Paris Marx is joined by JS Tan to discuss his experience seeing first hand how Microsoft deployed its cloud and machine learning services to help Chevron extract more oil and gas, and the state of tech worker organizing around climate change.

JS Tan is a PhD student at MIT, researching cloud computing in the US and China. He’s a a member of Collective Action in Tech and writes the Value Added newsletter.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Read JS Tan’s “Oil Is the New Data” piece in Logic Magazine.

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Paris Marx is joined by Kate Green and Milo to discuss how Elon Musk’s DOGE is dismantling the US Digital Service and the consequences that has on really improving service delivery in government.

Kate Green and Milo are former US Digital Service engineers.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Find out more about We The Builders and read perspectives of federal workers.
• USDS workers have resigned en masse from DOGE, and Musk’s agency has fired many of those who haven’t left.
• The General Services Administration has also cut the 18F technology team, and has been doing mass layoffs at the Technology Transformation Service. 

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Don’t worry; your regularly scheduled Tech Won’t Save Us is coming soon! But if you’re looking to try something a little different and get a critical take on the ongoing Canadian election, check out Campaign Cops, a special five-week series hosted by Paris Marx and Rachel Gilmore.

The first episode is here for you to try out, but if you want to keep listening, find future episodes on Rachel’s YouTube channel or her podcast feed on places like Apple or Spotify.

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Paris Marx is joined by Jen St. Denis to discuss how Silicon Valley thinking is creeping into Canadian politics as Donald Trump continues to threaten the country with tariffs and annexation.

Jen St. Denis is a reporter with The Tyee.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Jen wrote about the Canadian tech leaders who want their own DOGE and a BC-based Twitter/X account pushing white supremacism.
• Paris wrote about the effort to expand DOGE beyond US borders and the conservative-tech alliance in Canada.
• A recent poll found 51% of Canadians now see the United States as an enemy or potential threat.

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Paris Marx is joined by Timnit Gebru to discuss where the AI industry stands in 2025 as AI increasingly becomes a geopolitical football even as the big promises made by AI companies fail to materialize.

Timnit Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed AI Research Institute.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Timnit wrote about the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies with Émile Torres.
• The Data Workers’ Inquiry allowed data workers to share their experiences in their workplaces.

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Paris Marx is joined by James Meadway to discuss how the UK Labour Party is embracing AI regardless of the cost and the consequences of allowing US companies to dominate the digital economy in so many other countries.

James Meadway is an economist and the host of Macrodose.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• James wrote about the UK Labour Party’s obsession with growth.
• Last year, Google warned the UK government it would get left behind on AI if it didn’t weaken copyright rules and build more data centers.

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Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss the trouble with Tesla’s business model and how that makes Elon Musk’s power vulnerable to protest and boycott.

Ed Niedermeyer is the author Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and a co-host of the Autonocast.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Find a Tesla Takedown protest in your area.

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Paris Marx is joined by Makena Kelly to discuss how Elon Musk’s DOGE is reshaping the US government and the consequences that has for government employees and the wider public.

Makena Kelly is a senior writer at WIRED and writes the weekly Politics Lab newsletter.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Makena wrote about how DOGE is replacing government IT roles and also the COBOL Cowboys back in 2020.

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Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Alex Hanna, the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Institute. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.

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Paris Marx is joined by Eoin Higgins to discuss how tech billionaires set out to change the media ecosystem and made it profitable for influential voices to shift to the political right.

Eoin Higgins is a journalist and the author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Read an excerpt of Eoin’s book on LitHub.
• Last year, Peter Thiel bragged to Ann Coulter about killing Gawker.
• Rick Perlstein wrote about the time he met Marc Andreessen.

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Our Data Vampires series may be over, but Paris interviewed a bunch of experts on data centers and AI whose insights shouldn’t go to waste. We’re releasing those interviews as bonus episodes for Patreon supporters. Here’s a preview of this week’s premium episode with Julia Black, a reporter on The Information’s Weekend Team. For the full interview, support the show on Patreon.

Support the show