It's finally here! The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want hit the shelves in May. In this special bonus episode, Alex and Emily speak to tech journalist Vauhini Vara at one of the book's online launch events, where they covered the misleading nature of the term "artificial intelligence," why the use of tools like ChatGPT will only ever cheapen human labor and enrich the already powerful, and how people can fight the narrative that these technologies are inevitable.

Vauhini Vara is a technology reporter and writer. Her journalism has been honored by the Asian American Journalists Association, the International Center for Journalists, the McGraw Center for Business Journalism, and others. Her latest book is Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, a work of journalism and memoir about how big technology companies are exploiting human communication — and how we’re complicit in this.

References

Everyone is cheating their way through college (with ChatGPT)

The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World by Allison Pugh

Te Hiku Media

Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence by Dan McQuillan

Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies

Pennsylvania's SEIU Local 668 wins a victory against AI

Elon Musk's xAI is polluting Black Memphis residents

Possible Futures: An Internet for Our Elders

Better Images of AI

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)

Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.

Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now.

Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.

Follow us!

Emily

• Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender

Alex

• Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
• Twitter: @alexhanna

Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Christie Taylor.

Because Sam Altman hates opening his laptop, OpenAI is merging with iPhone guy Jony Ive's design firm in the name of some mysterious new ChatGPT-enabled consumer products: Alex and Emily go full Mystery Science Theater and dissect the announcement video. Plus how tech billionaires like Sam Altman mythologize San Francisco while their money makes it less livable for everyone else.

References:

Sam Altman and Jony Ive are merging (Video)

Emplacedness, real estate, and gentrification in San Francisco

Anthropic? More like anthropomorphic

Karen Hao on her new book "Empire of AI" in conversation with Alex and Emily

Fresh AI Hell:

Don't use ChatGPT to summon demons

AI prompts accidentally left in novels

"AI" tutors are teaching fentanyl recipes

xAI's data center polluting Memphis with unpermitted methane generators

Gemini's on Bluesky - block it

Family uses "AI" generated avatar to give victim impact statement

The market for "AI friends"? Lonely losers

No, LGBTESCREAL isn't a thing

*****

You can check out future streams at on Twitch, and send us any AI Hell you see for future episodes.

Our book, The AI Con, is out! Get your copy now.

Follow Emily: Bluesky/Mastodon
Follow Alex: Bluesky/Mastodon

Music: Toby Menon.
Production: Christie Taylor.
Graphic Design: Naomi Pleas

Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.

Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now.

Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.

Follow us!

Emily

• Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender

Alex

• Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
• Twitter: @alexhanna

Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Christie Taylor.

This week, Alex and Emily talk with anthropologist and immigration lawyer Petra Molnar about the dehumanizing hype of border-enforcement tech. From hoovering up data to hunt anyone of ambiguous citizenship status, to running surveillance of physical borders themselves, "AI" tech is everywhere in the enforcement of national borders. And as companies ranging from Amazon, to NSO Group, to Palantir all profit, this widening of automation threatens a future of faceless human rights violations with no attempts at accountability of any kind.

Petra Molnar is associate director of York University's Refugee Law Lab, and a faculty associate for the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She's also the author of the book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving immigration in the age of artificial intelligence.

References:

Department of Homeland Security: Robot Dogs Take Another Step Towards Deployment at the Border

Leaked: Palantir’s Plan to Help ICE Deport People

Athens prepares to host DEFEA 2025, a major hub for international defence cooperation

Fresh AI Hell:

Meta served teen girls beauty product ads whenever they deleted selfies

Dating app/luxury surveillance leaks personal info

"AI" for subway crime prediction

CA used "AI" to make bar exam questions

CA using "AI" tool to bypass building permit process

Wildly unethical "AI persuasion" research on Reddit users

AI makeup to retouch Holocaust images

Check out future streams at on Twitch, Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.

Our book, 'The AI Con,' comes out in May! Pre-order now.

Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.

Follow us!

Emily

• Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender

Alex

• Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
• Twitter: @alexhanna

Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park.
Production by Christie Taylor.