Politechs

Since the invention of the wheel, automation has both substituted and complemented labour; machines replaced humans at some lower-paying jobs, but this was compensated by the creation of new, higher-paying jobs; in other words: tech workers. In recent years, there has been a desire from certain high-profile tech companies for an "apolitical workplace". This in itself is a political act; an act designed to suppress the power of tech workers and reinforce the status quo. They know that politics is inextricable from tech. And now so do you. Welcome to Politechs.In Season 1 of Politechs, it's time to talk about AI: what it is, what it can and can't do, what makes it dangerous, and why we as tech workers must not buy into the inevitability narrative; why we must resist, and how we can resist.We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

AI is everywhere these days, and the problem with it is not what people think. It's not Skynet we should fear; it's the actually existing harms that are being done to the environment, workers around the world, and the human mind itself. Join Josh and Ray for the inaugural episode of the inaugural season of Politechs as they lay down a Luddite argument against AI from the perspective of software engineers and talk about how to have good faith discussions with people who might not see or be willing to acknowledge the dangers of the technologies under the AI umbrella.Mentioned in this episode:Politechs Rules of Engagement for good-faith discussionsTech Won't Save Us - critical tech podcastThis Machine Kills - critical tech podcastThe Tech Bubble - critical tech newsletter from Ed Ongweso Jr.Blood in the Machine - critical tech newsletter from Brian MerchantWe'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Our societies are necessarily based on trust, but how do we decide what institutions, people, and technologies to place our trust in? And why have we collectively decided that since "computers don't make mistakes", they are always worthy of our trust?Mentioned in this episode:British Post Office scandalDutch welfare algorithm [permalink]Enshittification - Cory Doctorow's theory of how platforms move inexorably towards abusing users and partners alikeFlint water crisisData labelling in Kenya [permalink]We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Whilst everyone has an opinion about AI, there are certain top-level narratives driving the hype bubble. We look at the doomer / booster divide (which turns out to be not so divided) and peek behind the curtain to see which corporations and people are pushing these narratives and what they have to gain.Mentioned in this episode:Dystopia Now - TESCREAL Overview with Kath Barbadoro and Alex PtakWhy does this billionaire have 100 kids in 12 countries?, by Arwa Mahdawi [PERMALINK]Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartless - AI AGENTS EMERGENCY DEBATEWe'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

We're joined this week by Dr. Chris Gilliard, Co-Director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute to talk about what generative AI means for surveillance, and how this technology disproportionately harms marginalised groups. Dr. Gilliard is a writer, professor, and speaker whose scholarship examines digital privacy, surveillance, and the intersections of race, class, and technology. His book "Luxury Surveillance" is forthcoming from MIT Press in 2026.Mentioned in this episode:The Critical Internet Studies Institute develops cutting-edge research and educational programs to advance public knowledge of emerging technologies and the paradoxes of innovation.Don't Give Surveillance for Christmas: Chris appears on the Tech Won't Save Us podcastHow Companies Learn Your Secrets, by Charles Duhigg [PERMALINK]The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence, by Timnit Gebru and Emile P. Torres [PERMALINK]ChatGPT Should Not Exist, by David Golumbia [PERMALINK]Defining AI, by Ali Alkhatib [PERMALINK]Practico-inertia, by Rob Horning [PERMALINK]We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

To quote Sarah Connor, "There is no fate", so why do so many people buy into the narrative that AI is inevitable so we might as well get on board (or throw up our hands in despair)? Josh and Ray get to the bottom of this, realise that Skynet might happen after all, and channel the great Lina Khan: "Where we are is not just the inevitable outcome of market forces or technological development. It's a result of choices we've made, and policies we've enacted or not enacted. And we can change that. We can. We must."Mentioned in this episode:Noam Chomsky on The Big Idea with Andrew Marr, 1996-02-14: Chomsky explains that Marr wouldn't be in the position he is unless he was predisposed to stay in the mainstream understanding of neoliberal politics.Half of young people want to grow up in a world without internet, New research, published by British Standards Institution, shows that half (47%) of young people aged 16 to 21 would prefer to be young in a world without the internet. [PERMALINK]The fallacy of the "human-in-the-loop" as a safety net for Generative-AI applications in healthcare, by Jeff Clark. See the references in the article for studies. [PERMALINK]US airport screenings fail to detect mock weapons in 95% of tests, 2015 study. [PERMALINK]TSA Misses 70% Of Fake Weapons But That's An Improvement, 2017 study showing improvement. [PERMALINK]We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

When you're trying to convince somebody of something (for example, to examine whether AI is a good thing), you need to know your audience. This episode is all about looking at programmers as a whole and identifying different groups, then thinking through how to talk to members of those groups and use arguments that resonate with them.Mentioned in this episode:senior developer agents, by Zach Tellman [PERMALINK]Pascal's WagerPascal's Mugging"Are we the baddies?" meme [PERMALINK]Empire of AI, by Karen Hao [PERMALINK]We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Automation is usually presented to us as an unalloyed good, a way to remove tedium from our lives so we can spend our time on the things that truely matter. But is this really the case? In this episode, we take a closer look at automation: what it is, who wants it, and the harm it wreaks on the environment and society.We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

We've talked about a lot on Politechs this season, and now it's time to pull it all together and think about how we can resist AI. And who better to talk to about resistance than Brian Merchant, author of "Blood in the Machine", a fascinating book about the original Luddites, a group of tech workers in early 19th century England who took up the hammer and smashed the machines that were being used to emiserate them. We talk about the parallels between the time of the Luddites and our current moment, how capital and the state teamed up to crush the Luddites, and how we can avoid their fate.Mentioned in this episode:Empire of AI, by Karen Hao [PERMALINK]Blood in the Machine, by Brian Merchant [PERMALINK]Blood in the Machine newsletter, by Brian MerchantAI Killed My Job: Translators [PERMALINK]Getting off US tech: a guide, by Paris Marx [PERMALINK]We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Josh and Ray talk about the real risks of AI with Anna Colom, a social science researcher working at the intersection of democratic processes and digital technologies. We are going through unprecedented times in the pace and scale of technological development driven by data and AI systems. Yet, these developments and their applications are being led and decided by a few in a regulatory vacuum, supported by narratives driven by hype and power asymmetries. There is however a large and more diverse community of technology developers across the globe who can claim back the authority if it refuses to be blinded by hype; if it questions decisions made by a few; if it favours evidence and ethics over magic; and if it works collaborative with the rest of society to answer some of the most pressing questions of out times on how data and AI can be responsibly used to help people make this world a better place.Mentioned in this episode:From hype to responsibility: what works & matters for whom in data and AI? - Anna Colom's keynote at Heart of Clojure 2024 [talk description]Isabelle Ferreras - Professor UC at Louvain University who has done work on the democratisation of companies and organisationsOrganising Tech in Sweden: The Union Perspective - Per Holfve, an advisor with the Swedish Association of Professional Scientists, talks about how scientists fit into labour organising in tech [PERMALINK]Dr. Joy Buolamwini - founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, an award-winning researcher, and poet of codeAI, Ain't I A Woman? - a spoken word piece that highlights the ways in which artificial intelligence can misinterpret the images of iconic black women, by Dr. Joy BuolamwiniWe'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Much to their chagrin, Josh and Ray discover that Season 1 of Politechs wasn't sufficient to destroy AI. They conclude that the only thing to do is assemble a Luddite army and launch a new assault on HELLISH AI. Welcome to Season 2 of Politechs!Mentioned in this episode:Tu Nube Seca Mi Río - Spanish organisation opposing datacentresAI Killed My Job, by Brian MerchantEmpire of AI, by Karen Hao [PERMALINK]I Am An AI Hater, by Anothony MoserThe Kirby Frame, by Anthony MoserAgainst AI, by Foz MeadowsA Butlerian Hauntology, by Dr. Syed Mustafa AliTech Won't Save Us - a critical tech podcastWe'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence

Josh and Ray sit down with Anthony Moser and discuss the impetus for him to write "I Am An AI Hater". We talk about the role of politeness in maintaining the status quo, Anthony's views on copyright as a musician, the importance of collective action, how the law is not a source of power but rather an expression of power, and lots more.Mentioned in this episode:I Am An AI Hater - Anthony's essayPolitechs season 1 episode 4 - Surveillance - our interview with Chris GilliardAs of 27 Jan, 2026, NVIDIA, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are worth a combined $20.077 trillion. The total market cap of the US stock market is $140.182 trillion, meaning six US tech companies account for 14% of the value of the market (data from companiesmarketcap.com). Josh's statement that the top 7 tech companies were worth half of the US stock market was incorrect.Blood in the Machine - a book my Brian Merchant on the origins of the rebellion against big tech in the Luddite movement in early 19th century EnglandEmpire of AI, by Karen Hao [PERMALINK]The Coloniality of the Algorithm, a talk by Flavia DzodanAnthony's template for emailing teachersLauren Woolsey's recording of "I Am An AI Hater"Adolfo Neto's recording of the Portuguese translation of "I Am An AI Hater""Eu Odeio IA", Portuguese translation of "I Am An AI Hater"We'd love to hear from you if you disagree with something we've said. Please read our rules of engagement for good faith discussions, and then send an email to podcast@politechs.dev or hit us up on socials.To view full show notes, including transcripts, please visit the episode page. Be sure to follow us on BlueSky and Mastodon!Cover art by Anya K. Jordan @anyakjordan.bsky.socialTheme music by XyliaPolitechs is provided under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoAI licence