Show Notes
Elon Musk is not the richest man in the world merely because he’s good at selling cars or rockets at a profitable margin. That might have sufficed for richest men in the world of decades past. But Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, however briefly, for a lot of reasons, and being good at moving a particular product is not chief among them. Musk sells a vision. Musk harnesses the state to implement his corporate goals, to secure his companies’ foundations beyond the vicissitudes of common capitalism. Musk mediates his message on social platforms, which he owns and controls, and uses to bend politics to his will. The list goes on. This formula has been emulated by the most recent crop of tech titans; your Sam Altmans and Dario Amodeis, whose path to power lies in selling a vision over simple goods, who work the state to buffet their businesses, and who paint a bleak picture of the future through which their products will help you survive. To understand what’s going on here, not just with Tesla or SpaceX or OpenAI or Anthropic, but the modern American economy itself, I sat down with the historian and author Quinn Slobodian, who has put a name to this tendency: Muskism. Slobodian is the co-author, with Ben Tarnoff, of the book by the same name, which I fully and heartily recommend. We dig into all of the above, and a lot more; including the under-examined role that growing up in apartheid South Africa played in influencing Musk’s present-day ideology and tastes. I very much enjoyed this discussion, and think you will too. Understanding Muskism, after all, could not be a more urgent project. Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Subscribe to Blood in the Machine. In case you missed last week’s show, you can check that out here. GenAI performing arts survey is here. Post about AI in Paris.
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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/