Mars Review of Books Podcast · Mars Review of Books

Arty-ficial Intelligence with Hansen Shi

·1 hr 7 min·5 clips

It begins with blurbs. The guest talks about the author ritual as a humiliating favor economy: nobody quite loves it, everyone feels obliged, and the machine still has power. Rick Moody becomes the anchor. One visible endorsement makes the next ask easier, which turns a small publishing detail into a theory of authority. The joke lands, then keeps cutting. Blurbs come off like miniature Ponzi logic, drained of meaning but still strangely required if you're inside the system. Then capitalism walks in from the side. The conversation moves through markets, stimulus, and the need for excuses, while the host brings Naomi Klein's shock doctrine into the room. The guest stays practical. Capitalism does not look much like the old self-regulating fantasy after the dot-com boom, 2008, AI, and faster tech cycles. Control is the argument. Today's economy, the guest suggests, is more managed than some people want to admit, because without intervention the same breaks keep showing up. Sweden becomes a useful comparison, not a magic answer. The episode keeps its loose pace. A publishing gripe turns into macroeconomics, then into AI anxiety and institutional response. By the end, the room veers again: the host and Jonathan are heading to Harmony Korine's Baby Invasion in deep Brooklyn, somewhere between film, event, and maybe video game. Nothing gets neatly solved. That's the fun: live thinking with the edges left on.

As heard by us

Blurb-gathering grows into a brisk, loose discussion of authority, capitalism, shocks, AI, and managed economies.

It begins with the awkward, obligation-driven business of blurbs and uses that as a doorway into authority and the odd economy that keeps blurbs moving even when their purpose feels thin.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want blurb gossip, capitalism talk, and a late detour into Harmony Korine.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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