This Machine Kills

We chat with Roopika Risam — author of Data Empire: How Information Shaped Human History — about the very long history of data and the many ways that empires have used data to gain power, exercise control, and enforce order on the world. We discuss the patterns of power/knowledge that persist over time—like the constant rediscovery of race science—braiding together practices of data and power over thousands of years, leading to our current period where we must “let data reign,” as Trump recently proclaimed.

••• Data Empires | Roopika Risam https://www.penguin.com.au/books/data-empire-9781911709824
••• The Pan-African Data Project https://www.panafricandata.org/en/

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We discuss and riff on the People’s AI Assembly, organized by AI Now Institute and More Perfect Union, which just happened in New York City.

••• The People's AI Assembly https://www.youtube.com/live/JZ7DnHoPLLQ

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Jathan chats with journalist Kate Kaye about her new podcast series, Trust Control, all about the history and future of trying to measure trust. We get into different ways of defining trust, proxies for turning trust into quantified scores and “objective” models, motivations for making trust into a metric that can be optimised, and ultimately, the anti-social shift from trust as a dynamic social relationship that is a core part of human interactions to trust as an objective feature of systems with or without humans.

••• Trust Control Series | Kate Kaye https://aitrustcontrol.com/
••• Redtail Media | Kate Kaye https://redtailmedia.org/

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We discuss a deep dive into the ascendency of microdramas – the short-form video series that are already bigger than the conventional film industry in China and are quickly taking over studios in Hollywood. We chat about the financial and cultural antecedents of microdramas, and the strange impacts of these videos on media production and consumption today, and the unevenly distributed futures of AI generated entertainment.

••• Are 60-Second Microdramas the Future of Hollywood, or the End? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/magazine/microdramas-tv-shows-hollywood-entertainment.html

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We get into the new decree from Trump that “artificial intelligence” is now called “super intelligence” – it sounds less fake and more powerful — and the broader currents of tech advice and policy in the Trump administration. Then we discuss how OpenAI and Anthropic are behaving like rogue agents, who are also irresponsible and incompetent to a degree that should be unbelievable.

••• Trump says the US is officially renaming AI to ‘super intelligence’ https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/998816/donald-trump-ai-super-intelligence
••• OpenAI Has Gone Rogue https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/09/ai-hacks-infestation/688806/

Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills

Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)