Dystopia Now

This week with comedian Alaina Bamfield, we check in on ChatGPT's joke-writing capabilities, Émile's former anarchoprimitivist sympathies, medical skepticism, and whether we might have made enough technological advances.
Alaina Bamfield is a New York based stand up comedian from Williamston, Michigan. Check out Alaina @alainabamfield on social media and her comedy special "Untouchable" on YouTube.
Editor's note: This episode was recorded August 3 — toward the end of the episode, we reference DSA endorsee Francesca Hong's lead in the polls for the gubernatorial primary run in Wisconsin, but this was based on falsified information and on August 11, Hong lost by a margin of 0.5%. Tech dystopia continues!

In this episode, we chat with Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, journalist, and commentator on technology. We discuss the phenomenon of platform enshittification, its relationship to an unregulated tech industry and unorganized workers, monopsony power of platforms, centaurs and reverse centaurs, and his take on AI superintelligence and recursive self-improvement.
Find Cory Doctorow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation eff.org, his blog https://pluralistic.net/ and check out his latest two books The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI and Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI, June 2026, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621575/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, October 2025, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

This week we're joined by Vu, an undergraduate at Stanford University and representative of Stanford SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) to discuss the role of technology in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, student activism at Stanford including the recent commencement walkout, and the experience of students looking toward careers in tech.
Find more about Stanford SJP on Instagram @stanfordsjp.
Further Reading
Stanford SJP Link In Bio: https://lnk.bio/stanfordsjp

Stanford Daily, June 2026, Google CEO addresses graduates amid student walkout

Bay Area Current, Feb 2026, Pro-Palestine Stanford Students Await Trial Verdict 

NYT, August 2026, Gen Z Fell Out of Love With Work. I Don't Blame Them.

This week, Kate and Émile discuss AI 2040, a new document by some of the same authors behind AI 2027.
The authors argue, if AI companies come to their senses and prioritize AI safety, the result could be a superintelligence that brings about a utopian world of immortality and space colonization and property rights. We dismantle the silly arguments in AI 2040 with a good dose of mockery.
Further Reading
Thomas Larsen, Romeo Dean, Brendan Halstead, Eli Lifland, Ryan Greenblatt, Daniel Kokotajlo. AI 2040: Plan A, https://ai-2040.com

Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean. AI 2027, https://ai-2027.com/

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On this now-unlocked episode, we talked to antitrust hero and Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout about surveillance pricing and surveillance wages. 
From airlines charging us more to fly home if they see we've recently searched "funeral arrangements" to rideshare companies paying less per ride if your bank account is low, we explored the present and future possibilities of data as a tool for economic and labor exploitation.
Book Mentioned
Karen Levy, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance

Further Reading
FTC Report, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer

ACLU Report, https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/surveillance-pricing

Electronic Frontier Foundation on surveillance pricing, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first

Maryland ban on surveillance pricing, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/29/maryland-grocery-stores-ban-surveillance-pricing

New York legislation, https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2026/05/19/surveillance-pricing-

Cory Doctorow on surveillance wages, https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2026-04-06-empiricism-washing-veena-dubal-d63fef485503