Show Notes
Today I’m speaking with Garrison Lovely, technology journalist and author of the new book, Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us — and How to Stop It (OR Books, 2026). Garrison’s Obsolete is a fantastic round-up of the most important social and economic challenges posed by AI. I’m thrilled today to have Garrison on The Truth About Bullshit to understand a bit more about the Obsoleting Project.
More from New Books in Technology
How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.
Social media giants like Meta and transnational regulators such as the European Union are transforming private governance by creatively emulating public law frameworks. Drawing on exclusive interviews and in-depth analysis of Meta's Oversight Board and the EU's Digital Services Act, Governance by Emulation: The Oversight Board, the Digital Services Act, and the Struggle for Platform Accountability (Cambridge UP, 2026) explores how these approaches blend European and American perspectives, bridging distinct legal traditions to address the challenges of platform governance. Analysis of content moderation practices and their implications uncovers a critical pattern in the evolution of governance for industries that will define the future, from digital platforms to emerging technologies. Combining public and private law in innovative ways, the book sheds light on bold governance experiments that will shape the digital world-for better or worse. This study offers crucial insights for understanding the next chapter of global governance in an increasingly interconnected and privatized world. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
It is fair to say Aarthi Vadde's wonderful new book, We The Platform, demostrates "how literature changes our perspective on the internet." But you also need to add that it "respond[s] to decline narratives about literature and literary study and to offer an alternative to prevailing sense of defeat and nostalgia that guides them.”
How Do AI & Innovation Cohabitate?
Many Americans have a constant dread of impending doom. Glued to the screens of our computers and smartphones, we sense that some total catastrophe is just around the corner. But what if our anxiety stems from an event that’s already completely destroyed an old world? What if the real cataclysm was the introduction of those computers and smartphones, and our current political, cultural, and social crisis is just our way of merely dealing with the fallout?