Computer Says Maybe
by Alix Dunn
Latest episode
Terms of Engagement: The Promise and Price of Africa’s Digital Future
Terms of Engagement: The Promise and Price of Africa’s Digital Future
About this podcast
Technology is changing fast. And it's changing our world even faster. Host Alix Dunn interviews visionaries, researchers, and technologists working in the public interest to help you keep up. Step outside the hype and explore the possibilities, problems, and politics of technology. Learn more at www.themaybe.org/podcast.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 147 episodes
- Terms of Engagement: The Promise and Price of Africa’s Digital Future · 50 min · Episode 148Across Africa, social media and AI are presented as pathways to economic opportunity, promising new livelihoods for creators, entrepreneurs, and communities historically excluded…
- An Accelerationist EU: Is The AI Race Worth Winning? · 49 min · Episode 147In Europe, the push for technological sovereignty is gaining momentum as the EU tries to reduce its reliance on US and Chinese tech companies and strengthen its own global…
- The Urge to Merge: Reclaiming Competition in an Economy of Giants w/ Alvaro Bedoya · 50 min · Episode 146Those at the top all know each other. The workers fighting the same fights against them and their monopolies, from taxi drivers to farmers to filmmakers, rarely meet. This…
- Follow the AI Money: Big Tech’s Midterm Spending Spree w/ Steven Renderos · 54 min · Episode 145The AI industry is so unpopular that it has started paying for the support it can’t earn. So what does it take for people to turn that mistrust into power that the industry can’t…
- Flock Shock: How Local Fights Over Surveillance Are Reshaping American Politics w/ Sarah Hamid & Anthony Ralphs · 55 min · Episode 144You may have seen the viral clip of a man in a full Darth Vader costume protesting Flock at a San Diego City Council meeting. The man behind the mask was Anthony Ralphs, who…
- The Climate Cost of AI Prophecies: How Data Centers Fuel Big Fossil w/ Ketan Joshi · 47 min · Episode 143Tech companies keep telling us that the answer to solving climate change lies in AI. Meanwhile, the data centers required to power AI are keeping coal plants open longer…
- Beware the AI Prophets: Hype, Doom, and Prediction as Tools of Control w/ Carissa Véliz · 45 min · Episode 142When a tech executive says AI will be doing your job next year, it sounds like a forecast. Dr. Carissa Véliz argues it's something else: a command, delivered in advance, that…
- The Kids Are Online: Are Social Media Bans the Answer? w/ Cori Crider and Pamela Wisniewski · 53 min · Episode 141Almost everyone studying kids’ safety online agrees that a blanket social media ban won't work. And nearly every government moving on the issue is passing one anyway. This week…
- When Kids Can’t Consent: The Case Against Tech in the Classroom w/ Andrew Liddell · 49 min · Episode 140No tech that your kid uses in the classroom was designed for their benefit. Not the tablet, not the "learning app," not the AI chatbot helping with homework. It was designed to…
- The Battle for Power Inside Big Tech: Against Tech Oligarchy w/ JS Tan & Clarissa Redwine · 56 min · Episode 139Over the last decade, tech workers have staged walkouts, signed open letters by the tens of thousands, and built more than a dozen new unions across the industry. And yet, over…
- Meet the Mom Winning Against AI in Schools w/ Ifeoma Ozoma · 53 min · Episode 138Imagine dropping your kid off at school, assuming they’ll spend the day being taught by… teachers, of course. But then you find out that part of their day is actually spent…
- The Digital Delusion: The False Promise of Ed Tech w/ Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath · 43 min · Episode 137A screen is built to do one thing well: split your attention across as many things as possible, as fast as possible. A developing brain needs the opposite— sustained, undivided…
- Meet the Guy (Actually) Passing Tech Laws · 55 min · Episode 136You've likely heard of the National Sexual Assault Hotline. What you might not know is that it's operated by RAINN, an organization that has become one of the more unlikely…
- How Anduril Tried to Kill Democracy in Ohio (& How Farmers Fought Back) · 52 min · Episode 135In Madison Township, Ohio, families have farmed the same land for generations. Then a commercial real estate company started buying up their neighbors' fields under the code name…
- A Sneak Peek into The Maybe Collective · 3 min · Episode 134We’re taking a short summer break and will be back on your feed in a couple of weeks. But we've got news before we go. Catch up on our most recent series: Computer Says Kill &…
- The Colossus Crossroads: Fighting for the Future of Memphis w/ KeShaun Pearson · 32 min · Episode 133In Memphis, companies don't come in to invest in the city. They come in to extract from its people and its land, no matter how high the human cost. That's exactly what xAI did…
- The Gig is Up: How Uber Ruined Wage Labor with Veena Dubal · 48 min · Episode 132In 2013, taxi drivers were beginning to notice something unusual: unmarked, black cars were cutting them off in taxi lines and picking up their passengers. Little did these…
- The Collective Fight for Our Humanity - REAL Resistance · 50 min · Episode 131Anna Bacciarelli and Shazeda Ahmed know more than anyone that there are only a handful of tech companies asserting dominance around the world by talking in high-level…
- Who's Behind Big Brother? - REAL Resistance · 45 min · Episode 130Mariel Garcia-Montes and Crofton Black share their stories and investigations that uncover the backdoor deals that allow the surveillance industry to thrive under the guise of…
- The Global Fight Against Technocolonialism - REAL Resistance · 50 min · Episode 129Paola Ricaurte Quijano, Fernanda Rodrigues, Angela Chukunzira, and Kauna Love Malgwi make it clear that colonial powers have never gone away. The people and technology powering…
