#1773 How Big Tech Captured Attention, Kids, and Democracy
Air Date: 2-23-2026
Today we examine how the platforms that monetize your attention are merging with state power. We'll hear how TikTok's new owners include Trump ally Larry Ellison, how DHS sent hundreds of subpoenas to unmask anonymous ICE critics, how Ring's Super Bowl ad cheerfully introduced AI-powered neighborhood surveillance, and how the social media addiction trials that are being likened to the Big Tobacco settlement of the 90s, are finally exposing what these companies knew about the harmful nature of their products all along.
Read more#1721 The Evolution of the Military Industrial Complex: Now with AI!
Air Date: 7-9-2025
It's an old joke that "military intelligence" is a good example of an oxymoron so I just asked an AI chatbot to finish a joke about what a military becomes when they implement artificial intelligence. It said, "an oxymoron squared - or as the generals call it, "strategically enhanced stupidity with a confidence interval of 95%" which is not funny but still managed to be pretty on point regarding the dangers of overconfidence that inevitably follows from the implementation of new technology.
Read more#1334 Your Life Will Have Been What You Paid Attention To (Attention Economy) (Repost)
Air Date: 2–5-2020
Today we take a look at the past, present and future of behavior modification from worms to pigeons to prisoners, and finally, internet users.
Read more#1334 Your Life Will Have Been What You Paid Attention To (Attention Economy)
Air Date: 2–5-2020
Today we take a look at the past, present and future of behavior modification from worms to pigeons to prisoners, and finally, internet users.
Read more#1270 Surveillance Capitalism is threatening democracy itself
Air Date: 5–7-2019
Today we take a look at the impacts, from personal to global, of the paradigm of companies profiting off of surveillance of their users, otherwise known as surveillance capitalism.
Read more#1266 Writing human bias into the code that runs our lives (Algorithms)
Air Date: 4–19-2019
Today we take a look at the racism, sexism and classism that is permeating the algorithmic systems that are directing more and more of our online and offline lives
Read more
