Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve been threatening to start a regular audio enterprise here at Blood in the Machine Inc for quite some time, and now it’s officially happening. In the player above, embedded in the video below, and populating that long-dormant BITM podcast feed is what’s essentially a pilot for a Blood in the Machine show. The topic for this inaugural episode is a timely one: How the AI industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to sway outcomes this election cycle.
Last year, I recorded a few video interviews with folks like Karen Hao, Jacob Silverman, and Cory Doctorow, and enjoyed all of them. I kept intending to expand that facet of the newsletter, but it turns out starting a show is hard, and requires a lot of preparation, persistence, and help. I really became convinced it was worth trying for a couple reasons: First, the top ask I get from readers and folks I meet at events and so forth is, hands down, for an audio component to the newsletter. Where’s the podcast? etc. Well, here it is! This is for you.
Second, there’s just so much happening in the world BITM covers. So many people are organizing, resisting, and pushing back against the concentrating power of big tech and the AI industry. Exposing and interrogating its excesses. I personally have wanted a show that reflects how expansive and momentous this tendency is; that delivers a digest of regular updates on this wildly growing opposition to AI, Silicon Valley, and the tech oligarchy; a show that puts voices of workers, activists, journalists behind the mic.
Illustration by Koren Shadmi.
Every week now, after all, people are protesting data centers that AI companies want to build in their backyards. They’re organizing workers in Silicon Valley, resisting AI’s encroachment into schools and the office, reclaiming public life from total social media saturation. This is the time of the Summer of Ludd, of the open booing of AI at college graduations. I’m hoping this show will help vividly document these movements and the people behind them. There are approximately one billion podcasts that highlight tech stories from a business perspective, and that host tech executives, AI advocates, and startup founders. This show is for everyone else; the folks in their crosshairs.
Our first guest is Molly White, a technologist, journalist, and writer of the great Citation Needed newsletter. We discuss the ballooning influence of AI and crypto money in politics, and her new project: Tech Influence Watch. It’s an ongoing effort to keep tabs on the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by AI and crypto companies to sway our elections.
I mentioned that this show wouldn’t have happened without help; here’s a shout to everyone who has worked to get this thing off the ground. Ryan Hodes is the show’s producer; he’s the brains behind the critical tech YouTube show The Stories We Tell, and now he’ll be behind the boards at Blood in the Machine, too. Kate Osborn is our chief consultant and has whipped this thing into shape. Koren Shadmi did the killer cover art. Salman Al-Rashid’s support has made the production possible. The theme music is composed by me, with bass guitar from Ryan Hall, and audio engineering by Josh Gildardo Quintero at Metronome.
This is all something of a work in progress. A soft launch, if you will. We’re still experimenting with the approach and the format, so do let me know what you think in the comments, via email, etc. And yes, it’s video, too, something that I resisted even considering for a long time. But I was ultimately convinced—by Ryan, Kate, by my wife_,_ who’s a media studies professor, and by readers—that video is simply where audiences live now. If you want to reach the most people, video it is. I was further consoled by Ryan’s bangup production job, and the way the format allows us to incorporate media elements like clips from data center protestors at town hall meetings, anti-AI campaigns from artists, and so on. It will of course live as a podcast, too, but I don’t know, maybe I’m coming around to the video thing. Maybe.
Note that the written edition isn’t going anywhere; the podcast is if anything meant to build off of it. There’s no separate written edition this week because my time and energy was sapped by prepping the launch of this pilot here.
I’ll end by adding that if any or all of this sounds interesting to you, if you like the sound of where the show is heading, please do consider becoming a paid supporter of BITM. This is an entirely independent project, and I can only do any of this thanks to the support of readers—of those subscribers that chip in a small sum each month. (Thank you, thank you.) If you find value here, think about joining their ranks, and support critical tech journalism.
Okay, that should about cover the bases. Look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts here. Hammers up.
Instagram Engineering
Shopify Engineering