System Crash

This week on System Crash: Sam Altman and Jony Ive announce they’re expecting — a piece of AI hardware. Donald Trump wants to hit iPhones with a 25% tariff if Apple doesn’t start making them in the United States, and we discuss whether that’s possible. Plus, BYD beats Tesla in Europe, Google’s Veo 3 goes viral, Duolingo tries to clean up its AI mess, Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist screed gets a print edition, and so much more!

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This week on System Crash: A new poll shows that nearly half of all teens wish the internet simply did not exist, and what can we say, the children are the future. Meanwhile, the reason why the kids hate the internet are dead set on making it all worse: Google and Microsoft announced their plans to continue stuffing AI into every available surface—the future they see is 100% AI-generated. Plus, SpaceX flexes its legislative muscle in Texas, an AI-generated book list makes it into print, Netflix gets the rights to Sesame Street, and more!

You can find Satya Nadella’s Bloomberg profile here.

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This week on System Crash: The Vatican has spoken and we have a Luddite Pope; the Republicans are pushing a 10-year ban on state AI regulations to sate their tech industry friends; and Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia shows the power and geopolitics behind AI. Plus, Canada’s AI minister, UK artists pushing back on copyright changes, Microsoft layoffs, and more.

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This week on System Crash: AI madness hits a new peak: Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to give everyone AI companions, OpenAI’s boardroom drama gets a new chapter, and the impact of AI on education and work has become a full-fledged disaster.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, pulling back the curtain on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s pivot to a national security hawk using the threat of China to sell artificial intelligence to the military. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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This week on System Crash: Mark Carney is elected prime minister of Canada with a promise to take on Trump and accelerate AI adoption. Jeff Bezos backs down on Amazon’s plans to display how much tariffs have increased prices. Tech billionaires are radicalizing in a bunch of weirdly named Signal groups. Plus, X users drop, Duolingo replaces workers with AI, Microsoft pulls back on data centers, and more!

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Elon Musk is trying to clean up the mess his DOGE escapades have made for Tesla — and it’s not going very well. Brian and Paris dig into the terrible news he had to share in the company’s earnings call and whether we should really believe his claims about scaling back his DOGE involvement next month. Either way, the right still loves the idea: Paris speaks with DeSmog Global Managing Editor Geoff Dembicki about a recent conference where Canadian conservatives — including an Amazon senior principal in public policy — laid out their vision for how to create a DOGE that can wreak havoc of its own on the Canadian government.

Geoff Dembicki wrote about how Canada’s conservatives are planning for their own DOGE.

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In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders to dig into how science fiction shaped Elon Musk, and how Musk uses it to shape his own mythology. We explore the problems with how Musk interprets (and fails to interpret) sci-fi stories, and the ways sci-fi memes are deployed to justify the visions of the future tech billionaires are trying to realize. Annalee and Charlie Jane also share their thoughts on where they find hope in this moment, and how science fiction can help us through it.

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Liberation Day has come and gone, leaving Brian and Paris to pick up the pieces. So the Trump administration may or may not have used ChatGPT to whip up its half-assed plans to instigate a global trade war, which tanked the market for days on end before Trump hit the pause button. There’s still much wreckage to sort through: Elon Musk is furious at Trump’s top trade adviser, China isn’t giving in, and electronics are about to get a lot more expensive. We dig into what all this means for big tech, Elon’s status at the White House, and your iPhone—and what it all says about the way team Trump wields power and thinks about American workers.

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After a few weeks of digging into Elon Musk’s past, Brian and Paris are taking a little break to dig into recent tech developments. They discuss the troubles facing Tesla, OpenAI’s new funding round, and the despicable display of AI-generated Studio Ghibli images circulating on social media. Plus, they discuss some important labor stories and how Google’s AI Overviews are hurting website traffic.

Brian mentioned an article called “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism.”

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, Ludicrous author and Autonocast cohost Ed Niedermeyer joins the show to dig into the history of how Elon Musk took over and reshaped Tesla, how he built the company through deception, and why it’s not a vulnerable part of his corporate empire.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, breaking down the White House crypto summit and recent speeches by AI and crypto czar David Sacks praising Donald Trump. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, CNBC Digital tech reporter Lora Kolodny joins the show to fill us in on how SpaceX got off the ground and the role it’s played in building Musk’s empire.

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our first episode, Bloomberg senior reporter and author of The Contrarian Max Chafkin joins the show to give us the scoop on Elon Musk’s time at PayPal and the ups and downs of his long relationship with Peter Thiel.

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Donald Trump finally launched his trade war on Canada and Mexico. For two days. Some tariffs remain, and they could all be back in April, and who knows what happens then. As Trump abandons allies, there’s a lot of uncertainty—but there’s also opportunity. Silicon Valley wants its alliance with Trump to cement its global power, but what if the actions of the United States actually push them to end their dependence on US tech and begin building an alternative set of technologies? In the second half, writer and podcaster Ed Ongweso Jr. joins to talk about the Silicon Valley Consensus that could be unraveling, then Paris and Brian dig into OpenAI’s new tiers, ad spending on X, and the LA Times’ new AI bot.

You can read Ed’s newsletter over on The Tech Bubble.

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In a break from chronicling Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government, Paris and Brian share some thoughts from Monterey, California, where they attended a convening to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark Asilomar biotechnology conference. They reflect on how AI is playing into conversations about biotech’s future and the unsurprising deregulatory thrust. Plus, DOGE’s email to US federal workers, Donald Trump goes after digital services taxes, Apple is investing $500 billion in the US, and Elizabeth Holmes is trying to get out of prison early.

Also, the British monkey movie is called A Better Man. Paris has not actually seen it.

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A media narrative has taken shape that there’s little resistance to Trump and Musk, but protests against the administration’s antidemocratic push for power are growing. In fact, they’re everywhere. This week Brian and Paris chat with actor, director, and activist Alex Winter about the Tesla Takedown protests he’s been helping to organize, how quickly they’ve grown, and all the people who want to push back on Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government. Plus, Alphabet AI workers being silenced, Javier Milei’s memecoin, and whether anyone cares about the new iPhone.

Find out more about the Tesla Takedown protests.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, looking into a recent op-ed by none other than Peter Thiel that gives us important insight into how he’s thinking and the political moment we find ourselves in. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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Silicon Valley hard at work turning DC into an AI-fueled dystopia. This week Paris and Brian dig into three big trends all converging at once: Elon Musk’s expanding power over the federal government, JD Vance’s speech in France declaring American AI will “dominate,” and Meta’s soaring share price on its pivot to AI strategy. Things seem to be going from bad to worse, but we’ll be here to chronicle the crash.

Find out more about the Tesla Takedown protests.

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Paris is out this week, so we found another esteemed Canadian writer, activist, and tech critic to log in as System Crash's first-ever guest host: Cory Doctorow. Brian and Cory examine Elon Musk’s campaign of governmental destruction in Washington DC, how enshittification will continue to unfold in 2025, and what, if any, hope there is for us, the humans and the users.

Cory Doctorow is the author of many bestselling science fiction novels and works of nonfiction. His latest is Picks and Shovels, out February 18th from MacMillan. 

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