Democracy Now! speaks with science fiction author, activist and journalist Cory Doctorow about AI and his latest book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It’s Too Late. Doctorow comments on AI’s “bad unit economics” and the connection between automation and labor. “When labor drives automation, it’s usually in service to making…
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The relentless drive by Big Tech corporations to expand data center construction to every continent has sparked a growing movement of mass resistance. From the United States to Ireland, from Chile to Malaysia, grassroots communities are protesting water depletion, soaring utility bills, air and noise pollution, and environmental destruction. Behind the data center boom is the artificial…
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World leaders are returning home from the annual G7 summit, having failed to address issues such as income inequality, climate change and territorial conflict, while entertaining the wealthy executives of the artificial intelligence and fossil fuel industries. Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar calls the G7 “a club of the super-rich super-elites” and slams the summit’s focus on…
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Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:All right, well welcome Chicago to this live edition of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today, brought to you in partnership with the Real News Network and in these Times Magazine, let’s give it up for in these times. And we are of course sitting here in the historic in these times building where so many incredible labor reporters have done so much important work, history shaping work over the decades. And I have the honor of sitting next to people who are doing just that now. And I want to ask everyone to give them a big round of applause as I introduce them because for everyone listening, we got here to my right the OG labor journalist, the guy who yells at all of us when we’re being too soft about how hard it is today. Hamilton Nolan, everybody, give it up for Hamilton.Go get Hamilton’s book, The Hammer. It’s incredible. Speaking of incredible books, Sister Kim Kelly has an incredible book called Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. You know her, you love her. You’ve read her in Team Vogue. You’ve seen her on More Perfect Union in the Real News Network. Everyone give it up for Kim Kelly. And here at the end of our incredible panel, we have the one, the only Alex Press of Jacobin and so much more. She’s not only an incredible trailblazing writer, labor reporter, analyst of our political moment,
Transcript
The following rushed transcript may contain errors. It will be updated as soon as possible.
On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration—January 20, 2025—the heads of many of Silicon Valley’s most powerful tech firms sat in the rows just behind Trump. It was a sign of Trump’s deep ties to the industry and to these powerful individuals who are transforming how we communicate, and not for the better.
In this episode, Michael Fox visits Silicon Valley to try to understand the stranglehold that tech has over our media and our airwaves. Hosts Michael Fox and Marc Steiner dig into the ways media consolidation, social media, and AI are strangling our free speech, even as they claim to be liberating it—and us—with incredible insight from professors Todd Wolfson, Mary Anne Franks, Fara Dabhoiwala, Ramesh Srinivasan, and Jeff Cohen, the founder of the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR.
The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.
Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.
Guests
Todd Wolfson
Mary Anne Franks
Fara Dabhoiwala
Jeff Cohen
Ramesh Srinivasan
Resources
Mary Anne Franks’ book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment
Fara Dabhoiwala’s book, What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea
Todd Wolfson’s Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left
Marc Steiner’s Interview with Jeff Cohen, “How Democrats set the stage for Trump’s assault on free speech”
You can hear Ramesh Srinivasan’s Utopias Podcast here, or wherever you get your
Amust-pass congressional funding package for the nation’s roads, bridges, and public infrastructure includes an industry-friendly carveout that would give ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft legal immunity from car crashes and injuries, according to a review of the bill text by The Lever. Drivers would be held individually responsible, rather than the apps, unless the platforms were found…
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