just
Speaker 1: bought on Amazon during a pandemic to my apartment, but
Speaker 1: also conditioning meat to think, when I want food, I
Speaker 1: certainly don't have to, you know, cook it myself. But
Speaker 1: I don't even have to go to the I don't
Speaker 1: even have to call my local pizza place down the
Speaker 1: street and have a conversation with the person who owns it.
Speaker 3: That's I don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how did technology trick us into thinking
Speaker 1: that all of these things that are part of the
Speaker 1: fabric of life in a society you don't need and
Speaker 1: in fact, your life would be better without it. Like
Speaker 1: I enjoy cooking dinner, why is it that I now
Speaker 1: am like, oh, like uber eats, is better when this
Speaker 1: is something that used to be something that like brought
Speaker 1: me a little bit of joy and calm in my life, you.
Speaker 2: Know, absolutely, And you know, I think that there are
Speaker 2: so many people who are like in that position, and
Speaker 2: you know, like I think that on one hand, there
Speaker 2: is kind of like the individual responsibility piece of it,
Speaker 2: of like should we be using this and should we
Speaker 2: be kind of contributing to this, But then on the
Speaker 2: other hand, you also have to think about how like
Speaker 2: these are ultimately like much large kind of structural problems,
Speaker 2: and whether we you know, participate in them or not,
Speaker 2: it's not really going to necessarily change like the bigger picture,
Speaker 2: like if one of us opts out, and you know,
Speaker 2: personally I do still opt out, Like I don't use Uber,
Speaker 2: I don't use any of the food delivery services anything
Speaker 2: like that, very rarely use Amazon unless I have to.
Speaker 2: But you know, I know that ultimately, like that's not
Speaker 2: going to take down Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Right, But yeah, right,
Speaker 2: but I think to your bigger point, like you know
Speaker 2: what you say is very true, right, the tech companies
Speaker 2: have essentially tried to convince us, and in many cases
Speaker 2: have successfully done so. To convince us that like things
Speaker 2: that are like regular average aspects of life are actually
Speaker 2: inconvenient and we need to like get rid of them, right,
Speaker 2: And the goal of that, from their perspective is that
Speaker 2: if they can kind of insert themselves between like more
Speaker 2: of our interactions, more of what kind of like the
Speaker 2: transactions that we make in our lives, and that is
Speaker 2: better for them and their business models. Right If if we,
Speaker 2: if Amazon or Uber can like stick itself in the
Speaker 2: middle of more of the transactions that we do, if
Speaker 2: they ensure that like instead of going to the shop,
Speaker 2: instead of talking to someone, that we use one of
Speaker 2: their apps, then that is great for their kind of
Speaker 2: business model because they get to have like a piece
Speaker 2: of that transaction, right, And so this is like the
Speaker 2: whole incentive behind it. And I remember, like all the
Speaker 2: way back in I think it was twenty fourteen, maybe
Speaker 2: it was twenty fifteen, Lauren Smiley, you know who writes
Speaker 2: for Wired now, But she wrote this piece called the
Speaker 2: shut in Economy where she was like outside of of
Speaker 2: Oakland for a while, and then she moved back in
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden it was like people were
Speaker 2: or maybe she moved into San Francisco. It was like
Speaker 2: you know, it was in the Bay Area somewhere, and
Speaker 2: she saw that, like, there are all these people now
Speaker 2: that all of a sudden were like, you know, home
Speaker 2: a lot or at work a lot, and they were
Speaker 2: getting a lot of things delivered and like contracting a
Speaker 2: lot of services because the gig economy is just kind
Speaker 2: of booming in that in that period, right, And she
Speaker 2: was like, what is going on here, Like this is
Speaker 2: really weird, this is not really good. You can see
Speaker 2: the distinction between the served and the servants basically very
Speaker 2: clearly in this model. And sure, it allows a few
Speaker 2: more people to become the served, but that means you
Speaker 2: need a whole bigger kind of population of servants to
Speaker 2: serve them effectively. And what we saw during the pandemic
Speaker 2: was really like an expansion of this model where many
Speaker 2: more people became the people who were kind of like
Speaker 2: relying on gig services and e commerce websites and all
Speaker 2: this stuff to get everything delivered to them so they
Speaker 2: could stay home and kind of isolate. But then you
Speaker 2: also needed this whole population that for a while we
Speaker 2: were calling essential workers, you know, to deliver all this
Speaker 2: stuff and do all this work for the people who
Speaker 2: were staying home and working from home and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: and like we've just kind of like moved on from
Speaker 2: that moment and not really thought about the kind of
Speaker 2: larger implications of that. And like, I do think that
Speaker 2: there were consequences and there were some shifts that happened
Speaker 2: during the pandemic with those whole labor models. But I
Speaker 2: think that part of what we see right now with
Speaker 2: like the big whole generative I push is again like
Speaker 2: this this kind of return of this narrative that oh
Speaker 2: my god, like the AIS are going to take away
Speaker 2: all the jobs, when actually, like what we're much more
Speaker 2: likely to see is like the continuation of tech companies
Speaker 2: like kind of using technology against workers to further kind
Speaker 2: of you know, create more precarious employment and things like that.
Speaker 2: And I think that is like what a lot of
Speaker 2: the media narratives don't suggest, but I think that's much
Speaker 2: more likely to be what we what comes out of it.
Speaker 2: And if we're not paying attention to it now, then
Speaker 2: it's going to be much more difficult to like stop
Speaker 2: that happening because we're too focused on like you know,
Speaker 2: agi and digital minds and all this like sci fi bullshit,
Speaker 2: Oh my.
Speaker 1: God, like something. Actually I actually heard this on your podcast.
Speaker 1: I forget who the guest was, but I do think
Speaker 1: that there's this overton window thing happening where the they like,
Speaker 1: there was a time where if I told you that
Speaker 1: in between you and your mental health care professional would
Speaker 1: be a skizy tech company, you would be like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck? Of course, And now that is commonplace with
Speaker 1: services like Betterhelp, right, And so I think that you're
Speaker 1: so right that tech leaders want to be the wedge
Speaker 1: between us and you know, the business of being a human,
Speaker 1: and we're going to become more and more okay with
Speaker 1: the different things that they're okay, Like I don't want
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos in the middle of my healthcare, right, I
Speaker 1: use one medical and that is exactly what the fuck
Speaker 1: is happening right now, right, Like, I'm not really comfortable
Speaker 1: with like these very intimate things about my body and
Speaker 1: my health there being a Jeff Bezos interference. And I
Speaker 1: think that sort of without us really paying attention and
Speaker 1: really thinking about it more and more intimate spaces, it
Speaker 1: has become commonplace to think that a tech leader would
Speaker 1: be in the middle of your ability.
Speaker 3: To like talk to your healthcare professional or whatever. Does
Speaker 3: that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, and I think that you really clearly see
Speaker 2: that during the pandemic, right, because you know, lockdown orders happen.
Speaker 2: You know, there's an expectation that we lock down or
Speaker 2: at least that like we physical this since from one another,
Speaker 2: we don't see as many people, so we're spending more
Speaker 2: time at home, We're using our devices more, we're watching
Speaker 2: more things on streaming services, as you say, we're using
Speaker 2: more of these services to get food and get other
Speaker 2: things delivered to us. And what we see, like over
Speaker 2: the course of like the first year or two of
Speaker 2: the pandemic, is that like the profits and the revenues
Speaker 2: of all these companies absolutely sore, right, And so it
Speaker 2: shows you that the more that we kind of use
Speaker 2: their services, the more that we look at our screens,
Speaker 2: the better that is for them. And they're incentivized to
Speaker 2: ensure that we spend more time as possible, like engaging
Speaker 2: with their services kind of in front of our screens,
Speaker 2: all these sorts of things. And I would say, like
Speaker 2: that's exactly what the metaverse push was, right, like, how
Speaker 2: can we get you in front of a screen much
Speaker 2: more like the smart glasses all that stuff. The idea
Speaker 2: is just like you need to look at screens more,
Speaker 2: and it's like I don't actually want to do that.
Speaker 2: But I think on your point about healthcare is interesting
Speaker 2: as well, because I've been thinking about it a lot
Speaker 2: lately because I'm in Canada, right, and so our healthcare
Speaker 2: system is a little bit different, and I have like
Speaker 2: even bigger concerns where like, you know, at least in
Speaker 2: the state, it's like the healthcare system is already private
Speaker 2: and so like to a certain degree, you're shifting from
Speaker 2: like one private provider to another. But like, I think
Speaker 2: it's really kind of worrying to see the potential like
Speaker 2: encroachment and the further encroachment of like private companies on
Speaker 2: public healthcare systems, and especially like how technology and digital
Speaker 2: technology provides a means for that to happen, because the
Speaker 2: argument is like, oh, this is like new technology. It
Speaker 2: can't be done by the public sector, so you need
Speaker 2: to contract it from the private sector and bring it
Speaker 2: into your public healthcare system. And then like you know,
Speaker 2: we could say that that's not going to make any difference,
Speaker 2: but really, like it's kind of what I call like
Speaker 2: a sly privatization that's happening there, and it does start
Speaker 2: to change the logics of like what is actually happening
Speaker 2: in the system, And it's not just a Canadian problem,
Speaker 2: Like you know, we see these things happening in the
Speaker 2: UK where there's a big push to privatize, and other
Speaker 2: countries where I've talked to people, So yeah, you know
Speaker 2: a bit of a different perspective there. But those are
Speaker 2: things that I worry about too, even just beyond like
Speaker 2: the general encroachment into healthcare that these companies are.
Speaker 4: Or do it. Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: What do you picture when you think of having a
Speaker 1: full and fulfilled life. It probably looks something like engaging
Speaker 1: with your friends and family and having fulfilling life experiences.
Speaker 1: But if you ask some of the most influential tech leaders,
Speaker 1: the people trying to shape what our futures will look like,
Speaker 1: their vision of a full and fulfilled life might look
Speaker 1: very different from whatever it is you're picturing. It might
Speaker 1: look like more time spent on screens and more technology
Speaker 1: encroaching on more and more aspects of our lives, from
Speaker 1: the food we eat to how we get our medical care.
Speaker 4: All those times you went late at night and eight
Speaker 4: things you shouldn't have eaten.
Speaker 2: That was a secret moment you had with your refrigerator.
Speaker 1: That's popular podcaster, engineer and AI researcher Lex Friedman, who
Speaker 1: has described wanting the ability to share late night meaningful
Speaker 1: moments with his smart refrigerator. But what if I want
Speaker 1: a future where I'm sharing meaningful moments with my partner
Speaker 1: or my best friend, not a robot screen in my refrigerator.
Speaker 1: What if the future that they want and the future
Speaker 1: that I want for myself are two very different things.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that it's good to be encouraged
Speaker 1: to spend more of my time in front of a
Speaker 1: screen looking at a screen, like I want to be
Speaker 1: in the meat space. I want to be having actual
Speaker 1: connections with humans irl. Obviously it's a place of privilege,
Speaker 1: like not everybody can can do that easily. I'm like,
Speaker 1: very lucky that that is my experience in the world.
Speaker 1: But sometimes when I would probably have said that most
Speaker 1: people who have the ability to get out into the world,
Speaker 1: they want that they see that as a good thing,
Speaker 1: as a part of life. That I hear people like
Speaker 1: Lex Friedman or something elon Musk talk, and I don't
Speaker 1: think we're all on.
Speaker 3: The same page.
Speaker 1: I think that some of these people who are hugely
Speaker 1: influential in technology, for them, how can I put this,
Speaker 1: for them, spending more and more time, the idea of
Speaker 1: spending more and more time in front of screens with technology,
Speaker 1: sort of immersing yourself around technology as a human is
Speaker 1: good and thus they are leading this, leading us into
Speaker 1: this future where that is more and more commonplace. And
Speaker 1: because of the way I think, partly because of the
Speaker 1: way that like tech press sometimes covers these people, we
Speaker 1: don't stop and think, like, well, is this the person
Speaker 1: that we want designing the future? This person who has
Speaker 1: like describing a very weird relationship with their robot, vacuum
Speaker 1: or whatever, that there's not a relationship that I want
Speaker 1: to have, But this is the person who is put
Speaker 1: in charge of designing the future of how I will
Speaker 1: relate with technology, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, And like I think, I think there's so
Speaker 2: many things like to explore there basically, but I think,
Speaker 2: like on a large I think I would say that,
Speaker 2: like I I wonder to what degree like the views
Speaker 2: and perspectives of these people at the top of the
Speaker 2: tech industry are actually kind of like you know, reflective
Speaker 2: of wider desires among like the average public, and I
Speaker 2: would say it's actually quite limited. Like I think that
Speaker 2: people are definitely like excited by the idea of humans
Speaker 2: doing more in space, and people generally like the idea
Speaker 2: of like electric cars, and sure there's some conservatives who
Speaker 2: don't like that, but like you know, in general, like
Speaker 2: I think these broad ideas are things that people find appealing.
Speaker 2: But I think that if you dig into like the
Speaker 2: more kind of niche, the more kind of specific viewpoints
Speaker 2: of these influential tech leaders, I think that you'll quickly
Speaker 2: find that if people knew more about them, they would
Speaker 2: think that it was really weird and like really separate
Speaker 2: from what most people think like a good life actually
Speaker 2: looks like. And I think, like, you know, maybe this
Speaker 2: is a bit stereotypical, but I think a bit of
Speaker 2: that is related to how a lot of these people
Speaker 2: in the tech and who are successful in this particular
Speaker 2: industry do seem to be like socially stunted in many ways.
Speaker 2: If you look at the Zuckerbergs, the Elon Musks, like
Speaker 2: you know, Lex Friedman. Of course you mentioned like a
Speaker 2: lot of these people do seem to have difficulty with
Speaker 2: like social relationships, and I'm not going to like diagnose
Speaker 2: them on this podcast, but I think that also shapes
Speaker 2: the way that they think society should be set up
Speaker 2: and like what the future should look like. And so
Speaker 2: we have these people who are like very kind of
Speaker 2: socially isolated and have difficulty relating to other people then
Speaker 2: kind of trying to design or trying to dream up,
Speaker 2: like what society is going to look like for everybody else,
Speaker 2: and that naturally shapes how they think that that society
Speaker 2: should look and how we should all interact with one
Speaker 2: another in the future, when most of us don't have
Speaker 2: that issue and would like to spend more time kind
Speaker 2: of getting to know other people. And of course we
Speaker 2: know right now that you know, there's plenty of talk
Speaker 2: about it, there's kind of like a loneliness crisis in
Speaker 2: you know, I would say, like the Western world probably broadly,
Speaker 2: and like I think that that is linked one to
Speaker 2: our grater reliance on technology, but I would like go
Speaker 2: back much further and say that it's also a result
Speaker 2: of the way that we've designed our communities to be like,
Speaker 2: you know, very suburban in many cases, so you're really
Speaker 2: distanced from a lot of the people that you might
Speaker 2: care about, and it becomes more difficult to actually reach
Speaker 2: them because of transportation all these sorts of things. So like,
Speaker 2: I think that's rooted in like, you know, much more
Speaker 2: kind of like physical geographical problems. And then the tech
Speaker 2: industry because of this is how it works. It responds
Speaker 2: that by saying, not, maybe we should rethink the way
Speaker 2: that our communities are set up so that we can
Speaker 2: encourage like, you know, people to live closer together, for
Speaker 2: us to like fund public social spaces where people can
Speaker 2: come together and you know, they don't need to you know,
Speaker 2: pay to go somewhere to do something. But also beyond that,
Speaker 2: they would say, like instead of proposing those things that
Speaker 2: that might actually address the issue, they would say, you
Speaker 2: know what we need to actually make people more social
Speaker 2: or make people interact with one another more, is actually
Speaker 2: a new technology that will enable them to do that,
Speaker 2: where whether it's like Facebook and how that is kind
Speaker 2: of imagined to connect the world, or like the metaverse,
Speaker 2: because now we don't need to go spend time with
Speaker 2: people in person. We can just put on a VR
Speaker 2: headset and we can put on these other technologies on
Speaker 2: our hands and on our bodies. That allows us to
Speaker 2: feel a physical presence in a virtual environment. And like
Speaker 2: great for all the tech companies because they're constantly tracking us,
Speaker 2: they're getting all the data on us, they're showing us
Speaker 2: ads all the time. We're in this virtual world that
Speaker 2: they completely control. But I think it's like a terrible
Speaker 2: idea of what a future would look like if we
Speaker 2: actually like moved in that direction instead of just saying, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe we should make it easier for you to see
Speaker 2: the people that you care about and get away from
Speaker 2: the technology that these companies want you to be looking
Speaker 2: at all the time.
Speaker 1: And I think there is a fundamental fuckery happening with
Speaker 1: us as regular people and the people who make technology
Speaker 1: and make money from us regular people. I think there
Speaker 1: is a fundamental fucked up relationship that we really need
Speaker 1: to question, like and I think part of it is
Speaker 1: that tech leaders have been able to convince us, the
Speaker 1: regular people, quote unquote, that we're not smart enough to
Speaker 1: understand it. These people are geniuses. They went to Harvard Honey, like,
Speaker 1: they know how to code. You'll never even be able
Speaker 1: to figure it out. So this technology that is already
Speaker 1: impacting so much of your life shaping your day to
Speaker 1: day that is like a meshed with your daily experiences.
Speaker 1: You don't even need to ask questions about it, right,
Speaker 1: Like you don't even get to who are you tech?
Speaker 3: Question?
Speaker 1: These tech leaders who are so smart you don't even
Speaker 1: understand how what do you think needs to be done
Speaker 1: to Really I believe we need to shift that relationship
Speaker 1: like massively.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 1: Because none of this technology you would exist without us,
Speaker 1: yet you wouldn't know that from the way that, I
Speaker 1: feel like tech leaders continue to expand upon this like
Speaker 1: fucked up relationship between quote regular people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, It's like they are kind of like, you
Speaker 2: know that they are kind of gifted with this superior intelligence,
Speaker 2: and they're looking down at us and saying, we're gifting
Speaker 2: you with this knowledge. You know, just use it properly, right.
Speaker 2: And I think that you also see that reflected in
Speaker 2: like the discourse around how government understands technology and whether
Speaker 2: government can regulate technology, And every single time that there's
Speaker 2: like a new technology or we're discussing tech policy or
Speaker 2: something like that, like one of the narratives that we
Speaker 2: constantly hear is, uh, you know, the political leaders don't
Speaker 2: get it they're too old like whatever it is, so
Speaker 2: they can't respond to this, they can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: And inherently, like within that narrative is you know, we
Speaker 2: just need to trust like the tech leaders to regulate themselves,
Speaker 2: to like be ethical. If we just put a bit
Speaker 2: more pressure on them, then they'll be better, right, you know,
Speaker 2: don't be evil the old Google slogan, when we know
Speaker 2: that they're very evil.
Speaker 3: Actually killing technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that, don't talk about that, you.
Speaker 3: Know, we don't talk about the death tech.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're just making nice search engines that talk
Speaker 2: to us. Now. It's very nice, it's very beautiful. I
Speaker 2: think ultimately, like shifting our perspective on these things is essential, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that we're in this moment where, you know,
Speaker 2: as I was saying earlier, like during the early part
Speaker 2: of the twenty tens, the mid twenty tens, like you know,
Speaker 2: we were kind of generally, you know, we as a
Speaker 2: general we kind of like infatuated with the tech industry, right,
Speaker 2: they could do no wrong. All the reporting was like
Speaker 2: these great companies who are doing so many great things
Speaker 2: for us. Then near the end of the twenty tens
Speaker 2: and kind of through the early twenty twenties, we have
Speaker 2: this shift where all of a sudden, you know, we're
Speaker 2: recognizing that maybe we shouldn't have been so positive, so
Speaker 2: kind of uncritical of what they were doing, and there's
Speaker 2: a broader kind of recognition that these companies do need
Speaker 2: more kind of critical you know, critical analysis, critical insight,
Speaker 2: We need to actually be looking at what they're what
Speaker 2: they're doing, right. And I think that that's important because
Speaker 2: I think that, on one hand, like it does kind
Speaker 2: of bring the public along, and it does kind of
Speaker 2: tell the public like, you know, maybe all that we
Speaker 2: were saying before and all that it was cracked up
Speaker 2: to be, and actually these tech companies deserve more scrutiny.
Speaker 2: But I think it also kind of what you see
Speaker 2: in that moment as well, is that the people in
Speaker 2: charge of the tech industry were used to being treated
Speaker 2: like these kind of godlike figures, Like these kind of
Speaker 2: figures who were you know, giving us all this intelligence,
Speaker 2: who we kind of worshiped, you know, like if you
Speaker 2: think of like how Steve Jobs used to be seen
Speaker 2: and he was handing us down our iPods and our
Speaker 2: things like that, right, like he was worshiped, right, it
Speaker 2: was it was basically like a like a religion. And
Speaker 2: I find it interesting if you look at the like
Speaker 2: auditorium that Apple has created on their Apple campus. Now,
Speaker 2: like to me, if you look at it, like it
Speaker 2: has the vibes of a church kind of and like
Speaker 2: pews and all this sort of like this is how
Speaker 2: I feel when I look at it. Right, But anyway,
Speaker 2: this is this is not the point. But if you
Speaker 2: look at what happened as the press became more critical,
Speaker 2: and as the public became more critical, and as the
Speaker 2: government became more critical of the tech industry, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you have these tech leaders who are used
Speaker 2: to being worshiped start to shift how they are responding, right,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, they are feeling like victimized.
Speaker 2: You know, they are kind of all powerful, they're billionaires,
Speaker 2: they're some of the richest people in the world, but
Speaker 2: they are treating themselves like victims because all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: we're not worshiping everything that they do and just thinking that,
Speaker 2: you know, everything that they do is positive.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty, Silicon Valley billionaire and venture capitalists
Speaker 1: Mark Andresen published an essay called It's Time to Build,
Speaker 1: encouraging Silicon Valley tech leaders to be more involved in
Speaker 1: building and shaping America. We've already seen more and more
Speaker 1: tech leaders getting involved in politics and government. But when
Speaker 1: these people who have the power to exert such control
Speaker 1: over our futures embrace ideologies that are harmful, like long
Speaker 1: termism to pro natalism, an ideology embraced by Elon Musk
Speaker 1: that posits that all the really wealthy tech people should
Speaker 1: be having lots and lots of kids to pass down
Speaker 1: their superior genes and repopulate the earth with their super babies.
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to imagine that it'll be a
Speaker 1: future that's better for all of us.
Speaker 2: We've seen that kind of slowly become clearer in recent years,
Speaker 2: where you have people like Mark Andrieson kind of pushing
Speaker 2: back on this, you know, releasing in twenty twenty that
Speaker 2: it's time to build essay where he's really saying like,
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley needs to be more forceful and needs to
Speaker 2: be involved in like much more of society, kind of
Speaker 2: you know, ensuring that they are shaping society in the
Speaker 2: way that they think it should operate. But then you
Speaker 2: also see, like you know, people like David Sachs getting
Speaker 2: more involved in politics, you know, donating more. Obviously you
Speaker 2: have Peter Tiel, but he's been at it much longer
Speaker 2: than that. He has a kind of a larger project.
Speaker 2: And obviously more recently you see Elon Musk becoming much
Speaker 2: more open about his politics. But this is indicative of
Speaker 2: a broader shift that we're seeing in the Valley away
Speaker 2: from kind of, you know, these people being seen as
Speaker 2: like liberal Democrats or whatever, toward the recognition that you know,
Speaker 2: these are powerful capitalists at the head of an industry,
Speaker 2: and now instead of being more they are being challenged
Speaker 2: and their position is being challenged, and they want to
Speaker 2: ensure that everyone understands that they actually deserve the position
Speaker 2: that they're in. They didn't just get it because they
Speaker 2: happened to be in the right place at the right
Speaker 2: time when this massive industry was taking off and there
Speaker 2: was a dot com boom, and they their startup was
Speaker 2: one of the ones that rode the wave, and that
Speaker 2: kind of gave them allowed them to like luck in
Speaker 2: and use their already privileged positions to then kind of
Speaker 2: take off to this new level. Right, And so I
Speaker 2: think that is why we see, especially in the past
Speaker 2: few years, them embracing these particular ideologies that are all
Speaker 2: around kind of ensuring that the public believes that they
Speaker 2: deserve the position that they're in, that they deserve the
Speaker 2: wealth that they're in. And you know, when I say that,
Speaker 2: I mean things like effective altruism, which I say is
Speaker 2: basically the notion that like, you know, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 2: with philanthropy, with there's nothing wrong with philanthropy, there's nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with rich people. And how we actually solve our
Speaker 2: problems is not by challenging rich people and taxing them more,
Speaker 2: but ensuring they spend their billion of dollars more effectively
Speaker 2: to address problems, or like long termism that says, you know, actually, yeah,
Speaker 2: sure we face these problems right now in society, but
Speaker 2: you know, we need to be thinking on a much
Speaker 2: longer time horizon. And you regular people, the you know,
Speaker 2: the means and yous and the listeners of this podcast
Speaker 2: in the world, we are too kind of involved and
Speaker 2: to thinking our thinking too much about the day to
Speaker 2: day and how we're going to pay our bills and
Speaker 2: on all these sorts of things. So we can't think
Speaker 2: on these time horizons. So we need these wealthy people
Speaker 2: like the Elon Musks of the world and the Jeff
Speaker 2: bezos Is of the world to do that work for us,
Speaker 2: So they need to be up there and thinking about
Speaker 2: space colonization and all this bullshit, right. And then of
Speaker 2: course the other piece of this, I would say, is
Speaker 2: like the pronatalism that we're seeing as well, which is like,
Speaker 2: you know, really kind of bringing the eugenics thinking back
Speaker 2: into this eugenics thinking that has always been around in
Speaker 2: tech circles and in Silicon Valley. You know, Stanford University
Speaker 2: was kind of a hotbed of eugenics thinking and kind
Speaker 2: of you know, reviving this put a fresh putting a
Speaker 2: fresh goal on it, so that there is kind of
Speaker 2: a new revival and a new justification for thinking about,
Speaker 2: you know, genetics, for thinking about genes, for thinking about
Speaker 2: kind of you know, Elon Musk really thinks that because
Speaker 2: he is incredibly wealthy, that means as well that he's
Speaker 2: incredibly smart, right, and that the smarts that he has
Speaker 2: need to be passed on to future generations, to his kids,
Speaker 2: because then, you know, if not, the world kind of
Speaker 2: risks having all these low IQ people going around like
Speaker 2: it's just wild thinking. But it shows you, how, you know,
Speaker 2: in many different ways. They are invested in ensuring that
Speaker 2: they keep their power, that they maintain their position, and
Speaker 2: that we regular people are not challenging them, and kind
Speaker 2: of the wealth and the power that they've accumulated over
Speaker 2: the past few decades.
Speaker 1: It's terrifying. It also kind of I mean, it's that's
Speaker 1: completely anti science, right, like it doesn't work that way
Speaker 1: if you are if you are wealthy and like you
Speaker 1: think of yourself as like a smart person, you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily it's antimplely anti science. But you're going to pass
Speaker 1: that down genetically to your kids, so you better have
Speaker 1: a million kids.
Speaker 3: It's what's funny to me that.
Speaker 1: These it's such a fallacy because it's both like I
Speaker 1: am so brilliant and you know, so good at business,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, so I'm going to utilize this completely
Speaker 1: nonsensical anti science way of supreading that.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, whoa, whoa. They both can't be true.
Speaker 1: Either you're really smart or you're like falling for something
Speaker 1: that's completely flies in the face.
Speaker 3: Of how genetics work at a very basic level.
Speaker 2: Oh no, absolutely, And like you very clearly see it
Speaker 2: reflected in like everything that they're talking about right. And
Speaker 2: I do think it's funny because like, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: they present themselves as these like brilliant engineers who like
Speaker 2: understand everything, and like, you know, the whole thing about
Speaker 2: these Silicon Valley founders is that, like you know, going
Speaker 2: back to like the PayPal mafia days and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: is like they really believed that they had this kind
Speaker 2: of inherent knowledge, this knowledge that allowed them not just
Speaker 2: to understand technology, but to move into any industry that
Speaker 2: they thought was ripe for kind of technological disruption and
Speaker 2: disrupt it basically. Right, you know, Elon Musk can go
Speaker 2: into banking and cars and space and Twitter and whatever,
Speaker 2: and because he is just the smartest person in the world,
Speaker 2: he will know exactly what needs to happen for all
Speaker 2: of these sectors to be transformed and made better by
Speaker 2: the tech industry. And I think what we've actually seen,
Speaker 2: like if we actually look at the impact of the
Speaker 2: tech industry is that in some cases, yes, they have
Speaker 2: made things more efficient if they have kind of organized
Speaker 2: things properly. Like if you look at as much as
Speaker 2: I hate Amazon, like it's supply chain and logistics system
Speaker 2: does seem to be like, you know, quite an impressive
Speaker 2: feat that it has put together. Right, there's a whole
Speaker 2: load of exploitation that it's built on, and like all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, Like let's not forget that, but
Speaker 2: you know, it has kind of effectively put this system
Speaker 2: together that like I would love to see transferred over
Speaker 2: to the post office or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's amazing what you could accomplish when you're like grinding
Speaker 1: the bones of workers exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: But then on the other hand, is like you'll have
Speaker 2: a company like Uber, which promotes itself as like this
Speaker 2: efficient transportation company because it's using all this technology to
Speaker 2: like design the routes and the patterns and whatever of
Speaker 2: how all these vehicles go. But you know, if you
Speaker 2: look at listen to people who actually understand transportation, like
Speaker 2: Hubert Horn, a transportation consultant who's been kind of writing
Speaker 2: critically about Uber for years, you understand that actually their
Speaker 2: model is like less efficient than the model that existed
Speaker 2: before because they have lost like all of these you know,
Speaker 2: ways of organizing the business that are actually more efficient
Speaker 2: in that they don't have a fleet of cars. Everyone
Speaker 2: has to own their own car and do their own
Speaker 2: maintenance and buy their own insurance, and that's much less
Speaker 2: efficient than what existed before. And because you have this
Speaker 2: kind of global company that has these massive, expensive headquarters
Speaker 2: and these like well paid executives and these high paid
Speaker 2: tech workers and all this kind of stuff like working
Speaker 2: on all these things, actually the cost of running that
Speaker 2: business is higher than like a regular taxi company that
Speaker 2: just like had a small office in a city and
Speaker 2: like a few dispatchers and stuff like that, and like
Speaker 2: you know, they kind of managed it and worked it out,
Speaker 2: so so you know, and I think that there are
Speaker 2: actually many other examples like that, where like we think
Speaker 2: that because of the narrative around the tech industry that
Speaker 2: oh my god, they've revolutionized all these things, they've made
Speaker 2: everything better, But actually they've just put like the gloss
Speaker 2: of digital tech over something that already existed and tell
Speaker 2: us that it's better. And we kind of believe it
Speaker 2: because this is the narrative that we have about technology.
Speaker 2: But that isn't necessarily the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm so glad that folks like you exist
Speaker 1: who are out there really trying to shift shift that
Speaker 1: narrative and like pump the brakes and say wait a minute,
Speaker 1: like is this actually better? Is this actually more efficient
Speaker 1: or are we just so used to these confident men,
Speaker 1: you know, telling us that it's better at us just
Speaker 1: sort of believing it. Like, I think a big part
Speaker 1: of it it's also just good old fashion hubris that
Speaker 1: if I'm really good at building rockets, of course I
Speaker 1: would be good at figuring out, you know, content moderation,
Speaker 1: which is this incredibly complex thing that like people debate
Speaker 1: all the time about how to do it right. I'm
Speaker 1: I built a rocket, right, Like, I'm a pretty good podcaster.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that I would be a good president
Speaker 1: or that I could solve you know, uh uh, like.
Speaker 3: Homelessness or something like. It's incredibly it's hubris.
Speaker 1: But it's also it's so like narrow minded that you
Speaker 1: think that because you maybe are smart in one sphere,
Speaker 1: that that is always going to translate over because of
Speaker 1: something particular and innate to who you are.
Speaker 3: It's so it's I just really hate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, And I think it tells you a
Speaker 2: ton about like who these people are and how they
Speaker 2: think about themselves, that they do think that just because
Speaker 2: they're successful in one arena, that they can naturally kind
Speaker 2: of move that success into many others. Just because they
Speaker 2: are like, you know, they've been graced with this like
Speaker 2: an inherent intelligence. And you know, the tech industry for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, is like can just do everything and whatever,
Speaker 2: and you know, they also kind of like apply this
Speaker 2: kind of software mindset to everything to the physical world
Speaker 2: even when it doesn't doesn't work out. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that's been refreshing
Speaker 2: over the past few years is to see kind of
Speaker 2: a greater awareness around you know, these people and their
Speaker 2: flaws and how they're not kind of like messiahs and
Speaker 2: great people who are like making the world better, but
Speaker 2: actually like you know, exploiters who you know, are making
Speaker 2: massive profits off of a ton of workers, workers who
Speaker 2: they're trying to like hide behind, you know, the kind
Speaker 2: of veil of technology, but actually you know, they are
Speaker 2: creating these systems that are built on exploitation. And like
Speaker 2: generative AI of course is another version of this. You know,
Speaker 2: even though it's presented as just being like all the
Speaker 2: tech technology and computers like doing all this magical stuff,
Speaker 2: there's there's always kind of workers below it that like
Speaker 2: we like to ignore. And so I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that's been positive is seeing people wake up
Speaker 2: a bit more, and certainly not everyone has, certainly, like
Speaker 2: you know, I would like more people to have done so,
Speaker 2: But I still think it's positive to see us moving
Speaker 2: in this direction. To see that like as soon as
Speaker 2: new technologies are announced and kind of unveiled and rolled
Speaker 2: out now that you know, very quickly, there's a discussion
Speaker 2: around you know, does this make sense? Should we be
Speaker 2: regulating it? Like what are we doing about this? Like
Speaker 2: we see whitchat GBT, or we saw about the metaverse,
Speaker 2: like people just quickly ridiculing it as soon as Mark
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg rolled it out, And like, I think that's a
Speaker 2: really positive like change, because I wonder if we would
Speaker 2: have saw that like a decade or so ago. And also,
Speaker 2: like you know, how Crypto was. Sure you had a
Speaker 2: lot of people who were like really invested in it
Speaker 2: and really believe that crypto is the future and whatever,
Speaker 2: but you also had this really strong community who was saying, like,
Speaker 2: hold up, this does not make any sense. This is
Speaker 2: just spammy, exploitative Ponzi schemes, and we can't allow this
Speaker 2: to go anywhere. And I think that we've seen like
Speaker 2: the you know, the kind of the steam kind of
Speaker 2: has come out of that bubble right like it has collapsedure,
Speaker 2: they're not all gone, but I think that these things
Speaker 2: are like positive and they give me some hope that
Speaker 2: like we're at least sort of going in the right direction,
Speaker 2: and we just need to keep kind of you know,
Speaker 2: keeping up the good fight to ensure that as you know,
Speaker 2: the tech industry keeps kind of pushing these new waves
Speaker 2: of hype that you know, there are critics who are
Speaker 2: around who are looking at what's happening and saying, like,
Speaker 2: hold up just a minute. What these people say are
Speaker 2: saying like makes absolutely no sense, and we need to
Speaker 2: be looking not at like the pr and the marketing
Speaker 2: lines that these companies and you know, the executives like
Speaker 2: Sam Altman want us to be thinking about and looking
Speaker 2: at and talking talking about, but to actually look at
Speaker 2: the real impacts, to like be informed by history and
Speaker 2: how these things have worked out in the past, because
Speaker 2: the tech industry loves to ignore history and to actually
Speaker 2: try to like get some lessons about what might happen
Speaker 2: so that we can respond like proactively, instead of being
Speaker 2: a few years down the line and realizing, like, man,
Speaker 2: we've let this go a bit too far. It might
Speaker 2: be impossible to roll it back at this point, right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I take some hope from those things.
Speaker 3: More.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: When Zuckerberg started hyping up the metaverse, everybody pretty much
Speaker 1: just made fun of him until he dropped it. And
Speaker 1: before the crypto crash, it was crypto critics who wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop calling it out as a scam. And now we
Speaker 1: need to be ready to call out AI hype, especially
Speaker 1: when it's hype that just ends up hurting workers. I
Speaker 1: am almost embarrassed to admit this, but I am very confused.
Speaker 3: About I get asked about this a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm always like, oh, I don't know the role that
Speaker 1: generative AI will play in our future. And I think
Speaker 1: part of it is I think that I shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: too bad because I think this is by design. There
Speaker 1: is so much just pr speak that I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't have a good sense of what is actually
Speaker 1: going on. And I listened to the episode that you
Speaker 1: did with Julia Black and she made such a good
Speaker 1: point that when she asked Sam Altman, like straight up, okay,
Speaker 1: so for a like, imagine who you think of as
Speaker 1: like a typical American how will this change? How will
Speaker 1: AI change her life in ten years? And that he
Speaker 1: not only didn't have an answer, that it was like
Speaker 1: he had not thought about the question. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God, that's not good. And so I think that
Speaker 1: we hear so much pr speak. We hear so much
Speaker 1: like AI is gonna change everything, It's gonna take all
Speaker 1: of our jobs, and then people saying like, no, that's
Speaker 1: what that's what people who make money off of AI
Speaker 1: want you to be thinking about and want you to
Speaker 1: be repeating and want you to be like making a
Speaker 1: thing like making thatch happen when it like what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts when it comes to generative AI and where
Speaker 1: how it is going to actually impact the lives of
Speaker 1: someone like the you know mother of Ree who you
Speaker 1: know makes add a middle income What do you think
Speaker 1: how is it going to impact our lives?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say I'm definitely skeptical of yeah,
Speaker 2: of like a lot of the narratives that we're hearing, right,
Speaker 2: because yeah, and again like that's just informed by seeing
Speaker 2: how things have worked out in the past, right, by
Speaker 2: seeing that this is an industry that really depends on
Speaker 2: constantly kicking up new hype cycles. In order to keep
Speaker 2: investment flowing, in order to keep people making money, in
Speaker 2: order to keep interest on kind of their industry and
Speaker 2: their products. And what you very clearly saw was that,
Speaker 2: you know, after the crypto collapse and after you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of ridiculing of the metaverse, and after the
Speaker 2: raising of interest rates in particular, the tech industry really
Speaker 2: needed something, right. It really needed you know, a next
Speaker 2: big thing to kind of show to everybody to make
Speaker 2: sure we were all talking about, to make sure it
Speaker 2: stayed relevant, and again to keep money flowing, right, to
Speaker 2: keep money moving through the system. And so generative AI
Speaker 2: has emerged as that thing. And so I look back
Speaker 2: at the mid twenty tens, as we were talking about,
Speaker 2: when there were all of these narratives around how robots
Speaker 2: and AI were going to take all of our jobs, right,
Speaker 2: and millions of people were going to be out of work,
Speaker 2: Like there were studies saying like forty fifty percent of
Speaker 2: people were going to lose their jobs in the coming years,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. There were going to be
Speaker 2: no more truckers because self driving cars were going to
Speaker 2: replace them all. There were going to be no more
Speaker 2: taxi drivers or uber drivers because we're self driving cars
Speaker 2: were going to be everywhere in the next few years, right,
Speaker 2: still waiting for those self driving cars, you know, I
Speaker 2: know there are a few on the streets in San
Speaker 2: Francisco and stuff, but like they're really not a mass
Speaker 2: transportation system. And what we saw durund the pandemic was
Speaker 2: actually we needed some more truck drivers because the whole
Speaker 2: kind of supply chain was a mess. And part of
Speaker 2: the problem there is because truck drivers have had their
Speaker 2: working conditions and their wages so pushed down over recent
Speaker 2: decades that people don't want to join the profession. And
Speaker 2: so it's not because like robots are getting rid of them.
Speaker 2: It's because work the working conditions suck, and we actually
Speaker 2: need more of them. But anyway, that's kind of you know,
Speaker 2: getting away from the point. But so I saw all
Speaker 2: of that, and I saw like all of the narratives
Speaker 2: around that moment and how there was a lot of
Speaker 2: excitement and a lot of belief that like robots were
Speaker 2: going to replace baristas and they were going to replace
Speaker 2: elder care workers and all this was just a few
Speaker 2: years away and never happened. Right, What we actually had
Speaker 2: was technology being deployed in you know, the ways that
Speaker 2: we've been talking about, where it ensured that workers were
Speaker 2: reclassified from employee to contractor, where it ensured that their
Speaker 2: pay was was lessened, where it ensured that they were
Speaker 2: more precarious, where ensured that there was algorithmic management and
Speaker 2: more surveillance of them. These were the actual kind of
Speaker 2: legacies of that period, not destroying jobs and all all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and not making things a whole
Speaker 2: lot more productive. We didn't actually see a whole lot
Speaker 2: of investment in automation through that decade. The scholar economic
Speaker 2: historian Aaron Benanov kind of found that when he went
Speaker 2: and actually looked through the data for that period, what
Speaker 2: we actually saw was, you know, just all of these
Speaker 2: kind of surveillance tech and all this kind of stuff
Speaker 2: used against workers. And so when I see what's going
Speaker 2: on right now, I see the hype cycle I was
Speaker 2: talking about. I see kind of the return of some
Speaker 2: of these narratives from the mid twenty tens. You know,
Speaker 2: open AI released the papers say talking about all the
Speaker 2: jobs that were that were at risk because of CHAT,
Speaker 2: GPT and all this kind of stuff. But that's not
Speaker 2: to say that there aren't real threats that are being
Speaker 2: posed by this technology, where again, it can further disempower labor,
Speaker 2: it can further ensure that they're more precarious, it can
Speaker 2: further push down wages. We're seeing, like you know, the
Speaker 2: front end of that. The most obvious piece of that
Speaker 2: is like the writers and the screen actors who are
Speaker 2: undergoing contract negotiations right now. The writers are even on
Speaker 2: strike and one of the things that they're concerned about
Speaker 2: is how AI can be used in their industries to
Speaker 2: kind of reshape their performances, to change the words to
Speaker 2: kind of generate you know, scripts or generate writing that
Speaker 2: they would have to rewrite, and it would mean that
Speaker 2: there would be less work to do for them, and
Speaker 2: it would also mean that the quality would decline. Like
Speaker 2: I think that those are more of the risks of
Speaker 2: generative AI if we're looking at the potential impacts, and
Speaker 2: I would say that right now, these technologies are also
Speaker 2: being sold to us in such a way where like
Speaker 2: they're going to become ubiquitous in our lives. We're going
Speaker 2: to be using generative AI and chatbots all the time.
Speaker 2: They're going to be like rolled out into everything. This
Speaker 2: is just the new way of the world. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people are being too quick to like
Speaker 2: accept that as inevitable when I don't think it is.
Speaker 2: Like think about the voice assistance that were rolled out
Speaker 2: in the past, like six or eight years. How many
Speaker 2: people actually use those regularly anymore? I certainly don't, And
Speaker 2: I read a story recently that suggests actually a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't. This is not just anecdotal evidence. So
Speaker 2: you know, I think that there's a lot of things
Speaker 2: that the tech industry rolls out that we think are
Speaker 2: like the next big paradigm, that we think are going
Speaker 2: to revolutionize everything, and it doesn't actually play out as planned.
Speaker 2: And I think the final point I would make on
Speaker 2: this is that when we look at generative AI, what
Speaker 2: we actually see is that it increases, like the cost structure,
Speaker 2: it increases the cost of doing these things. So if
Speaker 2: you're switching over a search engine from the way it
Speaker 2: works right now to like generative AI and chatbots, the
Speaker 2: cost per search goes up, you know, quite significantly, actually,
Speaker 2: because it uses more computer power, because it's trained on
Speaker 2: these massive models, because it relies on all this centralized
Speaker 2: kind of computation right in these massive data centers that
Speaker 2: these companies own and I think that that's another piece
Speaker 2: of this that maybe there's not enough talk about, because
Speaker 2: certainly you have the sam Altmans of the world going
Speaker 2: out and saying this is going to empower every individual,
Speaker 2: and we're going to have chatbots that are like personalized
Speaker 2: for you and all this kind of stuff. Actually, what
Speaker 2: this technology does is, you know, we've been talking about
Speaker 2: like anti trust and breaking up companies and the issues
Speaker 2: with like monopolization in the tech industry for a few
Speaker 2: years now. What this actually does is like kind of
Speaker 2: cement that power, because you can't really have generative AI
Speaker 2: without scraping all of this data from the web, without
Speaker 2: having this centralized kind of computing infrastructure that only a
Speaker 2: small number of companies globally can actually control. And so
Speaker 2: if we do move in this direction, we're kind of
Speaker 2: building in the power of these large companies in a
Speaker 2: way that we were trying to challenge a few years ago.
Speaker 2: And that suggests to me that they're also kind of
Speaker 2: responding to that fact. You know, there was a story
Speaker 2: just a few months ago about how the tech companies
Speaker 2: had very quite successfully kind of challenged and kind of
Speaker 2: blunted the push for anti trust, and now that the
Speaker 2: Republicans have taken over one of the houses in the
Speaker 2: States that sorry I can't remember which, the Senator of
Speaker 2: the House or whatever. Anyway, they took over one of
Speaker 2: those and so now like it's pretty much going to
Speaker 2: be impossible to get any like anti trust legislation through
Speaker 2: for the next number of years, I would say. So
Speaker 2: the tech industry is very concerned about these things as well,
Speaker 2: very kind of alert to this. So, yeah, those are
Speaker 2: all my thoughts on Jenner VAI.
Speaker 3: That's really helpful.
Speaker 1: And I think it does, like you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: on TikTok a lot, and I do think that it's
Speaker 1: it really is reflective of like it's a hu it's
Speaker 1: a it's a little bit of a hustle.
Speaker 3: And the people who are selling you the hustle have money.
Speaker 1: There's money to be made, right, And so I see
Speaker 1: people who are like, oh AI is going to change everything.
Speaker 1: You're going to need to know how to integrate AI
Speaker 1: into your work, So better sign up for my course,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you like, it's like it's it's it's yeah.
Speaker 3: Just it just feels like a little bit of a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: Of a hustle, and that's the way it's always been right,
Speaker 2: Like every single time there's a new shift like that.
Speaker 2: Like I remember when it was popular to like like
Speaker 2: when Kindle and like self publishing and all that stuff
Speaker 2: was taking off on Amazon. There were a ton of courses.
Speaker 2: There were a ton of people trying to sell you, like,
Speaker 2: you know, the way that you were going to be
Speaker 2: a successful self published author and all this stuff. And
Speaker 2: like you know, there's there's all these courses around SEO
Speaker 2: and search engine option optimization to ensure that your website
Speaker 2: is going to like get to the top of the
Speaker 2: search results, and like this is something that happens every
Speaker 2: single time, and I think it's very indicative of this
Speaker 2: happening again that like some of the like you know,
Speaker 2: beyond the kind of pr lines from the sam Altmans
Speaker 2: and like the real AI boosters that you see the
Speaker 2: people saying that like you know, it's a massive threat
Speaker 2: to humanity, using these kind of long term mist arguments
Speaker 2: against it, saying that you know, they're on the cusp
Speaker 2: of digital minds. All this stuff is complete bullshit by
Speaker 2: the way, you know. But the other like big narrative
Speaker 2: that you see on Twitter and TikTok and like all
Speaker 2: these other social media platforms is like the hustle bros
Speaker 2: and the hustle people like going really hard, like the
Speaker 2: LinkedIn the LinkedIn folks as well, like this is all
Speaker 2: the stuff you need to know about AI, this is
Speaker 2: how it's going to improve your workflow, help you writing emails,
Speaker 2: like all this blah blah blah. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 2: load of bull shit.
Speaker 1: Have taken over Twitter, Like I almost it's it's just
Speaker 1: so fucking boring and like I almost miss like I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's just it's just such empty, boring
Speaker 1: garbage that I can't you can't even like dunk on it.
Speaker 3: You can't even like all it is.
Speaker 1: It just like clogs up your feed and where your
Speaker 1: feed is already like worse than it was five years
Speaker 1: ago anyway, you know, it's just it's it's so.
Speaker 2: Boring totally that the whole website is like going downhill
Speaker 2: and it sucks because like you know that there was
Speaker 2: such a community there, like it was it was fun
Speaker 2: to be on Twitter, but like I certainly use it
Speaker 2: less than I used to. I'm not like off it
Speaker 2: all together, but especially when you see it like slowly
Speaker 2: moving in this kind of direction, that Elon Musk is
Speaker 2: taking it where like I think he's explicitly making decisions
Speaker 2: to kind of reshape it as more of like a
Speaker 2: right wing platform, right like parlor failed gab failed thrue
Speaker 2: socials a joke, Like you know, they they still want
Speaker 2: to control, like, you know, the the kind of way
Speaker 2: that we communicate with one another. They still want to
Speaker 2: control the media. That's long been like part of the rights,
Speaker 2: you know kind of desire what they want to do.
Speaker 2: You know, they have Fox News, but they also kind
Speaker 2: of strongly influence like the liberal media quote unquote as
Speaker 2: well to kind of pull the narratives in that direction.
Speaker 2: So obviously they want to do that on social media
Speaker 2: as well, and have been effectively doing so for many years.
Speaker 2: We can go back to the reporting on Facebook and
Speaker 2: like how Zuckerberg was like worried about kind of pissing
Speaker 2: off the conservatives or making it look like he was
Speaker 2: taking actions that would go against him even as their
Speaker 2: pages were like getting the most kind of views and
Speaker 2: growth and all that stuff. And so now you see
Speaker 2: like Tucker Carlson starting a Twitter show, like how does
Speaker 2: that make any sense? We see DeSantis, Like as we're talking,
Speaker 2: DeSantis is going to like announce his presidential bid this evening,
Speaker 2: you know, and obviously all these kind of right wing
Speaker 2: folks just get so much additional traction, or they don't
Speaker 2: seem to think so, I guess, but you know, they
Speaker 2: get promoted a lot on Twitter now because of how
Speaker 2: Musk has changed things around and let all the Nazis
Speaker 2: back on and all that stuff, like, yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: a it's a real health site. Like we used to
Speaker 2: joke it was a health site that like now is
Speaker 2: really elside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, something I've noticed is that people are
Speaker 1: starting to come around on the fact that Musk has
Speaker 1: been parroting pretty extremist, far right talking points and it's
Speaker 1: not a new thing.
Speaker 3: It's been doing it for kind of a while.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is something like even people
Speaker 1: that I respect in tech press didn't really engage with that, honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel or like weren't able to get it. There
Speaker 1: was always this vibe of like, maybe it's just like
Speaker 1: an edgy thing that he's doing, or it's a like
Speaker 1: I once read someone saying like, oh, he's trying to
Speaker 1: save the environment by making buying electric cars, that he
Speaker 1: makes look more appealing to people on the right to
Speaker 1: help solve climate injustice, Like what a take Why do
Speaker 1: you think it was so hard for people to just
Speaker 1: like take him at his word and like listen to
Speaker 1: the things that he says and believe them when he
Speaker 1: says them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like what you're describing is like how far of
Speaker 2: a stretch some people go to to like justify exactly
Speaker 2: what he's doing and what he's saying.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I think that the key thing here is that for
Speaker 2: such a long time, Elon Musk was like, you know,
Speaker 2: he was kind of the tech god. He was the
Speaker 2: guy who was kind of he was the figure who
Speaker 2: was kind of held up from the tech industry, especially
Speaker 2: after the death of jobs, that was like doing all
Speaker 2: of this wonderful stuff for us. He was investing in
Speaker 2: the rockets and was going to take us the Mars,
Speaker 2: and he was building the electric car and was going
Speaker 2: to save us from climate change and like all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, right, And the media did hold him
Speaker 2: up as this figure who could really do no wrong
Speaker 2: and who we really had to like worship as not
Speaker 2: just like this incredible tech entrepreneur, but as the builder
Speaker 2: of the future, right, Like he had a vision that
Speaker 2: nobody else had that you couldn't get from the political
Speaker 2: system or anything like that. Like he was the future
Speaker 2: and he was someone that we had to trust. And
Speaker 2: I think that that has like, even though that has
Speaker 2: started to shift in recent years, I think that first
Speaker 2: of all, it took a while for the media to
Speaker 2: really wake up. I think like even as you did
Speaker 2: have them publishing more kind of critical stories on Elon Musk,
Speaker 2: they would still publish the puff pieces as well. Right,
Speaker 2: you know, even what was it last year, he was
Speaker 2: still named Times Person of the Year or whatever, Like,
Speaker 2: even as he was increasingly being engulfed in controversy, there
Speaker 2: were a ton of stories about the racism and sexism
Speaker 2: in his factories. You know, there was the story I
Speaker 2: believe about him like sexually assaulting the flight attendant. I
Speaker 2: believe that was just before that happened. Like there was
Speaker 2: all this stuff that was kind of coming out about
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, and he still got this this title, right,
Speaker 2: And so I think that like unfortunately, like I think
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of people who really believe in
Speaker 2: the cult of and who are not just kind of
Speaker 2: like personally invested, but also let's be real, they've bought
Speaker 2: a Tesla or they bought Tesla stock and they're like
Speaker 2: financially invested in Elon Musk. Because one of the things
Speaker 2: that is like somewhat unique about Tesla is there's a
Speaker 2: lot of quote unquote retail investors, people that are not
Speaker 2: institutional investors who owned Tesla stock, which is a bit
Speaker 2: less common. Right, It's because Elon Musk has all these
Speaker 2: fans and they've bought in and they kind of believe
Speaker 2: what he's doing and where he's going, and they want
Speaker 2: to follow him. Of course, some people have woken up.
Speaker 2: But then the other piece of this is there were
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, kind of people who reported
Speaker 2: on Elon Musk who got to know Elon Musk because
Speaker 2: they're access journalists and I won't name names, but maybe
Speaker 2: you can think about who I'm talking about for a
Speaker 2: number of years who really helped him to kind of
Speaker 2: build up the reputation that he had and wanted to
Speaker 2: ensure that they maintain that connection to him. And I
Speaker 2: think also kind of some in the way that they
Speaker 2: presented Elon Musk to the public and didn't want to
Speaker 2: recognize that not only was it not only is he
Speaker 2: kind of a bad person, who is you know, ensuring
Speaker 2: that transphobic talking points, who is ensuring that kind of
Speaker 2: white nationalist talking points, Like all of this kind of
Speaker 2: really terrible political stuff is being furthered and that he's
Speaker 2: like actively sharing it and promoting it and believing it.
Speaker 2: But also that there how they presented him for so
Speaker 2: long was also wrong and was not an accurate reflection
Speaker 2: of who he was and what he was doing and
Speaker 2: his impact on the world because they created this narrative
Speaker 2: around him. They created this character of Elon Musk, and
Speaker 2: he was you know, this was a valuable property that
Speaker 2: the media had created and kind of sold to the world.
Speaker 2: It was great for him, that allowed him to get investment.
Speaker 2: It was also great for them because any time they
Speaker 2: publish anything on Elon Musk, it gets a ton of views. Right,
Speaker 2: people love him, people hate him, whatever people want to
Speaker 2: read about him, And so that was great for the
Speaker 2: media as well. And that's part of the reason that
Speaker 2: they that they kind of created this narrative around him,
Speaker 2: that they created the character of Vila Musk. But if
Speaker 2: you go back to it the very early days when
Speaker 2: he is starting zip too, when he's starting x dot com,
Speaker 2: you can see the stories about how he is a
Speaker 2: terrible manager who is an asshole to the people who
Speaker 2: work for him. Right, this is not unknown, This is
Speaker 2: very clear at that time, and that continues as he
Speaker 2: starts other businesses as well. And like we see the
Speaker 2: stories time and again through his history of like who
Speaker 2: he actually is. But I think that some of these
Speaker 2: people who worked in the media, who kind of were
Speaker 2: incentivized to promote him in this way, ensured that that
Speaker 2: aspect of his personality and who he was was always downplayed,
Speaker 2: was always kind of hidden from the public, was not
Speaker 2: part of the persona that was sold to us. And
Speaker 2: so now there's kind of a reckoning, not just with
Speaker 2: who he is, because some of these people will say, oh,
Speaker 2: he's just changed in the past like six months. No,
Speaker 2: he's always been this person and now he's just being
Speaker 2: more open about it. And so there's a not just
Speaker 2: with that, but also like with what we've been told
Speaker 2: about him for a long time, and some people really
Speaker 2: don't want to engage with that and don't want to
Speaker 2: believe that he was always who he is now and
Speaker 2: is just being more open about it, and want to
Speaker 2: pretend that this is kind of a break from what
Speaker 2: they knew before or again is some kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, three dimensional chess sort of a thing that's
Speaker 2: going on where he's actually trying to get conservatives on
Speaker 2: board with climate policy. Like it's just total bullshit, right,
Speaker 2: But yeah, so that's kind of how I think about that.
Speaker 1: So I always end all of my interviews with asking
Speaker 1: when it comes to the future, are you hopeful? Like
Speaker 1: what is there anything that brings you hope?
Speaker 2: I would say yes, And I think it's difficult to
Speaker 2: be hopeful sometimes, like seeing the state of the world,
Speaker 2: seeing the climate getting worse, seeing like the continued influence
Speaker 2: of the tech industry and like the worst people in
Speaker 2: that industry. But I feel like if I didn't have hope,
Speaker 2: like I would just be like totally depressed and stuff.
Speaker 2: So even despite the fact that things look bad, I
Speaker 2: feel like I have to be hopeful. And that's not
Speaker 2: to say that like there aren't things that do give
Speaker 2: me hope. I as I was saying, like I feel
Speaker 2: hopeful seeing kind of people push back against the tech
Speaker 2: industry and seeing like the broader realization that we have
Speaker 2: around these people in the industry, around like what they
Speaker 2: are doing, and the recognition that like you know, they're
Speaker 2: not who they have been sold to us to be.
Speaker 2: But then like on top of that, it's also quite
Speaker 2: inspiring to see, especially in the past number of years,
Speaker 2: a lot more organizing, not just in the tech industry,
Speaker 2: but like in the society more broadly, people kind of
Speaker 2: pushing back against you know, actions of the tech industry,
Speaker 2: people unionizing, like all these kinds of things I think
Speaker 2: are really hopeful because they suggest that, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: we're moving in a direction where people are getting really
Speaker 2: pissed off with the way that things are and are
Speaker 2: trying to you know, change those things, are trying to
Speaker 2: ensure that we don't keep moving in that direction. And
Speaker 2: of course, you know, I guess the flips of that
Speaker 2: is that we also see that organizing happening on the
Speaker 2: other side among the fascists and the white nationalists who
Speaker 2: are trying to make the world worse. But I think
Speaker 2: that it's almost like inevitable that in the stage of
Speaker 2: capitalism that we're in, we're just going to see this
Speaker 2: kind of polarization. And you know, the goal is to
Speaker 2: ensure that we have as much energy and power as
Speaker 2: we can build, like you know, on the left and
Speaker 2: among people who actually care about like regular people and
Speaker 2: not just like, you know, all this kind of fascist,
Speaker 2: racist garbage that we're increasingly seeing to kind of build
Speaker 2: a better world. So I feel like I feel like
Speaker 2: that's a bit mixed, but I would say on the whole,
Speaker 2: I am hopeful that you know, even though things are
Speaker 2: going bad in some areas, I think that there's a
Speaker 2: reason to believe that people are willing to fight for
Speaker 2: something better, and you know, hopefully that continues.
Speaker 1: Well, your work is a beacon of light in a
Speaker 1: in what sometimes feels like an ocean of garbage. Where
Speaker 1: can folk listen to your podcast and all the cool
Speaker 1: stuff that you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me. It was really
Speaker 2: great to chat. I would say, you know, the podcast
Speaker 2: is tech won't save us. It's like on all the
Speaker 2: podcast platforms, wherever you listen, it should be there. I
Speaker 2: also have a newsletter called Disconnect, which is over on substack.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: You know people have mixed opinions on that platform. I
Speaker 2: certainly do as well, but if you want to read it,
Speaker 2: it's over there. You know, you can follow me on
Speaker 2: Twitter or maceedon or blue Sky. You know, I post
Speaker 2: a bit on on those platforms. Still, yeah, I would say,
Speaker 2: those are the key things.
Speaker 1: This has been amazing. Is there anything that I did
Speaker 1: not ask that you want to make sure it gets included?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. This has been great.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi? You can read us at
Speaker 1: Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at TENG Goody dot com. There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridge Pad.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
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