B (4:49)

Right. So I want to tell you an experience that I had recently. And you can tell me if this is luxury surveillance. I feel like maybe it helps frame the conversation a little bit. Are you familiar with the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles? No.

A (5:06)

Who plays there?

B (5:07)

So the Clippers play at the Intuit Dome and it's a new, like several billion dollar arena that opened last year and a couple friends and I wanted to go to a basketball game, watch the Clippers. So I bought tickets on StubHub. And to get the tickets I had to download the Intuit Dome app. Like there is no way of transferring the tickets through Ticketmaster, which already have tons of problems with Ticketmaster, but you know, such as life if you want to go to a concert or sports game or what. So I had to Download that. I had to give them tons of information just to sort of get the tickets. And not only that, everyone in my party also had to download the app. So I couldn't get all four tickets. You know, I had to get one and then someone else in my group had to get one. And they have this, this entry system that you scan your face in the app and then you enter with facial recognition and that face is connected to your wallet. And so, and then the entire like interior of the arena, they have tried to like get rid of humans at every possible angle. So it's like they have stores in there, but they're just walk out stores where you just grab something and you leave. You have to like scan, scan into these areas with your face. And they claim that you can use your credit card without this. But those, those like are always broken. And then of course, like once you're in this area, you don't like interact with any humans, like basically at any level. And if you want to opt out of this system, they like make you walk around the entire arena to go to one single gate where you can like use the old barcode system. And so the first time I went, that's what I did because I was like, I don't want to do this. Second time we were running late and it was a playoff game. And so I was just like, you know what? Like fuck it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I did it. I had already, I have had a few beers, so I like opted in and I feel, I feel like that is my life in many ways where it's like, you can often try to resist these things, but it's often like very inconvenient. They make things worse. But also like opting into these systems in the first place, like download the app, give them all your information, scan your face. Like that was super inconvenient as well. And I don't have a question here, but to me it's just like I thought of you immediately. I thought I was like, this is luxury surveillance or at least it's trying to give this like seamless experience where you give them your face, you just grab a beer, grab chicken tenders, you don't interact with any human beings. And like all the data goes like God knows where, like who knows what happens to it. And, and I don't know, I thought of you and I'm curious what you think of that experience.

A (8:05)

Yeah, I mean it absolutely is, you know, I mean it, it kind of engages another Thing that I've talked about in the past, which is I call friction free racism. Right. That. The. The first of all, like, who has the capacity to do this? Like, who's got the phone, the credit card? Like. Like all these ways that. But also, who fantasizes about this experience where you don't interact with anyone else? You know, I mean, I've worked in. I've worked in the. The. At stadiums and at the vendors and things like that. So, um, I don't fantasize about the experience where I go get a beer and a popcorn and don't talk to the person behind the counter, you know, but I know that people do. And it is, I think, a mark of privilege. But it also, you know, there's so many ways that it ties into so many other things, which is like going to a game is supposed to be a communal experience. The people who work there are part of that community. I mean, or they should be like. I think of them as that. And so to say to pitch as a privilege or a bonus or benefit that you can kind of slide through the experience and all you have to do is pay for it with your face, I think is. Yeah, I think it's a prime example of that. And the other part is that you are incentivized to believe that it's to your benefit and that. And that the only way to opt out, you know, I mean, we've seen it in the airport, for instance, is to undergo a series of sort of onerous steps in order to not do this thing which is supposed to be good for you or, you know, be better for you.

B (9:52)

Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, it's not a far jump from there, but I think a lot about the delivery robots that are driving around Los Angeles and college campuses and other places all over the country where again, it is. You've taken something that's already kind of abstracted, like the, the. You have traditional delivery and then you have things like UberEats and GrubHub and, you know, the. The associated, like, algorithmic management of those workers and the depersonalization of the whole situation where it's like, just drop it off. Like, don't. Don't talk to me. Don't look at me. Like, food arrives. And then you just literally get rid of the human. Or, well, you put the human maybe in like a. In Nebraska or something, with an Xbox controller to drive around the. The food and these little robots. But then also you attach cameras and microphones to the robots because these are like this is the property of these delivery companies. And you know, people don't like these robots, so they're attacking them all the time. And, and sort of the side effect of all of this is like there are more cameras that can be subpoenaed by cops that often don't have to be subpoenaed by cops. They are sort of given footage willingly. And for this, it's like something where a rich privileged person abstracts themselves from the entire like food delivery experience. But then they're also opting in all of their neighbors to this type of surveillance. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that because you talk a lot about that in your work where it's like you are opting other people into surveillance via your decisions.

A (11:38)

Yeah, I mean if, if, like, you know, frankly, if these decisions only hurt the rich people or the people who, you know, signed up for it, like, I kind of wouldn't care, you know, but that is, that's sort of the unspoken part is that we are all, um, we're all sucked up into these systems when, when people engage in them not only in the way that you mentioned, but like it normalizes it, you know, like it. When, you know, these things are seen as kind of luxury or aspirational or making your life easier, it normalizes it in a way. I think that is really. Yeah. Unhelpful, harmful. That when everyone has a video doorbell, when everyone is carrying around a microphone, when people are wearing glasses, you know that with, with cameras, you know it. And, and we've seen it, I mean we've seen it with ICE and cbp. You know, we've seen it with, you know, states and municipalities requesting footage of, of protesters. You know, we've seen it with like flock and automated license plate readers that these things that are, are promoted as some kind of benefit or you know, safety for people wind up. You know, we've seen it in ed Tech that these systems, they wind up making people, lots of people, less safe.

B (13:17)

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A (16:08)

Yeah, well this is an interesting question for me, right? Like I think some of these things shouldn't exist. You know, like it's a sort of you don't gotta hand it to them kind of question. Like I think that it's understated the degree to which some of these things are really corrosive and harmful to society. You know the idea of that I should be able to order non essential Things and they are, a drone drops them off at my house an hour later, things like that. There are use cases, but mostly no. And so I think my kind of short answer is the only way to do that would be to divorce it from capitalism. I mean I think about the push towards smart glasses and there are some cases where people talk about them, you know, for instance, like translation. And so would it be cool to have a thing that immediately like translates something that worked and wasn't wonky, you know, but like, so yeah, like, and I like, I don't think those need to be glasses, for instance. Like those could be headphones. But I mean this is like a sort of like capitalism kind of ruins everything in that mostly companies don't. They're not incentivized in any way to produce these things at scale in a way that would protect people's privacy or wouldn't be invasive or wouldn't be corrosive. There are some decisions I think that make these things worse, you know, because like we companies sort of try to maximize their intrusiveness. But a lot of these things, you know, like I don't really think should exist. I think that the idea that convenience kind of trumps all really has been, yeah, I think it's a, it's a very harmful way to go about things.

B (18:17)

Well, it's this idea that everything should be frictionless and if you don't submit to these systems, we are going to add a lot of friction, like an unnecessary amount of friction. Something you said made me think about like my reporting with AI slop, which is just like, you know, we can talk about how AI has changed the calculator or supercharge a lot of these things that you're talking about and sort of the incentives of these AI companies. But I, I think a lot about how you'll talk to like someone who's really excited about AI, a generative AI, which is I feel like fewer and further between for me. But like every once in a while I'll like run into someone who, like a, a friend of a friend who's like, yeah, I like really love how I can storyboard with Runway ML or something and I can, it can make me help me write my scripts and things like that. And, and I think often of like the like best intentioned people using AI to make their little projects and things like that. I'm like, okay, that's cool. But like the, the vast majority of what we see on the Internet using these systems are like highly corrosive, highly invasive. Used to like, further inflame tensions and they're just like polluting the Internet. And I think about that, like when you mentioned smart glasses and things like that as well, where it's like, yes, maybe they can be used for translation and there should be like, better access, better accessibility, tech. I also think about, like, I would love to use meta glasses to like, film myself cooking for myself. So I'd be like, oh, that's like a cool. A camera on my face for use in my own home. But that's not how people are using it. People are using it to like, go film viral TikToks where they're harassing people in public and things like that. And I guess it's just like, I personally feel, I'm just like, we can't be trusted with this technology as a species, really. And the incentives of these big tech companies are not like, responsible use of these technologies. They're like, you know, use them as much. Use them to replace human contact and use them to spy on your neighbors and use them to like, inflame tensions and like, keep yourself safe and, and, and that sort of thing. And I guess it does kind of go back to like, this, the incentives of capitalism kind of where it's like, it's always like, it's like maximalist, maximalist, maximalist. Do you agree with that or, or what?

A (20:48)

Yeah, I mean, and I, you know, I, I hate it because it sounds reductive, you know, but I think for a lot of these things, you have to ask why they exist. You know, why are companies pouring billions and in some cases trillions of dollars into these things? And also when, you know, sometimes even their own research says, like, this is the effect, or this is how people are going to use it, or now that people are using it, this is what it's, it's doing. Even with those things. Like, you know, when we think about like the chatbots and how they've been linked to suicide, particularly of young people, and it's like one of those should cause the people at those companies to go pull some plugs at the data centers. But there's been far more than one. And then companies will come out and say, well, we've addressed that. Or, you know, for instance, character AI, I think, is now doing some kind of. Or they, they are going to start putting in like, kind of age restrictions or something like that, or. And, you know, like, it really seems insufficient, particularly given the harms.

B (22:12)

Right.

A (22:13)

I mean, like, throughout, even recent history, like, we've seen examples of when children are harmed when someone tried to do, you know, commit terrorist act or anything like that, that there have been pretty extreme reactions in terms of like, reactions in terms of trying to like protect the public. But that seems like, you know, sort of like a bygone era now, but like, because. And like, like the thing is like when for something like Sora, you know, I was just kind of rereading your, your piece on Sora and the Facebook slop and it's like, why? So, you know, like a really thing important question is like, why does Sora exist? You know, like, what is it for? You know, you know, a friend of our, like mine, you know, like, actually how I met you was David Columbia. You know, and when I think in 2022, before he passed, he wrote a piece called Chat GPT should not exist. You know, David was like always kind of like way out in front on stuff.

B (23:24)

I always thought, I mean, so for people who don't know, David Galambia was a researcher who wrote quite a lot about like techno libertarians and anarcho capitalism and things like this. I, I think you could explain it better. But I remember him as always being like far in front of the curve and things like this, like some of his early stuff on like bitcoin libertarianism. I feel like that was like before I had even come close to connecting the dots there. If you want to talk like a little bit about David and some of his work, I would really appreciate that because it's so sad that he passed and he did such great, great work.

A (24:02)

Yeah. So, you know, full disclosure is really good friend of mine and like a mentor, we wrote some pieces together, but he was like, really. I think one of the things he's known for is, is his work on bitcoin and, and on cyber libertarianism. And I, I'm not really going to do it like a great justice, but what I would, what I would point out is the connections he made between these technologies and the far right and between some of these technologies and some of these technologists or venture capitalists and things like that, and this understanding or this belief that technology should sort of trump democracy, that innovation and the idea that software or algorithms or what, what have you, that companies and platforms and investors should have free rein in terms of the putting technologies out into the world that are harmful because the most important thing is innovation. He called that cyberlutarianism, you know, like that there's this still, I think, prevailing narrative, I mean, it's disappearing somewhat, but that, that Silicon Valley had long been sort of liberal or left. He does, in his, in his book that was published posthumously, does a really deep dive into talking about why that really was never true. And yeah, I think that in terms of the essay on, On Chat GPT, I think one of the things he located really early on which I, you know, I agreed with them, but like we're seeing really come true is the way that it's like a very, it's like that chatbots writ large are like an anti democratic force. And also the glee with which the people, you know, kind of chatbot fetishists and gen fetishists, like the glee with which they think about putting artists and creatives and professors, you know, out of work is tied to their distaste and animus towards democracy. And so I think about him a lot whenever some of this stuff comes up, because when that piece came out, you know, he received like a significant amount of pushback. You know, I think it holds up really well. I mean, it was only three years ago, but like most of it turns out to have been pretty accurate.

B (26:50)

Yeah, I mean, but a lot, a lot has changed and a lot hasn't since then, I guess. And you know, this is not a surprise to anyone, but it's like I have a lot of problems with AI and how it's used and how it's affecting people. And I feel like a lot of readers will email me and sort of say like, well, there's this and you don't talk as much about the environmental impacts as you should. That that's like one line of criticism which we don't need to get into now. I agree, we, I want to do more on that. And then the other is that we're not talking enough about the potential privacy and surveillance implications of chatbots. And to be honest, one of the reasons that I feel like I haven't done that much work on that is because my mind has not expanded large enough to understand the ways in which this data is so sensitive. You know, there's the obvious things like sometimes it leaks its training data, sometimes, you know, there's been multiple instances of chats being leaked, things like that. But I honestly feel like the evilometer like has not been ratcheted to 10 yet in terms of like, what is possible. And, and we've started to see like a little bit of this with like chat GPT will call the cops on you if you start like showing suicidal ideation or, or something like this. And it's like, rather than like fix things that are just like, oh, we're just gonna like call the cops or rather than like to pull it out. Like, there's that aspect. But I'm curious, like, I feel like you have definitely thought about this more than me. Like, what are some of the privacy concerns, surveillance concerns of like, chat bots and our, our, our relationships with AI? I hate when people say our, but like, people, people are like talking to these things and telling them a lot about themselves. And it does feel like a pretty big, like, privacy risk, but I don't even fully understand the implications of it.

A (28:44)

Yeah, I mean, I think some of it, and I've been working and thinking a lot about this for, for the book, which is that the big push, and I don't even know how much this works, how much it's going to work, you know, things like that. But the big push towards agentic, you know, in quotation marks, AI, that. The, the thing is now that these, that in terms of like making AI an operating system or giving it access to everything you do, like your calendar, your contacts, your emails, your doctor's notes, like, all these things that in order for these systems to work not on a sort of like, not even on a sort of technical scale, but just in order for it to do the things companies claim that it will do, it will need kind of unprecedented access and kind of unsiloed access to like your entire life. And, you know, because privacy is relational, not only yours, but everybody, you know, and it would need to link all of those things together. You know, so if I wake up in the morning and say, you know, like, check my chat bot to see what my schedule is and ask it to schedule, you know, appointment with my doctor and, you know, write a love note to my partner and like, you know, ask, you know, tell my kid happy birthday, like all these things.

B (30:15)

Right?

A (30:16)

Like, that kind of like access is like, unprecedented. And the other thing is like these, I think when the companies are saying, like, it can, you know, chat bots can be your coach, can be your partner. These things are not, you know, like, really, I don't know that the companies have like, kind of like a.

B (30:41)

I.

A (30:41)

Don'T know what their model for making money is. Like, I, I honestly don't. Right. Except to get people to pay for this, you know, But I mean, they've suggested things like putting ads and things like that in it. And so how will we know, for instance, that what is going to be the level of influence that these things will have in terms of like, you know, like nudging people in certain ways and things like that. That and I think that thing that you pointed out with it with like, you know, chat B2CPT will call the cops on you. Right. Like, I think that that's like just sort of a small glimpse into it, because I understand these companies as being very closely aligned with an authoritarian government, not only in terms of kind of what, what kinds of ideologies these chatbots are allowed to have. Right. But in the ways that it will report on you if you don't have a matching ideology. I mean, we're seeing it in. We're seeing that push sort of in universities right now. We're seeing it in the president's, you know, edict against woke AI and things like that. And so I think when those are like a couple examples, but I think of, like, when the information silos, for instance, and things like that they exist for a reason. Linking all these things together with a company that's also inclined or allied with a particular ideology and is willing to function as sort of a carceral system, I think is really dangerous. And I don't think people have even begun to kind of unravel that like some people, but I don't think a lot of people, people are pouring their hearts into these systems and they don't know where that information is going.

B (32:42)

Right. That's like where my brain goes is the advertising bit. I mean, also, all the things you said right now, like, you made many more connections than I had previously. But for me, it's like these companies are not making money. In fact, they are burning money. And one of the most reliable ways to make money online is with targeted advertising. And it's like, you know, you see Facebook and Google spending just an insane amount of money on data centers and things like that. And they're not having to take on funding in the same way that OpenAI has needed to take, like, tons and tons of funding because they're losing money. But like, Facebook and Google are propped up by their ad ecosystem and they're just printing money with ads. And I. It's so scary to think, like, chat GPT starting to nudge you towards certain products or whatever when you're talking about a fight you had with your partner or something. I was like, well, have you tried roses from this, like, place? I bought them for you already. And like, I. It's just like, the possibilities there are very scary to me.

A (33:48)

And what will that mean for politics, for instance? Right? I mean, like, think about the way that we're beset by ads during election seasons and so are people, when people are kind of walking around with ChatGPT in their ear all the time through their glasses or their headphones or some other wearable or whatever. Right? So what would like a targeted political campaign look like through ChatGPT? I mean, it's like so nightmarish.

B (34:21)

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A (39:46)

Yeah, I mean, there's so much there. You know, I think, you know, I mean, first the thing I would say about Flock is, you know, I think the one interesting thing because I'm strangely kind of obsessed with these guys origin stories. And this guy Langley is his name, the CEO of Flock. And he claims like he kind of started it because his car got broken into and like, you know, there was no, you know, like the person wasn't caught or something like that. But their tagline is that they plan to eliminate crime. And I think, I mean, not white collar crime, of course, right. Not wage theft. But you know, I think the, the, the statistics not only with, with Flock, but with Ring, you know, there's been various deep dives over the years. Saros Barivar did a really interesting one. Alfred Ngs talked about it several times. Carolyn Haskins done great work on it, that they don't. The, the effect on crime in terms of these devices, in these technologies, the effect on like decreasing crime is widely overstated by the companies. But it does prey on people's fears, you know, that in conjunction with neighbors or, you know, next door. You know, one of the things, like one of the functions of these devices is to help kind of exacerbate people's fears about who does and doesn't belong in their neighborhoods, you know, to police workers and delivery drivers. You know, I think again, that's going to be exacerbated by this move with Amazon to now have workers wear glasses, you know, smart glasses. The move towards having retail workers and other workers wear body cams now, you know, and so they're all linked in these ways, but that a big part of that is to sort of impose a system of watching on people, again who are like, you know, service workers, like people who like certain people don't think belong in their neighborhood and things like that and that, you know, you asked before kind of would it be possible to have these things in a way that wasn't sort of like so destructive to society? I mean, I think security cams are an example. You know, there are some times that people would want security cameras or might need them, but the sort of mechanism and the landscape of having a ring, you know, now a lot of times people can, like ring and flack are forming a partnership or people can have their ring footage or their video doorbell footage, not just ring sent to, like, fusion centers, you know, so that cops can have like, constant access or on demand access to these systems. I mean, you all just reported. I'm kind of like rambling too, but, like, these things are all connected, right. That you all just reported about the, the ruling that flat cameras are the ruling of Washington, but. Flat cameras.

B (43:11)

Yeah. Flat camera footage or. Well, the, the snap. The images taken from it are public records in Washington. Yeah. And anyone can request them. And like, I, I'm like, kind of a transparency maximalist when it comes to, like, the systems that are being used by governments. And so it's like, I want to know what they are, but I can also see how this is, like, quite, quite concerning. Yeah.

A (43:35)

The implications for this are wild, you know, and I don't know if that. I'm not an attorney, so I don't know how that will hold up or, you know, if that will be used as president or anything like that, but the implications for that are absolutely wild.

B (43:51)

Yeah, I mean, I think that I knew when I had you on, I was just like, there's not one thing I want to talk to you about because it feels like all of this stuff is very connected. It's the same thing happening, like, over and over and over again. And then these different systems are like, they're all hooking together. And. And I think that's like the, the big thing for me where it's like, we talk about data silos, where it's like, information used for one purpose should not be used for another purpose. And that's sort of like how you would like to. That's how you would like, say, like, government information to work. Like, your tax information should not be used to arrest you by, like, I shouldn't be able to find your address because they asked the IRS or whatever. Right. And like, all. It feels like all of those walls in society are breaking down, like, all at the same time. And I don't know what we're supposed to do about it.

A (44:46)

Yeah, I.

B (44:47)

Please fix, Chris. Please fix.

A (44:50)

Yeah, you know, I mean, I think, you know, I think there being, you know, people are actively breaking them down, you know, and companies, you know, a thing I, I think is really important is the, the positive effects of a lot of these things. Again, like, I mean, it's. It's generally true that because companies have a thing to sell, they're going to wide, wildly overstate the positive effects of these things. Whether that's like, how good is an Apple Watch for your health or how you know much. You know, doorbell camera increases your safety. Like, I mean generally like the answers are kind of not much. You know, I mean it's a little bit more complicated than that. But like kind of the answer is like not much. But these companies have done such a great job of convincing everyone not only that these things are going to greatly help them, but kind of occluding the, the harmful effects to society. I mean like it's so corrosive now that like you would have to wonder like if someone has a pair of thick framed glasses, you know, and you're in a locker room or you're having a private conversation or whatever. Now you have to like wonder, is this person, you know, filming me? You know, you always have to wonder like are you being recorded? Like you know, people are can't put pictures of their kids faces on the Internet anymore because it's being like scraped and winds up, you know, contributing to the production of csam. I mean like all of these things are so like, I keep using this word over and over but they're like so harmful and so toxic and corrosive to society. But here, here's like where I'll like I'm not an optimist, right, but like here's where the thing I think is that I think there's more and more awareness of this. You know, I think that in a lot of ways these companies have begun to overplay their hands in terms of not only their like explicit political alliances but the ways that they've, the way I've put it before is that they used to sell you something and say you paid for it with surveillance and now they're just selling you surveillance. You know that particularly with wearables, but for a lot of things like with so called agentic AI, it's like look, if we can ingest everything, like we'll help you optimize your life. Like that's the thing now as opposed to like, you know, well you get to be connected with your friends overseas and we'll show you a few ads, you know, like that's like a major change and I think that's a really good point.

B (47:38)

Yeah, sorry, sorry.

A (47:39)

No, no, no. But I think they're overplaying their hand a bit.

B (47:44)

Yeah, you mentioned you know, not putting your kids faces on the Internet. Like we're talking audio only. This will be audio only when it's online and you've made like sort of the conscious decision to try to keep your face off the Internet as much as possible. I think given this conversation, that is the reasons for that are obvious. But I'm curious if you, if you want to talk a little bit about not just why that is, but more like, has it been difficult to do this or is it just like. No, I'm just not posting pictures of myself on social media.

A (48:21)

I mean, it's not difficult for me. You know, there are pictures of me on the Internet. I didn't put them. There is like the way I'll put it, you know, I try whenever possible to not feed the machine, you know, and I know like my state sells pictures of my driver's license to the feds and things like that. There are ways we cannot avoid that. But I really started thinking about this like during the pandemic and when everyone was zooming and you know, it became the norm to sort of critique people's backgrounds and the books in their background and everyone was supposed to get a ring light and things like that. And ed tech companies were doing room scans to make sure that, make sure in quotation marks the students weren't cheating. That the easy kind of normalization of people's image and all the ways that has been used to harm them again, to bring it full circle again all the way up to and including like deep fakes and you know, other kinds of like sort of sexual assault assault imagery that can be made now with some of these systems. And so yeah, I do my best when, whenever possible to not feed the machine. It hasn't been super hard. Like once I explained it, like initially people would give me a hard time, you know, because I do. I've done some podcasts and the Washington Post profile. I had to like fight pretty hard to like not have my, my face in that. You know, I think there's a different standard for not famous people and famous people in terms of like, like how much you're allowed to control your image.

B (50:09)

I'm very much, I think you're famous.

A (50:16)

But yeah, I, I, I do it because, and part of the reason I do it is like I have gained like enough credibility at least to say I don't want to do this and people still will still have me on their show or whatever. And so I want to kind of like create a space where other people could do that too.

B (50:37)

Yeah, I think this idea of not feeding machine, that's sort of like what I take into my day to day life outside of journalism is like, I try to, I try to like buy stuff from small businesses rather than Amazon, rather than Walmart. Like I stopped using Amazon when we were reporting on their labor, you know, abuses like, eight years ago. And I didn't use them for, like, five years. And I didn't find it to be, like, very difficult to stop. And I feel like once you start cutting things out, you realize, as you said, like, they don't necessarily add that much to your life. And like, maybe that is not going to stop these companies. Maybe it's not like some huge act of resistance to, like, use my feet to walk to the store or to buy to the store or drive to the store rather than like, click around, but it made me feel better at least. And I, I guess, you know, I have opted into tons of, like, tons of tech companies and stuff. Like, I'm recording this on a, you know, on Riverside, which is some AI podcast company that makes this stuff easier. And that's just because, like, it's not that I gave up, it's just that I've started to try to be like, pick and choose, like, which services I'll use and which I won't. And I'm wondering if you think that's like, is that good? Should people be doing this? Does it matter? I feel like it matters, but yeah.

A (52:15)

And so I think it matters not in the exact way I think people often think about it. And so the way I try to parse it is like, Amazon Tech, like, the company, they're not affected if I don't use Amazon, and I don't use Amazon, like, they're not affected. But I think. And so this sort of idea, I think because of sort of like, how VC money works and how monopolies work and things like that, this sort of idea that as consumers we're going to make some small choice that's going to force these companies to change. I don't think it works like that anymore.

B (53:01)

Right.

A (53:01)

Like, and there's a lot of reasons for that. Like, that, you know, we, I don't think I have time to go into.

B (53:06)

Right.

A (53:07)

Here's like, how I think about it though, is that it does sort of acclimate us into a mode of thinking and like a, like a form of community that will give us access to sort of larger movements and, and, and actions that will move the needle. Right. And so, like, you know, like, the example I've used forever, like, I live in Michigan and there's like, you know, pipelines running underneath the Great Lakes with oil, right? And like, so like, they're. Those companies are way bigger polluters than, like, I'll ever be, you know, but I still don't, like, throw like my garbage out the window. Right. I still recycle. Right. Like, I, you know, like, I understand these things, like, as me as an individual, like, kind of doesn't, like, it matters. Not in the sense that, like, I'm changing the world by, like, doing or not doing those things, but, like, by activating me, my consciousness in terms of, like, doing larger actions that might actually have some kind of, like, meaningful resistance.

B (54:17)

Right.

A (54:18)

Like, I mean, I don't know people really who use chat GPT your door chatbots. Like, I don't know. Most people I know don't have ring doorbells and things like that. I don't think that's incidental.

B (54:32)

Right.

A (54:32)

Like, or accidental. Like, I think that I'm part of a community who like, understands like, a lot of these things that's like, harmful to society.

B (54:40)

Right. I mean, I, I think that, I think the last thing I want to talk about is how we fight back or like, raise awareness and that sort of thing. Which is, like you said, you're not an optimist. I'm not really an optimist either. However, like, I have seen when we write about these technologies, like, there's always someone in a town somewhere or city somewhere saying, like, I brought this up at our city council meeting and we are reconsidering our contract with Flock, or we are like, reconsidering whether we want to buy a ring doorbell, like that sort of thing. And I, I do think that people are beginning to, like, it's not just like a niche concern anymore. It's not like a niche concern of privacy activists and journalists. It's like, people I am like, randomly meeting seem to like, understand that this is an overreach, that these companies are overplaying their hand. And then, like, yes, they're, they're continuing to expand, but they're also losing contracts. Like, these surveillance companies are losing contracts at a state and local level all the time for privacy overreaches and that sort of thing. And like, I guess that gives me hope. Is that, is that like the best we can hope for at the, at this moment is sort of like a piecemeal, like, local level of resistance that hopefully like, bubbles up at some point to a broader, better system or like, how do you kind of see our way. Yeah, out of this.

A (56:14)

I mean, I think what you all do, like, you all are crushing it. Like, I mean, I like, you know, I think. And I think part of what something that you said that I want to latch onto is that, like, people don't know, right. Like, I spend all of my time thinking and writing and reading about this stuff. I mean, you obviously are a journalist and you know, your organization is just like scooping, doing scoop after scoop. But like the average person, they doesn't know a lot of this stuff. Like they're not deeply embedded in, you know, like they don't know about Flock or, you know, they don't know the extent to which, you know, Facebook slop is. Or like AI slop is like being monetized on Facebook. Like all these things. Like, I think that that awareness is crucial because I think there are so many people who don't know that these systems like the extent to the heart of the harm of these systems. Right. Like, I think a lot about the story that these companies tell about what their privacy invasions are. You know, like Facebook's like, well, you know, there's a little bit of surveillance and you get like meaningful ads and like meanwhile there's like pixels of, you know, Facebook, like when you are making an appointment with your therapist or like, you know, whatever. So I think that is really important. I think it's kind of a grim moment right now in terms of a lot of this stuff. But this is the point I made before, but I think that it's now pretty explicit where these companies stand, what kinds of things they're willing to do. Like erase trans people, target immigrants, Get rid of apps on their sites that, you know, help keep people safe. Like all these things, like they've been very explicit about who they are.

B (58:23)

It does feel like a mask off moment society wide that we didn't really have after 2016 where like a lot of these tech companies are like, no, we care about this stuff, like kind of. Kind of, right?

A (58:38)

And like I think people will remember this. You know, I think that they're. That when the wind changes, right. Like, you know, they can't then come back, won't be able to come back and say, oh, actually we do care about equity, right. Or actually we are pro immigrant. Like not like we know who you are now where I think, you know, again for like people who have the advantage. Oh, always paying attention to these companies. Like, yeah, they're capitalist companies and they sort of, you know, change their message according to like, you know, like to align with power. Right. But like they're pretty. It's pretty extreme right now. And I think that, that there's going to be. Yeah, there's no kind of pretending now who or what they are. And I think that that's really important for in terms of like how we move forward.

B (59:38)

Chris, where should people find you?

A (59:44)

I mean I kind of am on Blue sky as Hyper Visible. My book is going to come out sooner or later on MIT Press. Luxury Surveillance. Still doing some writing here and there and yeah, that's mainly it.

B (60:06)

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I feel like we could talk for like three hours, but Joseph needs to record a podcast in a few minutes. But I really appreciate the time. We'll have you back on soon. And thank you so much for all the work you do and for always making time for us to help us contextualize some of these horrors so that we can spread the word and then eventually fight back. We are fighting back.

A (60:35)

But yeah, and I'm a huge fan, you know, like I get like of your team, of you and you know, Samantha, Emmanuel and Joseph, like again you all are crushing it. Like so I don't get to talk to you that much. So I just want to point out like, yeah, like the stuff you do is like so valuable to the rest of us.

B (61:00)

We do leave the compliments in the podcast. I, I, no, I really, I really appreciate it. It means so, so much. Like just we have so much respect for your work and you know, that's very nice. Thank you.

A (61:13)

Yeah, I'm not paid to say that by the way. It's like it's, it's very genuine.

B (61:19)

As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded journal journalists owned and supported by our subscribers. If you want to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, you can go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to the subscribers only section of every episode where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast, which really helps us out. This has been 404 Media. We will see you next time.