Show Notes
Happy Halloween all. I got into the spirit by catching up with the horror flicks I’d been sleeping on (28 Years Later was surprisingly good) and, more importantly, chatting with the great tech journalist Jacob Silverman, author of GILDED RAGE: ELON MUSK AND THE RADICALIZATION OF SILICON VALLEY, a book about some very scary people who hold immense sway over our politics and our lives. Before we get into that, for anyone interested, I wanted to bump my list of best-ever ‘luddite horror’ films I wrote up last year. It was a fun one, I think: OK! Onwards. 2025 has in many ways been the year of the tech oligarch. It marks the moment that many of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest and most powerful figures openly embraced an antidemocratic regime and publicly pledged support to authoritarianism. It feels like a lifetime ago, but I for one will not forget the image of tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos standing in the front row and applauding at Donald Trump’s inauguration, or their multiple trips and photo ops at Mar-a-Lago, or Elon Musk’s central role in the early months of the administration. They’re still there, too, even if they aren’t making as many headlines. David Sacks, Elon Musk’s compatriot, is the White House’s AI and crypto czar. Executives from the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, are in advisory roles. JD Vance, whose mentor was Peter Thiel, owes his career to Valley operators. And not only are they in power, but they’re angry. They practice a politics of pitched persecution and extreme resentment that can be baffling to those of us who’d kill to simply not have to worry about paying the rent for a year. As Silverman puts it in his book, these tech titans “had the world at their fingertips and they couldn’t stand the touch.” So *why* are they so mad? What are these world-beating centibillionaires so furious about? Why is it that they “swung right” so hard in the 2020s, if that’s in fact what happened? How did we get here, in other words? And what can we do about it? Silverman’s book tackles all of the above and more. It argues that we shouldn’t view the tech billionaires as a collection of eccentric elites, but as a class; a group that, whether they publicly present as liberals or conservatives, share a distinct set of ambitions and goals: Slashing regulations and oversight, lowering taxes, extracting value from the state, and concentrating power. We get into all of the above in our conversation, which you can check out here or wherever you get your podcasts. This is officially the second installment of BLOOD IN THE MACHINE: The Podcast, after the inaugural episode with Karen Hao a bit back. There are still warts aplenty; for instance, I thought I would be able to edit the audio and video after I uploaded it, but no! Not allowed in Substack’s player. There’s only a weird “AI enhancement” option that is supposed to trim the dead air but instead cuts right to me talking about some technical difficulties. Alas! Future episodes will be seamlessly intro’d I’m sure—like the one next week with Cory Doctorow, which will be recorded on Tuesday, November 4th at 7 PM EST / 4 PM PST for those who’d like to join the live chat. Speaking of live chatting, thanks to everyone who joined the fray with Silverman, and to all those who left questions and thoughts in the comments, we had time to answer some at the end. Let me know what you think of this newish Blood in the Machine audio enterprise in the comments, and whether you’d like me to keep doing them. I’ll add the obligatory note here that it takes time and resources to plan and prep for such things, and I’d appreciate your support so I can continue doing them. Thanks as always to everyone who already chips in. Finally, I’ve been doing a bunch of Spanish and Italian language interviews since BLOOD: The Book just published in those languages, and I got one particularly fun request about Frankenstein—which figures into the book as BITM readers who’ve stuck with it til
More from Blood in the Machine
It’s election season, and while most of the national conversation is focused on the midterms and the increasing likelihood that Democrats will take back the House and perhaps even the Senate, in California, the eyes of the tech elite are focused on another target: The ballot measure Proposition 40, aka the billionaire tax. Prop 40 would enact a one-time 5% wealth tax on the 250 or so billionaires that reside in California, and redirect the funding towards healthcare and education. Predictably, billionaires are furious about the idea; leading opponents include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who, along with other ultra-wealthy Californians, has spent some $200 million dollars to oppose the measure. Today, on Blood in the Machine, we’re going to dive into these fights, with the woman who’s at the center of many of them. Lorena Gonzalez is a former state legislator and current president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, and she’s a driving force supporting both Prop 40 and the slate of new laws designed to protect workers from AI. California Labor Federation Blood in the Machine NewsletterBrian’s Bluesky Producer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s Bluesky Articles Mentioned California just passed the strongest AI labor laws in the US California Proposition 40, One-Time Wealth Tax for State-Funded Healthcare, Education, and Food Assistance Programs Initiative (2026) - Ballotpedia Paramount completes $111B Warner merger, creating “Skydance” behemoth - Ars Technica Newsom signs landmark bill aimed at giving lifeline to struggling California newsrooms - Los Angeles Times The NO FAKES Act AI in hiring and firing: California’s No Robo Bosses Act Get the Facts: NO on PROP 40 An AI School, With No Teachers, To Open in Chicago This Fall The billionaires fight back: Propositions 41 and 42 could kill California’s billionaire tax even if it passes Billionaire Google Co-Founder Pumps $102 Million Into Fighting California Wealth Tax | Common Dreams California Billionaires Are Spending Big in Costly Wealth-Tax Fight The Blue Wave Could Reshape Politics in the South | The New Republic $200 million-plus spent fighting and supporting billionaire tax - Los Angeles Times Gavin Newsom backs measure to kill the billionaire tax and ban future wealth taxes Gavin Newsom opposes California’s $100 billion billionaire tax. The fight may outlast the vote Billionaire Tax Explained: What Proposition 40 Would Mean for California Google co-founder Sergey Brin spends $102M opposing California Prop. 40 | abc10.com California’s ‘carpet-bombed’ wealth tax measure runs into a wall - POLITICO
“Stochastic parrots,” a term coined in an influential 2021 paper written by two AI researchers and two computational linguists, essentially holds that large language models are not “intelligent” but are rather systems that output material based on what’s in their training data. Now, while LLMs and technologies described as AI today have become more sophisticated and complex over the last 5 years, the term remains a fundamentally accurate way of describing LLMs. Yet the industry hates it like the plague. AI industry folks absolutely lose their minds over the term, and often bring it up, unprompted, just to try to debunk it again and again. Why does this particular term have a unique capacity to enrage AI industry folks? I had a theory that, even more so than other critiques about shaky financing or dubious functionality, stochastic parrots undercuts the very foundation that the AI boom is built on: That tech companies are building a machine god of infinite power and potential. These firms have relied on narrative to build up and to sell to the world a very expensive, resource-consumptive technology. If it turns out it’s an unthinking system that’s often fallible in predictable ways, well, that might not be worth quite as many trillions of dollars. To discuss this theory in greater depth, I thought I’d go right to the source—to one of the paper’s co-authors, professor Emily M. Bender, of the University of Washington. Quick PSA: I can only do this work thanks to readers, listeners, and viewers who chip in a few bucks each month to help me keep the lights on. If you’re one of them, you have my sincere thanks; you’re the reason I can cover subjects and do the sort of reporting so few others will. If you’re a fan of the “Great 2026 Blood in the Machine Podcast Experiment” or appreciate what we’re doing here, consider upgrading to a paid subscription; it takes no small amount of work to book great guests, research, write, and produce the thing, and we’re early days yet. Okay! That’s enough from me; thanks for tuning in, and hammers up. Articles and media mentioned in the show: The “Stochastic Parrots” paperStochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions | by Emily M. Bender | MediumEmily M. Bender on BlueSkyThe AI Con, with Alex Hanna. Producer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s Bluesky Articles mentioned AI Bros Are Having a Meltdown Because the Associated Press Stylebook Clarifies That AIs Don’t Have Feelings Weekend Update: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on AI’s Threat to Humanity - SNL Alec Stapp on X Trump AI deal rebrands ‘artificial intelligence’ as ‘superintelligence’ | Donald Trump | The Guardian Trump’s new accord on ‘super intelligence’ includes spelling error “White House Accord on Super Intelligence” / X Stochastic Parrots paper Stochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions | by Emily M. Bender | Medium Nate Silver on X: View of The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence “Be willing to destroy a rogue data center by airstrike” - leading AI alignment researcher pens Time piece calling for ban on large GPU clusters Canada’s AI minister blames OpenAI for ‘failure’ after mass shooting - POLITICO Parents of teenager who took his own life sue OpenAI
While billionaires and world leaders expound the dangers of all-powerful, “super intelligent” AI, the reality on the ground is that it's a tech product that’s only made possible by countless human beings, laboring for sometimes dollars a day, doing work like “cleaning” data sets so they’re usable, scanning books and literature into databases, creating usable content, and moderating the output of AI systems to weed out offensive, gruesome, and racist content. These workers are underpaid, overtaxed, and fighting for better conditions—even as AI executives are declaring that the systems they prop up are so powerful they’re about to extinguish life on the planet. In the meantime, workers like Joan Kinyua and Michael Geoffery Asia of the Data Labelers Association just want fair pay and basic protections. I recently spoke to both of them about what it’s like to perform crucial work day in and day out and yet be completely invisible to the company that relies on your labor—and to the world at large. To help feed Silicon Valley’s illusion that these systems are actually machine gods. And to fight for better conditions, rights and recognition in spite of it all. Show Notes Data Labelers Association Blood in the Machine NewsletterBrian’s Bluesky Producer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s Bluesky Articles mentioned My latest newsletter: Dario Amodei — We Must Pace the Frontier The hidden workforce behind every AI tool you use: Announcing the data work landscape 2.0 - TechEquity Collaborative Altman and Amodei address UN: ‘There are many things that AI cannot and should not automate’ Tech Influence Watch How to use AI doom marketing to dupe the media and rake in billions in 10 easy steps Frontier AI safety regulations: A reference for lab staff - METR AI giants tap into the social media playbook: self-regulation AI leaders call for tougher protections against AI-aided bioweapons | The Verge AI Labs Want Someone to Stop Them - Bloomberg The AI extinction narrative is winning out Models Don’t Go Rogue Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks - by Melanie Mitchell Rapid Response 47 on X: “.@POTUS: The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for Artificial Intelligence
In a year rife with backlash to big tech, data centers, and AI, one company still manages to stand out: Flock Safety. Over the past decade, Flock has been building out a massive network of surveillance cameras across the nation. The images those cameras record are uploaded to a central database, and can be accessed by law enforcement and federal authorities. Abuse of the system has been rampant. Police have used Flock’s Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) to stalk exes and to track women seeking abortions across state lines. ICE has accessed Flock data to assist in crackdown on immigrants. Innocent people have been wrongfully imprisoned after being flagged by the system. With the anti-Flock movement growing, and more people looking into how to get Flock out of their communities, I sat down with Ed, an organizer with DeFlock, to explain, step by step, how you can start a movement to get the surveillance tech out of your town, too. Check out DeFlock here. Blood in the Machine Newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ Brian’s Bluesky. Ryan’s Bluesky. Articles Mentioned in this Episode https://atlpresscollective.com/2026/07/28/flock-cameras-atlanta-clearance-rates/ https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-romantic-interests-at-least-14-times-in-recent-years/ https://www.commondreams.org/news/police-abusing-flock-cameras https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-ice-accessing-flock-automated-license-plate-reader-cameras-via-local-law-enforcement/ https://cybernews.com/privacy/de-flock-america-halloween-flock-surveillance-cameras/ https://www.cnet.com/home/security/flocks-ai-cameras-may-have-misread-over-70-of-license-plates-creating-new-headaches-for-cities/ https://www.404media.co/flock-taught-cops-how-to-surveil-no-kings-protesters/ https://www.gadgetreview.com/flock-safety-employees-watched-kids-gymnastics-room-to-pitch-surveillance-tech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/she-got-abortion-so-texas-cop-used-83000-cameras-track-her-down https://deflocktheusa.com/cancellations/
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor. Naomi Klein’s Newsletter, Patterns.Astra Taylor on BlueskyBlood in the Machine Newsletter: Brian’s Bluesky.Producer Ryan’s Newsletter: Ryan’s Bluesky.Articles mentioned in this episode: The Automation Charade by Astra Taylor. The politics and possibilities of ‘AI could kill us all’ by Brian. More: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-and-nationalism-are-a-deadly-combinationhttps://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-apocalypse-is-for-thehttps://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-and-us-sign-strategic-artificial-intelligence-partnership-2623228https://theconversation.com/iran-war-shows-how-ai-speeds-up-military-kill-chains-278492https://influence.citationneeded.news/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdfhttps://www.axios.com/2025/09/17/anthropic-dario-amodei-p-doom-25-percenthttps://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5926181-xai-naacp-memphis-grok/