Season 1 · Bonus Episode

Risks

Josh and Ray are joined by Anna Colom to discuss the risks of AI.

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Episodes

Season 1 — AI

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A podcast exploring the inherent political nature of technology. Season 1: AI.

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Since the invention of the wheel, automation has both substituted and complemented labour; machines replaced humans at some lower-paying jobs, but this was compensated by the creation of new, higher-paying jobs; in other words: tech workers. In recent years, there has been a desire from certain high-profile tech companies for an "apolitical workplace". This in itself is a political act; an act designed to suppress the power of tech workers and reinforce the status quo. They know that politics is inextricable from tech. And now so do you. Welcome to Politechs.

In Season 1 of Politechs, it's time to talk about AI: what it is, what it can and can't do, what makes it dangerous, and why we as tech workers must not buy into the inevitability narrative; why we must resist, and how we can resist.

Episode 1

AI

Josh and Ray discuss why they need to discuss AI, and then proceed to discuss AI.

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AI is everywhere these days, and the problem with it is not what people think. It's not Skynet we should fear; it's the actually existing harms that are being done to the environment, workers around the world, and the human mind itself. Join Josh and Ray for the inaugural episode of the inaugural season of Politechs as they lay down a Luddite argument against AI from the perspective of software engineers and talk about how to have good faith discussions with people who might not see or be willing to acknowledge the dangers of the technologies under the AI umbrella.

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Episode 2

Trust

Josh and Ray ask and answer the question of why society has such an unwavering trust in technology.

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Our societies are necessarily based on trust, but how do we decide what institutions, people, and technologies to place our trust in? And why have we collectively decided that since "computers don't make mistakes", they are always worthy of our trust?

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Episode 3

Narratives and Narrators

Josh and Ray lay out some of the narratives driving the AI hype and look at the narrators behind those narratives.

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Whilst everyone has an opinion about AI, there are certain top-level narratives driving the hype bubble. We look at the doomer / booster divide (which turns out to be not so divided) and peek behind the curtain to see which corporations and people are pushing these narratives and what they have to gain.

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Episode 4

Surveillance

Josh, Ray, and Dr. Chris Gilliard talk about surveillance.

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We're joined this week by Dr. Chris Gilliard, Co-Director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute to talk about what generative AI means for surveillance, and how this technology disproportionately harms marginalised groups. Dr. Gilliard is a writer, professor, and speaker whose scholarship examines digital privacy, surveillance, and the intersections of race, class, and technology. His book "Luxury Surveillance" is forthcoming from MIT Press in 2026.

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Episode 5

Inevitability

Despite what the powerful people pushing AI say, this future is not inevitable.

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To quote Sarah Connor, "There is no fate", so why do so many people buy into the narrative that AI is inevitable so we might as well get on board (or throw up our hands in despair)? Josh and Ray get to the bottom of this, realise that Skynet might happen after all, and channel the great Lina Khan: "Where we are is not just the inevitable outcome of market forces or technological development. It's a result of choices we've made, and policies we've enacted or not enacted. And we can change that. We can. We must."

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Episode 6

Programmers

Josh and Ray talk about how to talk to programmers about AI.

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When you're trying to convince somebody of something (for example, to examine whether AI is a good thing), you need to know your audience. This episode is all about looking at programmers as a whole and identifying different groups, then thinking through how to talk to members of those groups and use arguments that resonate with them.

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Episode 7

Automation

Josh and Ray define automation and look at how it has evolved from basic tools to factories to knowledge work.

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Automation is usually presented to us as an unalloyed good, a way to remove tedium from our lives so we can spend our time on the things that truely matter. But is this really the case? In this episode, we take a closer look at automation: what it is, who wants it, and the harm it wreaks on the environment and society.

Episode 8

Resistance

Special guest Brian Merchant joins Josh and Ray to bring Season 1 to a close by talking about resisting AI.

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We've talked about a lot on Politechs this season, and now it's time to pull it all together and think about how we can resist AI. And who better to talk to about resistance than Brian Merchant, author of "Blood in the Machine", a fascinating book about the original Luddites, a group of tech workers in early 19th century England who took up the hammer and smashed the machines that were being used to emiserate them. We talk about the parallels between the time of the Luddites and our current moment, how capital and the state teamed up to crush the Luddites, and how we can avoid their fate.

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Bonus Episode

Risks

Josh and Ray are joined by Anna Colom to discuss the risks of AI.

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Josh and Ray talk about the real risks of AI with Anna Colom, a social science researcher working at the intersection of democratic processes and digital technologies. We are going through unprecedented times in the pace and scale of technological development driven by data and AI systems. Yet, these developments and their applications are being led and decided by a few in a regulatory vacuum, supported by narratives driven by hype and power asymmetries. There is however a large and more diverse community of technology developers across the globe who can claim back the authority if it refuses to be blinded by hype; if it questions decisions made by a few; if it favours evidence and ethics over magic; and if it works collaborative with the rest of society to answer some of the most pressing questions of out times on how data and AI can be responsibly used to help people make this world a better place.

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