Tech criticism with institutional memory.
This Machine Kills treats technology as a struggle over money, power, work, and public life. Its episodes move from jokes and tangents into dense arguments about AI policy, data markets, industrial strategy, and algorithmic harm.
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This Machine Kills is a fast, argumentative show about technology as political economy. It does not treat AI, data, platforms, or industrial policy as neutral tools waiting for better managers. It asks who pays, who profits, who gets disciplined, and which institutions get stronger when a technical system becomes common sense. Recent episodes make that frame very clear. AI policy becomes a story about subsidies, de-risked investment, public wealth funds, tax bases, and data-center buildouts. Workplace AI becomes a story about doing more administrative work with greater efficiency while deep work gets squeezed. Surveillance becomes a story about the false comfort of limiting only the government while private markets collect and sell the same kinds of data. Social-service automation becomes a grim comedy of bureaucratic scoring systems making life-altering care decisions. The show can be funny in the middle of all that. Its cold opens and side tangents wander through Animorphs, internet fights, live-show logistics, and deliberately overbuilt bits before the argument snaps into focus. That looseness is part of the texture, not a distraction. The episodes often sound like people thinking out loud at speed, testing a claim, sharpening it, doubling back, and pushing it into a broader critique of capital and state power. Interviews add range without changing the basic posture. Tim Sahay and Kate McKenzie bring the energy transition and green industrial policy into a global frame. Bruce Schneier brings democracy, security, and AI governance into the discussion. Brian Chen helps track how Silicon Valley gets folded into policy and public money. The show is best for listeners who can handle long, politically loaded conversations and prefer their tech analysis suspicious of easy solutions. It is not a product briefing. It is a running argument about the world being built under the banner of innovation.
Made for: Suited to listeners who want left-leaning, highly verbal tech analysis that connects AI, data, labor, and policy to material power. Best for people comfortable with long arguments, sharp humor, and frequent digressions.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by refusing to separate technology from the state, finance, labor discipline, and geopolitical strategy. Its chemistry lets serious policy critique share space with loose, abrasive banter without losing the thread.
A podcast about technology and political economy /// Agitprop against innovation and capital /// Hosted by Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr., Produced by Jereme Brown /// Hello friends and enemiesListen anywhere that fine podcasts are distributed. Subscribe at patreon.com/thismachinekills to get premium episodes every week.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
This Machine Kills connects technology's grand promises to the financing, labor systems, state policies, and concentrated power that make them possible.
This Machine Kills treats technology as a struggle over work, public power, and who absorbs financial risk. Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr.
The AI efficiency dividend arrives as more emails, and Jathan and Ed want you to check the receipt.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A messy opener gives way to a clear look at industrial policy, taxes, and AI-driven growth.
Episode 453 starts in a chaotic key, with an apology that sets up the bottle, the rag, and the accidental light in San Francisco before shifting into industrial policy and the place of AI inside it.
A sharp look at electrification, industrial policy, and the struggle to shape the next energy order.
Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie frame the energy transition as a fight over industrial power, not a clean-tech victory lap. They trace China's push to become an electrostate, the answers other countries are trying, and the harder question underneath it all: who gets the factories,…
AI's promise of less work gets recast here as more bureaucracy and less room for the work that matters.
Episode 449 treats AI productivity as a labor story, not a neat efficiency win: the promise of less work keeps turning into more administrative churn, more email, more accounting and human-resources busywork, and less room for the work that actually matters.
A sharp case for seeing surveillance and private data markets as part of the same problem.
The episode begins with an apology and quickly settles into a sturdier case against warrantless collection of Internet metadata, telephone records, cell-phone location data, and browser history.
A sharp policy-minded look at how OpenAI's infrastructure ambitions meet federal power.
Silicon Valley's deeper ties to the Trump administration sit at the center of this episode, which frames the tech industry's China posture as part of the policy machinery around Trump 2.0.
A clear, grounded discussion of AI, democracy, and the workplace pressure behind productivity gains.
This Machine Kills keeps democratic politics and AI in the same frame, tracing the stakes into government, citizenship, and work. Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and coauthor of Rewiring Democracy, How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship, gives…
Catastrophe finance looks orderly until the threshold meets real damage.
This piece treats catastrophe finance as a neat system that can still fail the people it is meant to help. Hurricane bets, parametric triggers, and payout formulas all look orderly on paper, yet the discussion keeps returning to the gap between a clean threshold and the damage…
Host Jack Rhysider narrates true hacking, breach, and privacy stories from the people involved.
David Pierce and Verge staffers cover AI industry news, gadgets, and tech policy weekly.
Long-form interviews on AI coding agents, infrastructure, and security, plus a recurring SED News roundup.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
David Sparks and Stephen Robles dig into Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts, and Mac automation weekly.
Security technologist Bruce Schneier joins This Machine Kills to discuss his new book 'Rewiring Democracy', which examines how AI is transforming politics, government, and citizenship.
Hosts Jathan Sadowski and Edward Ongweso Jr.
Hosts Jathan and Ed open This Machine Kills episode 453 with a satirical bit mocking Sam Altman's Molotov-cocktail attack and his subsequent blog post claiming "words have power," which they call a cynical attempt to frame critical journalism as dangerous.
Two friends discuss the dark and violent themes of the Animorphs book series, questioning how it was marketed to children.
Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie argue on This Machine Kills episode 451 that the Strait of Hormuz shock is a supply crisis, not just a price move, because they say 20% of world oil and gas, 30% of LNG, and 30% of fertilizers pass through it.
The host discusses a controversial Australian aged care algorithm that denies care to elderly people, comparing it to a BuzzFeed quiz deciding life or death.
This Machine Kills episode 449, "Efficiently Drowning in Work," argues that AI adoption is making office labor heavier, not lighter, by comparing a Harvard Business Review qualitative study with a Wall Street Journal/ActiveTrack survey.
Sam Altman says OpenAI is "generally quite comfortable with the laws of the U.S." while taking the Pentagon contract.
Bruce Schneier discusses his new book on how AI will transform democracy, politics, and citizenship.
Brian Chin's Data & Society report, "The Big AI State," frames Trump-era AI policy as state intervention for "global technological dominance," not simple deregulation.
An interview with Becca Monteleone about her book on the intersection of disability and medical technology.
The hosts discuss a new Silicon Valley political action committee targeting midterm elections, following the success of the Fairshake crypto pack.
A humorous discussion about emerging slurs for AI users and robots, sparked by a viral video of a man yelling at a robot dog.
Jathan and producer Jeremy interview Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about their new book deflating AI hype and examining how AI systems work and fail.