Video Podcasts
Machines Like Us
Role: Video Editor | Client: Paradigm
Credits:
Mitchell Stuart - Producer
Sequoia Kim - Associate Producer
Taylor Owen - Host
Ep. 6 | Douglas Rushkoff Doesn't Want to Talk About AI (2024)
Description:
Douglas Rushkoff has spent the last thirty years studying how digital technologies have shaped our world. The renowned media theorist is the author of twenty books, the host of the Team Human podcast and a professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at City University of New York. But when I sat down with him, he didn’t seem all that excited to be talking about AI. Instead, he suggested – I think only half jokingly – that he’d rather be talking about the new reboot of Dexter.
Rushkoff’s lack of enthusiasm around AI may stem from the fact that he doesn’t see it as the ground shifting technology that some do. Rather, he sees generative artificial intelligence as just the latest in a long line of communication technologies – more akin to radio or television than fire or electricity.
But while he may not believe that artificial intelligence is going to bring about some kind of techno-utopia, he does think its impact will be significant. So eventually we did talk about AI. And we ended up having an incredibly lively conversation about whether computers can create real art, how the “California ideology” has shaped artificial intelligence, and why it’s not too late to ensure that technology is enabling human flourishing – not eroding it.
Full Episode:
Social Media Clips:
Ep. 9 | Why Journalism Made a Devil’s Bargain with Big Tech (2024)
Description:
Things do not look good for journalism right now. This year, Bell Media, VICE, and the CBC all announced significant layoffs. In the US, there were cuts at the Washington Post, the LA Times, Vox and NPR – to name just a few.
One of the central reasons for this is that the advertising model that has supported #journalism for more than a century has collapsed. Simply put, #Google and #Meta have built a better advertising machine, and they’ve crippled journalism’s business model in the process.
It wasn’t always obvious this was going to happen. Fifteen or 20 years ago, a lot of publishers were actually making deals with social media companies, thinking they were going to lead to bigger audiences and more clicks. But these turned out to be Faustian bargains. The journalism industry took a nosedive, while Google and Meta became two of the most profitable companies in the world.
And now we might be doing it all over again with a new wave of tech companies like OpenAI.
Julia Angwin has been worried about the thorny relationship between big tech and journalism for years. She’s written a book about MySpace, documented the rise of big tech, and won a Pulitzer for her tech reporting with the Wall Street Journal.
She was also one of the few people warning publishers the first time around that making deals with social media companies maybe wasn’t the best idea.
Now, she’s ringing the alarm again, this time as a New York Times contributing opinion writer and the CEO of a journalism startup called Proof News that is preoccupied with the question of how to get people reliable information in the age of AI.
