Taylor Lorenz’s Power User

What if you woke up tomorrow and completely lost access to your bank account, credit cards, PayPal, and Venmo, all because of something you posted online? 
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In this episode of Free Speech Friday, Rainey Reitman, advisor at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and author of the new book "Transaction Denied" joins me to dive deep into the terrifying reality of financial censorship and how major banks and payment processors are quietly becoming the ultimate gatekeepers of internet speech. 
Reitman reveals how a handful of massive financial institutions are bypassing the First Amendment to act as privatized censors, deciding what journalism you can support, what political nonprofits you can donate to, and what ideas are considered "misinformation." From the early financial blockade of WikiLeaks to recent debanking scandals involving independent journalists and nonpartisan advocacy groups, this hidden digital infrastructure controls your life more than you realize. 
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*(Note: Half of all book proceeds go directly to the Freedom of the Press Foundation)*
We discuss: 
The Nightmare of Financial Censorship
How Payment Processors Got So Much Power
The Rise of E-Commerce & Speech Dependency
PayPal, WikiLeaks, and Chelsea Manning
Censorship by Proxy: How the Government Pressures Banks
The Visa Lawsuit That Could Ruin the Internet

Have you noticed your social media feeds suddenly flooding with terrifying content about AI existential risk?
From TikTok clips warning about "AI psychosis" to viral YouTube shorts claiming chatbots are pushing people to the brink, the anti-AI movement has taken over the internet... But what if these "anti-AI" influencers aren't actually what they seem?
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In this week's episode of Power User, Washington Post journalist Natasha Tiku join me to pull back the curtain on the massive, billionaire-funded "anti-AI" astroturf campaign.
We track the money and expose how the exact same millionaires and billionaires building the world's largest AI companies (like OpenAI and Anthropic) are quietly paying influencers thousands of dollars to promote AI doomsday scenarios.
We dive deep into the 25-year history of the AI safety movement, from Eliezer Yudkowski’s rationalist blogs and Harry Potter fan fiction to Effective Altruism and the "paperclip maximizer" theory. We talk about how Silicon Valley elites are co-opting VERY genuine public anxieties about jobs and real-world harms related to AI technology in order to push their own pro-AI, anti-regulatory agendas.
We also talk about how to spot the hidden corporate pipelines, dark money nonprofits, and staged research papers designed to control the narrative around AI. If you're seeing AI doomer videos all over your feed, please watch this one!
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Nitasha's WaPo story on all this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/18/ai-doom-influencers-safety/

Elon Musk has evolved far beyond a billionaire CEO. 
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According to political theorists Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, Musk has created an entirely new ideology called “Muskism” — a system where technology companies merge with state power, AI shapes politics, and billionaires become more powerful than governments.
In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I sit down with Quinn Slobodian, co-author of the new book Muskism, to break down how Elon Musk’s worldview went from Silicon Valley optimism to tech authoritarianism. We discuss Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, AI censorship, OpenAI, Grok, surveillance, DOGE, data centers, Silicon Valley’s shift toward defense tech, and why Musk’s influence now reaches into every part of society.
We also unpack:
Elon Musk’s political transformation

The rise of Muskism

AI paranoia and “woke AI”

Why Silicon Valley is embracing militarization

Musk’s obsession with reproduction and population decline

How SpaceX and Starlink could reshape global power

The future of AI and surveillance capitalism

Why tech billionaires are becoming impossible to escape

What happens if AI becomes smarter than humans at most jobs?
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Researchers, economists, and top AI executives are increasingly warning about the rise of a “permanent underclass”,  a future where millions of workers lose not just their jobs, but their economic value altogether. In this episode of Power User, I sit down with writer Jasmine Sun to unpack the terrifying idea that artificial intelligence could permanently reshape class, wealth, labor, and power in America.
We discuss OpenAI, Anthropic, AGI, automation, white collar layoffs, Silicon Valley ideology, AI job displacement, universal basic income, data center protests, populism, and whether society is prepared for what’s coming next.
Could AI destroy upward mobility? Will automation create mass unemployment? Are tech companies being honest about the future they’re building?
We cover:
The permanent underclass theory explained
Who is actually pushing this idea
OpenAI's shifting stance on job displacement
Leading the Future and AI lobbying
Why AI is different from past tech hype
Policy failures and democratic backlash
What China is doing differently
What workers should actually do now
#AI #Tech #Technology #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #AGI #OpenAI #Anthropic #SiliconValley #TechNews #JobAutomation #AIJobs #TechIndustry

What’s really driving the growing backlash against AI and Silicon Valley?
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From burning data centers to celebrating an attack on Sam Altman’s house, the anti‑tech backlash has escalated. In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I sit down with journalist and author Brian Merchant to unpack the rise of anti AI sentiment, the growing anger toward Big Tech, and why public hostility toward companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google keeps escalating.
We discuss:
Why the AI backlash exploded so quickly

The connection between AI fear and distrust in capitalism

Why people are protesting data centers

The rise of anti tech politics

AI doomers and effective altruism

Sam Altman and Silicon Valley PR failures

Whether AI companies created their own crisis

How automation fears are shaping public opinion

Why people feel powerless against Big Tech

The future of AI regulation and resistance

Brian Merchant is the author of Blood in the Machine, a book about the original Luddites and the history of anti technology movements.
If you’re interested in AI, ChatGPT, Silicon Valley, automation, tech criticism, labor politics, or the future of the internet, we break down the cultural and political forces shaping the AI era.
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