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The AI industry is pouring hundreds of millions into US elections

Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve been threatening to start a regular audio enterprise here at Blood in the Machine Inc for quite some time, and now it’s officially happening. In the player above, embedded in the video below, and populating that long-dormant BITM podcast feed is what’s essentially a pilot for a Blood in the Machine show. The topic for this inaugural episode is a timely one: How the AI industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to sway outcomes this election cycle.

Second, there’s just so much happening in the world BITM covers. So many people are organizing, resisting, and pushing back against the concentrating power of big tech and the AI industry. Exposing and interrogating its excesses. I personally have wanted a show that reflects how expansive and momentous this tendency is; that delivers a digest of regular updates on this wildly growing opposition to AI, Silicon Valley, and the tech oligarchy; a show that puts voices of workers, activists, journalists behind the mic.

Every week now, after all, people are protesting data centers that AI companies want to build in their backyards. They’re organizing workers in Silicon Valley, resisting AI’s encroachment into schools and the office, reclaiming public life from total social media saturation. This is the time of the Summer of Ludd , of the open booing of AI at college graduations . I’m hoping this show will help vividly document these movements and the people behind them. There are approximately one billion podcasts that highlight tech stories from a business perspective, and that host tech executives, AI advocates, and startup founders. This show is for everyone else; the folks in their crosshairs.

I mentioned that this show wouldn’t have happened without help; here’s a shout to everyone who has worked to get this thing off the ground. Ryan Hodes is the show’s producer; he’s the brains behind the critical tech YouTube show The Stories We Tell , and now he’ll be behind the boards at Blood in the Machine, too. Kate Osborn is our chief consultant and has whipped this thing into shape. Koren Shadmi did the killer cover art. Salman Al-Rashid’s support has made the production possible. The theme music is composed by me, with bass guitar from Ryan Hall, and audio engineering by Josh Gildardo Quintero at Metronome.

This is all something of a work in progress. A soft launch, if you will. We’re still experimenting with the approach and the format, so do let me know what you think in the comments, via email, etc. And yes, it’s video, too, something that I resisted even considering for a long time. But I was ultimately convinced—by Ryan, Kate, by my wife , who’s a media studies professor, and by readers—that video is simply where audiences live now. If you want to reach the most people, video it is. I was further consoled by Ryan’s bangup production job, and the way the format allows us to incorporate media elements like clips from data center protestors at town hall meetings, anti-AI campaigns from artists, and so on. It will of course live as a podcast, too, but I don’t know, maybe I’m coming around to the video thing. Maybe.