Palmer Luckey Wants to Arm the West With AI Weapons
Brian is out this week, so we’re dropping one of our bonus episodes to give you a preview of the benefits of supporting the show over on Patreon. In the episode, Brian and Paris dig into Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey’s scary vision for the future of warfare — and how he plans to profit off the whole thing. Arming countries to the teeth with automated weapons, to the degree they’re considered “porcupines,” might sound bad to some people, but to Luckey it’s the obvious goal of the Western “warrior class.”Support the show
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The Ban on State AI Laws is Dead, Canada Bows to Trump and Big Tech, and the AI Backlash Grows
This week on System Crash: Canada drops its digital services tax under pressure from Trump, the 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation is dead, and the backlash to generative AI just keeps growing. Plus, Peter Thiel and his buddies are starting a new bank named after something else from Middle Earth, Microsoft is cutting thousands of jobs, and people are using chatbots to text their friends.Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
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Patreon Preview: Mountainhead Exposes the Minds of the Tech Elite
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, where Paris and Brian present the first System Crash Culture Club by interrogating the new film Mountainhead and how it gets into the minds of our Silicon Valley oligarchs. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.Support the show
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AI Has Its Day in Court and Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Already a Dangerous Menace in Austin
This week on System Crash: A court rules Anthropic can train on copyrighted works as long as they’re not pirated, and Elon Musk rolls out Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin — with all the problems you’d expect. Plus, Australia’s social media ban for under 16s moves forward, a new Fairphone is coming soon, Brian has a new series, and more!Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
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The Rise of the AI Military Industrial Complex, Trump’s Scam Phone, and Israel-Iran Slop
This week on System Crash: A new player is about to take the smartphone world by storm, the AI industry is forging deeper partnerships with the military, and the Iran-Israel conflict is already overrun with AI slop. Plus, Tesla pauses production again, AI is creating problems for libraries, some Danish governments want to get off Microsoft, and more!Subscribe to Paris’s newsletter Disconnect.Subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine.Support the show
Tech giants like Google and Facebook have conquered — some would say killed — the internet. Elon Musk used his platform to help elect Trump, and Silicon Valley elites want to gut the public sector. OpenAI and Microsoft aim to wipe away millions of jobs. Uber is driving down wages. Apple is impenetrable. Amazon is inescapable. All this high tech, and our quality of life is getting lower. The system has crashed. So, System Crash: a weekly tech news show willing to tell the hard truths about how tech — and the titans who own and operate it — is really transforming the world. Co-hosts Paris Marx and Brian Merchant dissect the stories that matter, break news of their own, offer expert commentary, and interview journalists, whistleblowers, authors, and tech workers and ordinary people fighting back.
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