More reasons to avoid Tesla and Musk
I recently learned two new reasons to avoid Tesla vehicles. First, there’s another lawsuit about their incredibly dangerous door handles. Two people died in...
The AI buildout shouldn't force people to drink sewage
Here’s a story about AI you need to hear. First the bad news, then the good news. 1. AI gets fresh water, while citizens are told to drink sewage Five years...
What data does in secret
Lee Schmidt was creeped out. A retired Navy veteran living in Norfolk, Virginia, Schmidt was unhappy that 176 license plate readers had been installed...
Feudal America
This week’s Techtonic episode covered an important topic that I’ll say more about in a moment. But first I’m excited to show off the new Techtonic website,...
The Luddite renaissance is here
Two weeks ago I stood outside the Apple Store on West 14th Street in Manhattan and watched someone dressed as Death destroy an iPhone with a rock. People...
Don't let the data center come to town
In southwest Memphis sits the Colossus, a giant AI slop factory owned by Elon Musk. Gas-powered turbines at the facility foul the air with “nitrogen oxides...
Generative AI is the new plastic
“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.” “Yes sir.” “Are you listening?” “Yes, I am.” “Plastics.” Perhaps the most famous lines from “The...
My view of the future vs. Peter Thiel's
As I wrote in Oligarchs achieving escape velocity (Sep 10, 2025), a handful of plutocrats now exert outsize influence on our economy, politics, and society....
AI chatbots are not your friend, and neither is the Friend
I’m sorry to have to play Cassandra again, but my worries about chatbots are coming true. Several weeks ago I wrote The real threat posed by AI chatbots...
Oligarchs achieving escape velocity
I marked my 8-year anniversary this week of Techtonic, my radio show and podcast at WFMU. The episode, called “Milestones for Big Tech... and Techtonic” (see...
Why everything suddenly got worse: a conversation with Cory Doctorow
The Google antitrust trial was finally decided this week, and the results aren’t good. Google escaped any significant remedy, leaving it unscathed and...
AI is starting to secretly edit your files
One of the scarier headlines I’ve recently comes from the BBC: YouTube secretly used AI to edit people’s videos (August 24, 2025). This is just as I...
We're never going to Mars
I aired a fireball of an interview this week on Techtonic. Adam Becker joined me to talk about his new book More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space...
Privacy scholar Daniel Solove: "We're entering a dark age"
I was happy to speak with Daniel Solove on Techtonic this week about his new book On Privacy and Technology. It’s a short, readable book covering all the...
Customer service is broken – and other news
It turns out there’s a word for the hassle forced on consumers by customer service departments. It’s called sludge. I learned this from an article by Chris...
The real threat posed by AI chatbots
Something strange is happening to ChatGPT users. Several recent articles have reported on people developing unhealthy relationships with ChatGPT. First,...
Let’s call AI something else
“AI” doesn’t mean anything. As Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna write in their new book The AI Con: To put it bluntly, “AI” is a marketing term. It doesn’t...
A zombie wave of surveillance devices
Every day, a little more, it feels like we’re living in a zombie movie. For one thing, there’s the dazed-out state of people I see on the New York City...
Zuck lied under oath, says "Careless People"
Careless People, the bestselling memoir of ex-Facebook exec Sarah Wynn-Williams, includes an interesting anecdote. Mark Zuckerberg is testifying, under oath,...
In praise of infrastructure
Amidst the evils emanating daily from Silicon Valley, it’s nice to be reminded that some technology is actually good for us. Like infrastructure. This week...