This Week in Tech 1074: Chicken Mating Harnesses

Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Leo Laporte
Guests: Cory Doctorow (author, activist), Joey de Villa (AI developer advocate, “Accordion Guy”)
Episode Theme: A lively, critical discussion on AI’s role in defense and society, open source and copyright in the age of LLMs, big tech power, privacy, plus hilarious anecdotes from the early internet era.

Main Theme Overview

This episode brings together Cory Doctorow and Joey de Villa for a reunion packed with in-depth debate and wit. The focus: major controversies at the intersection of AI, government, and ethics. The crew dig into the Pentagon’s clash with Anthropic over “ethical AI,” the dangers of AI-enabled surveillance and autonomous weapons, the crumbling economics of generative AI, copyright in the age of machines, corporate power grabs, and privacy threats old and new. The conversation weaves in tech history, labor movements, and even chicken mating harnesses — all in classic TWiT style: fast, funny, and fiercely opinionated.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. AI, Ethics, and the Pentagon

• Anthropic vs. Department of Defense (DoD)

  • Anthropic refused DoD use of AI for surveillance or kill decisions; DoD designates Anthropic as a “supply chain risk.”
  • “If you don’t go along with us, we’re going to declare you a supply chain risk.” (A, 06:09)
  • Fallout: Any Pentagon supplier can no longer do business with Anthropic; 6-month federal wind-down.

• Who Should Control AI in Warfare?

  • Should private companies be able to dictate military AI use, or is this inherently a state matter?
  • Cory: “I would like no autonomous weapons and no mass surveillance. And I also don't think mass surveilling foreigners is good.” (C, 09:43)
  • Joey: “It is another thing to try and put a... stank halo around the company... it makes any civilian organization that uses that service also suspect. Maybe you're one of the enemy. It's transitive cooties.” (B, 11:55)

• Worker Activism & Tech Unionization

  • Citing resignations at Google/OpenAI over DoD deals; lack of unionization leads to fast loss of labor leverage.
  • “When you have scarcity-based power, consolidate it with solidarity-based power and form a union. That came too little too late...” (C, 25:26)

2. Big Tech, Power, and the AI Bubble

• Are AI Hyperscalers Becoming Extra-Governmental Powers?

  • Joey: “There is an interest in bringing us back to the 1890s. So Gilded Age 2.0.” (B, 28:32)
  • Comparison of AI titans (Altman, Amodei, Musk) to historic robber barons — but today’s don't even make money.
  • Cory: “These guys are completely not making money... They amortize that capex on a five-year timescale... $700 billion invested, $60 billion annual revenue, most of it circular.” (C, 31:06–34:31)
  • Prediction: When crash comes, “it’s going to make 2008 look like the best year of your life.” (C, 34:39)

• Productivity Myth

  • No actual evidence that LLMs or current AI are boosting meaningful productivity or economics.

  • “You have a technique, it pays some dividends. Eventually you extract all the value that it has to give, and then you hit a plateau, and then you need a new technique.” (C, 101:04)

3. Open Source and Copyright in the LLM Era

• AI Art Not Copyrightable

  • Supreme Court upholds: No copyright in fully AI-generated works. Human creativity required. (A, 62:32)

  • Cory: “There is no copyright based on hard work. Copyright is only for creativity.” (C, 66:05)

• Prompt Copyrightable?

  • The courts say your prompt is creative (for now), but the AI’s output isn’t.

• Open Source Erosion

  • Clean-room rewrites using LLMs (e.g., Chardet/Care Debt Python library) – is this fair use or a license dodge?
  • “The law does not say you can't have read the book... The degree to which she transformed Twilight in the production of 50 Shades of Grey disqualified it from being a fair use.” (C, 81:55)
  • Cory: “You can stick an MIT license on the code this chatbot out. But that doesn't mean that it's got an MIT license. Arguably it's just in the public domain.” (C, 82:52)

4. The Nature of AI, Creativity, and the Soul

• Centaurs, Reverse Centaurs, and Worker Autonomy
  (Centaur: human assisted by machine; Reverse centaur: human as machine’s peripheral.)

  • “You don’t just get used. You get used up by the machine... That’s not a technological issue... it’s an economic and political one.” (C, 56:23)
  • Notable reference: “moral crumple zone” (MM:57:13)

• Real Art and AI

  • “Art is a process by which something big, complex, numinous... in an artist's mind is infused into an intermediary vessel… The model knows nothing about your big, numinous, irreducible feeling.” (C, 93:10)
  • AI-generated art is “soulless... the human creative impulse that goes into the prompt is diluted... At any point in the work, its presence is homeopathic — it’s undetectable.” (C, 94:51)

5. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On AI and Defense

• “If you're the person whose building was just ... blown apart, that the fact that there was a human in the loop... I don't think it's very compelling.” – Cory Doctorow (10:52)
• “The only reason to keep [anti-circumvention law] there is because the US said that they would hit you with tariffs otherwise. It turns out that they'll hit you with tariffs anyway.” (C, 68:19)

On the AI Business Model

• “You have a sector that has now spent by its own math between 6 and $700 billion on capex... all the companies put together make $60 billion a year [grossly inflated].” – Cory Doctorow (31:14)
• “If you said to me, 'Cory, I have $700 billion, and would like to make a return of $50 billion,' I’d just take the other $650 billion and set it on fire. And I’d have done better economically than the AI companies.” (C, 34:14)

On Copyright and AI

• “There is no copyright based on hard work. Copyright is only for creativity. If you dash off a napkin doodle, that takes you two seconds, you get your life plus 70 years of copyright. Whereas if you spend 50 years... and you make a phone book out of it, you get zero copyright.” (C, 66:05)

On Reverse Centaur-ism

• “The point of a reverse centaur is you don’t just get used. You get used up by the machine.” (C, 56:13)

Chicken Mating Harnesses (The Ephemeral Side of Data Generation)

• Joey: “I have. Right now I am getting ads for chicken mating harnesses. I didn’t even know they were a thing...” (B, 155:15)
  • “...the latest chicken mating harnesses are designed to look like little costumes. So you can have your chickens look like Yoda or have overalls... and they're also protected for mating.” (B, 155:36) — Episode title explained.

Vein Finder Tangent

• “If you want to have your mind blown, go on YouTube and look up vein finders. This is the most Star Trek ass thing I have ever seen.” (C, 107:19)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Pre-Internet & Open Cola History: 00:59–05:00, 43:13–51:47
• Pentagon vs. Anthropic, AI Ethics: 06:09–26:00
• Tech Worker Power/Unionization: 25:00–27:45
• AI Business, the Bubble, Real Economics: 28:12–39:46
• Open Source/Copyright Law and AI: 62:32–67:13, 75:46–87:07
• Centaur, Reverse Centaur, and AI Utility: 54:08–57:13
• Creative Process, AI, and the ‘Soul’: 93:08–98:26
• Chicken Mating Harnesses & Data Chaff: 155:15–156:04

Other Noteworthy Topics

• Grammarly’s "Expert Reviews" (stealing journalists’ writing “style”): 87:07–95:56
• Meta Glasses: Privacy Concerns & Labeled Data: 122:27–124:23
• Corporate Non-Disparagement Clauses: 129:00–132:29
• Privacy Law and Data Brokers (New Jersey lawyer hack): 151:03–152:21
• ProtonMail Not Anonymizing Users for FBI: 156:04–159:53
• Firefox Crashes from Bad RAM: 180:24–181:14

Engaging Anecdotes & Retro Tech

• Old-school BBSes, Magic BBS, Fidonet: early segment (02:10)
• Open Cola, Swarmcast, cult of Dead Cow: 43:13–47:48
• Accordion magic, biker bar stories: 40:24–40:45

Final Thoughts & Tone

The episode, while critical of the tech industry’s current direction, maintains a tone of dark humor, resilience, and classic nerd nostalgia. Doctorow is characteristically sharp and sardonic, Joey de Villa brings witty asides and old Toronto stories, and Laporte deftly steers the sprawling conversation. The blend of deep technical, ethical, political, and historical perspectives — plus the comic relief — delivers a must-listen for anyone interested in the real impact of AI and tech on society.

Essential Takeaway:
AI’s future is being shaped at the intersections of state power, corporate greed, labor, and law — but the economics are dubious, the ethics are unresolved, and the people who should get to decide (the public, workers, artists) are usually left out. Also… be careful what you feed your algorithm, lest you end up buying chicken mating harnesses you don’t need.

For further reading and updates, follow Cory Doctorow at pluralistic.net and Joey at globalnerdy.com.