Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Caroline Haskins to discuss what Palantir actually does and the growing influence it has within the US government and many large corporations. Caroline Haskins is a staff writer at Wired [https://www.wired.com/author/caroline-haskins/]. 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 [https://www.patreon.com/techwontsaveus]. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: * Peter Thiel is giving a series of lectures on the Antichrist [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-09/peter-thiel-s-antichrist-lectures-are-a-safe-move-for-the-palantir-billionaire]. * Caroline wrote about Palantir [%E2%81%A0https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/] and getting confronted by the company [https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-defense-conference-journalists/] at a conference. * Paris mentioned a connection between Paypal and the founding of Palantir; a founding story for Palantir [https://archive.ph/20250207164133/https://www.wired.com/story/joining-the-dots/] is that the concept for the company grew from the desire to use the fraud-detection software designed for PayPal to build counterterrorism software. * Palantir is having a much better financial year [https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/palantir-tech-stocks.html] than the rest of Silicon Valley.

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss his vision for a multi-criterial economy and how it would alter the type of technology our society creates. It’s a plan to center human experience through democratic discourse while driving true social and technological innovation. Aaron Benanav [https://www.aaronbenanav.com] is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University and the author of Automation and the Future of Work [https://bookshop.org/a/18331/9781839761324]. 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 [https://www.patreon.com/techwontsaveus]. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: * The two [https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii153/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-1] parts [https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii154/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-2] of Aaron’s essay on a Multi-Criterial Economy were published in the New Left Review. * Learn more [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/8/7/how-bangladeshs-gen-z-protests-brought-down-pm-sheikh-hasina] about the briefly discussed Bangladesh youth led revolution [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/5/theyre-selling-the-revolution-bangladesh-a-year-after-hasinas-downfall].

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant to discuss whether the AI bubble is about to burst and how bosses are deploying AI tools to kill jobs and degrade work. Brian Merchant is the author of Blood in the Machine [https://bookshop.org/a/18331/9780316487740] and writes a newsletter [https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/] of the same name. 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 [https://www.patreon.com/techwontsaveus]. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: * Brian has a series called AI Killed My Job with existing entries on tech workers [https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-ai-is-killing-jobs-in-the-tech-f39] and translators [https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-my-job-translators]. * Brian encourages listeners to check out the work being done by the National Writer’s Union [http://nwu.org/chapters/toc], Translators Against the Machine [https://www.guerrillamedia.coop/en/translators-against-the-machine-a-call-to-arm-ourselves-against-precarity-technological-tyranny-and-obsolescence/], and Lucile Danilov [https://locdandloaded.net/author/lucile/] at Loc’d and Loaded. * You can contact Brian directly by emailing aikilledmyjob@pm.me * A Stanford paper [https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publications/canaries-in-the-coal-mine/] published this week explores the effects of AGI on employment.

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay to discuss the geopolitics behind China’s investments in green tech and electrification, and how it presents the prospect of a new development model based on renewables instead of fossil fuels. Kate Mackenzie is an adjunct fellow at Macquarie University. Tim Sahay is co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. They are the co-writers of the Polycrisis newsletter [https://www.phenomenalworld.org/series/the-polycrisis/] from Phenomenal World. 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 [https://www.patreon.com/techwontsaveus]. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: * Tim and Kate wrote about the potential role of the BRICS [https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/brics-in-2025/] in future geopolitics. * The Financial Times explored the implications of China as an electrostate [https://www.ft.com/content/f86782fa-9f2e-448a-b710-29e787dc9831]. * China leads the growing electric vehicle market, ⁠by a lot⁠ [https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/ev-sales-china-iea-1.7535190]. * Pakistan imported 17 gigawatts of solar panels [https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/pakistan-solar-energy-panels-imports-china-b2732711.html] in 2024 alone, as Africa is in the midst of its own surge [https://www.wired.com/story/african-imports-of-chinese-solar-panels-increase/] in Chinese solar panel imports. * Trump’s policies are pushing China and India to ⁠strengthen ties⁠ [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/20/did-trumps-tariff-war-force-india-and-china-to-mend-ties].

Paris Marx is joined by Cecilia Rikap to discuss how countries’ dependence on US tech companies is harming them and why they need to get serious about digital sovereignty. Cecilia Rikap is Associate Professor in Economics at University College London and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. 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 [https://www.patreon.com/techwontsaveus]. The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson. Also mentioned in this episode: * Cecilia (and Paris!) worked on a report offering a roadmap to reclaiming digital sovereignty [https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10202865/]. * The UK Labour Party forced the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority to step down [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/21/chair-of-competition-watchdog-steps-down-after-labour-intervention] earlier this year to promote its pro-growth agenda. * A Microsoft executive told a French Senate committee that it could not guarantee data sovereignty [https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/microsoft_admits_it_cannot_guarantee/] if the US government requested information stored on its servers in Europe. * Alexandre de Moraes is the Brazilian judge [https://www.reuters.com/technology/brazil-prosecutors-question-meta-over-changes-fact-checking-program-2025-01-08/] pushing back against big tech. * The US is sanctioning judges from the ICC [https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/international-criminal-court-deplores-new-sanctions-us-administration-against-icc-officials] (as well as Alexandre de Moraes [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/30/us-sanctions-brazils-supreme-court-judge-overseeing-case-against-bolsonaro]) Support the show [https://patreon.com/techwontsaveus]