How the tech bros of AI are breaking our democracy

The News Agents.

Karen, welcome to The News Agents.

Um-

Thank you for having me.

We've been devouring your book.

I'm gonna sort of start by saying, I, I gonna try and pay you the highest kind of journalistic compliment that I think exists-

Oh.

[laughs]

... which is that, you know, reading your book and then reading some of the things around it, um, it's both a wonderful thing and a really slightly irritating thing, which is, like, you've basically written a book that I have sort of for a while thought should exist and even thought, "Hmm, if it doesn't exist, maybe someone should write it." And you-- the thing is you've written it already, and you've written it far more brilliantly than anybody else ever could, which is basically treating AI companies not as kind of...

and, and the sort of AI project, if you like, not as, uh, sort of corporate history or sort of starry, dewy-eyed kind of tech evangelism or sort of, uh, or the opposite, but actually as what they are, which is deeply political-

Mm-hmm

... actors, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, and that is what your book's about.

So-

Thank you so much

...

I just, just, just before we get onto the kind of defining the terms a bit, which I think is important, why, why did you want to write that book? Why did you want to write a book which treated them politically and as political and economic actors?

The News Agents.

Karen, welcome to The News Agents.

Um-

Thank you for having me.

We've been devouring your book.

I'm gonna sort of start by saying, I, I gonna try and pay you the highest kind of journalistic compliment that I think exists-

Oh.

[laughs]

... which is that, you know, reading your book and then reading some of the things around it, um, it's both a wonderful thing and a really slightly irritating thing, which is, like, you've basically written a book that I have sort of for a while thought should exist and even thought, "Hmm, if it doesn't exist, maybe someone should write it." And you-- the thing is you've written it already, and you've written it far more brilliantly than anybody else ever could, which is basically treating AI companies not as kind of...

and, and the sort of AI project, if you like, not as, uh, sort of corporate history or sort of starry, dewy-eyed kind of tech evangelism or sort of, uh, or the opposite, but actually as what they are, which is deeply political-

Mm-hmm

... actors, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, and that is what your book's about.

So-

Thank you so much

...

I just, just, just before we get onto the kind of defining the terms a bit, which I think is important, why, why did you want to write that book? Why did you want to write a book which treated them politically and as political and economic actors?