Show Notes
The US is in a race to ‘beat China’ at AI. Or is it? What if I told you that powerful actors in the US have built the story of an all-or-nothing race to get what they want? More like this: Computer Says Kill: A License for Unlimited War w/ Amos Toh
In part four of Computer Says Kill we are joined by Lis Siegel who shares the history. We start with a document produced by China in 2017, and arrive at today when the Chinese bogeyman is being used to drive money, political influence and supply chain control to a few US tech giants. Listen in for some insight into how we got here. Further reading & resources: Examining AI Safety as a Global Public Good: Implications, Challenges, and Research Priorities — Lis Siegel et al, March 2025 Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention and surveillance in China, internal documents show — AP News, September 2025 A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat — Taylor Lorenz, Wired, May 2026 Slogan Politics by Jinghan Zeng Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang Final Report from the National Security Commission for AI — 2021 Yellow Techno-Peril: The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and anti-Chinese racial rhetoric in the US–China AI arms race — Kerry McInerney 2024 Bernie Sanders urges international cooperation to halt AI’s ‘runaway train’ — The Guardian, April 2026 **Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!** Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout
More from Computer Says Maybe
The AI industry is so unpopular that it has started paying for the support it can’t earn. So what does it take for people to turn that mistrust into power that the industry can’t just buy off? More like this: Flock Shock: How Local Fights Over Surveillance Are Reshaping American Politics w/ Sarah Hamid & Anthony Ralphs
You may have seen the viral clip of a man in a full Darth Vader costume protesting Flock at a San Diego City Council meeting. The man behind the mask was Anthony Ralphs, who spent months trying to get the city to reconsider its contract with the surveillance tech company. After repeatedly raising concerns with the council, he turned to political theater - and got national attention. His protest is part of a growing backlash against Flock, bringing people across the political spectrum together to challenge surveillance tech and demand more say in how it’s used.
Tech companies keep telling us that the answer to solving climate change lies in AI. Meanwhile, the data centers required to power AI are keeping coal plants open longer, bringing in gas turbines, and driving plans for power stations bigger than anything we’ve built before. More like this: The Colossus Crossroads: Fighting for the Future of Memphis w/ KeShaun Pearson
When a tech executive says AI will be doing your job next year, it sounds like a forecast. Dr. Carissa Véliz argues it's something else: a command, delivered in advance, that works only if enough of us obey it. If you believe the prediction, you buy the product, reorganize your company, and bet the economy on it, and the prediction comes true because you made it so. So who gets to make predictions that stick? And what would it take to stop treating them as news and start hearing them as orders? More like this: AGI is Scientifically Impossible w/ Adam Becker In this episode, Alix Dunn talks with Carissa Véliz, associate professor at Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI and author of Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, From Ancient Oracles to AI. Carissa explains why a prediction is a command disguised as a description, how powerful people use algorithms to fulfill their own forecasts, and why the alternative just might be being relying on preparation over prediction. Further reading & resources: Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, From Ancient Oracles to AI — Carissa Véliz Beware the Power of Prediction — Carissa Véliz, TED Talk The Origins of Totalitarianism — Hannah Arendt The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk” — Émile P. Torres, Current Affairs
Almost everyone studying kids’ safety online agrees that a blanket social media ban won't work. And nearly every government moving on the issue is passing one anyway. This week, a researcher and a policy lawyer dig into why - and what could actually work instead. More like this: When Kids Can’t Consent: The Case Against Tech in the Classroom w/ Andrew Liddell