Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Nika Roza Danilova to discuss how COVID-19 is affecting artists, the privileged worldview of tech, the human essence of art, and why that can’t be replicated by artificial intelligence. She also provides advice on how to best support artists and her hopes for what a better world for artists might look like.

Nika Roza Danilova makes music under the name Zola Jesus. Her fifth studio album, Okovi, was released in 2017...

Paris Marx is joined by Dan Hind to discuss the problems with the existing tech industry and its links to the state, and his proposal for reorienting technological development to promote human flourishing and a cooperative economy.

Dan Hind is the author of “The Return of the Public: Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform” and recently wrote a report called “The British Digital Cooperative: A New Model Public Sector Institution” for The Next System Project and Common Wealth...

Paris Marx is joined by Veena Dubal to discuss how Uber's misclassification of drivers of independent contractors denies them rights and protections granted to other workers; how that's causing even more problems during the pandemic; the ongoing fight in California to get drivers recognized as employees under Assembly Bill 5; and how ride-hailing services ushered in a second wave of deregulation in the taxi industry...

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss how our experience online has evolved over the past three decades, the class backgrounds of tech founders, how the AIDS crisis robbed us an important contribution to the early web, and whether COVID-19 will change how we use platforms in the future.

Joanne McNeil is the author of “Lurking: How a Person Became a User.” She has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, WIRED, the Baffler, and more...

Paris Marx is joined by Lizzie O’Shea to discuss how learning about history can empower us to imagine more radical futures, how COVID-19 could create the opportunity to demand a better world, and how the praise for essential workers could help us rethink our ideas about work and the economy.

Lizzie O’Shea is the author of “Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology...

Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss how tech billionaires use philanthropy to massage their images, how they're creating a world that leaves nearly everyone else worse off, and how we need to respond with an online socialism to bring tech platforms under worker control.

Rob Larson is the author of “Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley” and an economics professor at Tacoma Community College...

Paris Marx is joined by Grace Blakeley to discuss how neoliberal capitalism benefits the tech monopolies, how they’re thriving as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and how workers fight back after the defeat of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn.

Grace Blakeley is the author of “Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation,” a staff writer at Tribune Magazine, and serves on the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum...

Paris Marx is joined by Ilari Kaila to talk about Elon Musk's latest unhinged tweeting episode, his self-serving calls to end COVID-19 lockdowns, and how the outlandish promises he makes and stories he makes result in a cult-like devotion by those who follow him.

Ilari Kaila is a Finnish-American writer and Composer-in-Residence at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology...

Paris Marx is joined by Bianca Wylie to talk about the response to COVID-19, how governments’ emphasis on tech solutions ignores (and potentially entrenches) social inequalities, and how we might take control of technology to ensure it works for the public good.

Bianca Wylie is the co-founder of Digital Public and Tech Reset Canada, and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Follow Bianca on Twitter as @biancawylie...

Paris Marx is joined by Ziya Tong to talk about how COVID-19 is helping us to see the world in a new way, and how that might open the door to reimagining how we organize society. Our "reality bubbles" about work, the food system, technology, and our relationship to nature are being severely challenged, but the question remains whether we can seize this moment to build a better world in the pandemic's aftermath...