Tech Won't Save Us
Silicon Valley wants to shape our future, but why should we let it? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its big promises, and the people behind them. Tech Won’t Save Us challenges the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. It’s not your usual tech podcast.
Episodes
October 23, 2025 • 55 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation.
Joanne McNeil is a freelance writer and the author of Wrong Way and Lurking: How a Person Became a User.
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 ...
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October 16, 2025 • 55 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss how tech CEOs are pushing a new generation of AI-powered smart glasses by promising they’ll be stylish and indispensable to workers in a desperate attempt to convince us we should want their luxury surveillance gadgets.
Chris Gilliard is the co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and is working on a book called Luxury Surveillance.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a criti...
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October 9, 2025 • 55 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Jacob’s new book Gilded Rage, which explores the radicalization of Silicon Valley leaders, who are exerting their growing influence to shape our society for the worse.
Jacob Silverman is an independent journalist and the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider soc...
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October 2, 2025 • 58 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Tina Nguyen to discuss the divisions within the American far-right between the Trump administration, the wider MAGA movement, and the tech executives trying to show they’re on their side.
Tina Nguyen is a senior reporter at The Verge and author of The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out).
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and w...
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September 25, 2025 • 60 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss the mission to turn Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire, Tesla’s growing interest in making robots instead of cars, and how other automakers are coming for the EV market it once dominated.
Ed Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous and co-host of the Autonocast.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of ins...
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September 18, 2025 • 49 mins
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.
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.
The podcast is made in p...
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September 11, 2025 • 60 mins
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 is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University and the author of Automation and the Future of Work.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical ...
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September 4, 2025 • 59 mins
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 and writes a newsletter 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 ...
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August 28, 2025 • 61 mins
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 Pol...
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August 21, 2025 • 59 mins
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 inspi...
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August 14, 2025 • 56 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Paolo Benanti to discuss what Pope Leo XIV’s statements on AI, the publications under Pope Francis, and the ethics of AI from a theological perspective.Paolo Benanti is an author, academic, and priest. He teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian University and was an advisor to Pope Francis on artificial intelligence and technology ethics.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, an...
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August 7, 2025 • 61 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Matt Pearce to discuss how Google’s use of generative AI is sending far less traffic to all manner of websites, but especially news publications, and what that might mean for the future of journalism.Matt Pearce is Director of Policy at Rebuild Local News and a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of ...
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July 31, 2025 • 60 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire’s Islamophobic attack on Zohran Mamdani, what it tells us about the state of tech’s politics, and how Donald Trump is enriching himself through crypto scams.Jacob Silverman is a journalist and the author of the forthcoming book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its ...
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July 24, 2025 • 58 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss the global push by governments to rapidly adopt AI at all costs and how citizens can critically rethink our dependence on these technologies while imagining a collective future that benefits everyone.Dan McQuillan is a lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London and the author of Resisting AI.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider ...
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July 17, 2025 • 55 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss the latest round of Microsoft layoffs and how the company’s ambition to remake the video game industry around its streaming service has had significant consequences.Nathan Grayson is a co-founder of Aftermath and author of Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider...
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July 10, 2025 • 53 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Laleh Khalili to discuss how the United States uses its control of key technologies to shift global power dynamics, and how that specifically plays out in the Middle East.Laleh Khalili is Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and author of the forthcoming book Extractive Capitalism.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of insp...
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July 3, 2025 • 54 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Yangyang Cheng to discuss how Huawei became one of the most powerful companies in China and how current geopolitical narratives distract from the issues at the heart of surveillance capitalism in the US and China.Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the...
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June 26, 2025 • 53 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Nitasha Tiku to discuss how AI companies are preying on users to drive engagement and how that’s repeating many of the problems we’re belatedly trying to address with social media companies at an accelerated pace.Nitasha Tiku is a technology reporter at the Washington Post.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand be...
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June 19, 2025 • 57 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Laís Martins to discuss the recent enforcement measures against tech companies like X and Rumble in Brazil, how the country is grappling with the overreach of US tech companies, and the wider discussion about tech policy in Brazil.Laís Martins is a technology reporter at The Intercept Brasil.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring ...
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June 12, 2025 • 51 mins
Paris Marx is joined by Karen Hao to discuss how Sam Altman’s goal of scale at all costs has spawned a new empire founded on exploitation of people and the environment, resulting in not only the loss of valuable research into more inventive AI systems, but also exacerbated data privacy issues, intellectual property erosion, and the perpetuation of surveillance capitalism.Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist and the author of Em...
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