The system, clearly, has crashed — and we’re here to help you dig through the wreckage. System Crash is a weekly tech news show willing to tell the hard truths about how tech — and the titans who own and operate it — is really transforming the world, hosted by Paris Marx and Brian Merchant. Tune in Friday for the first episode.

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT.

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The system is crashing, and we’re here to guide you through the wreckage. In the inaugural episode of System Crash, Brian Merchant and Paris Marx dig into how the alliance of Donald Trump and Elon Musk—along with his Silicon Valley cohort—is poised to transform both our politics and the tech world. Plus, how generative AI is trained on thousands of Hollywood scripts and why Bluesky gives us (a least a little) hope.

Mentioned this week:

• Sam Biddle on how Trump is a win for tech’s “warrior class” in the Intercept.
• The Financial Times wrote about advertisers heading back to Twitter/X to gain the favor of Trump and Musk. (See also: Paris’s newsletter on Musk and advertising.)
• Alex Risner wrote about generative AI being trained on Hollywood scripts for the Atlantic.
• The Hollywood Reporter on the #Xodus. (See also: Brian’s newsletter on why Bluesky is succeeding because it’s everything big tech’s not)

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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Brian Merchant and Paris Marx are back to celebrate ChatGPT’s second birthday while questioning how OpenAI is really doing as it embraces advertising and the rivalry between Sam Altman and Elon Musk continues to escalate.

Mentioned this week:

• Brian has a new report out with the AI Now Institute: AI-Generated Business: AGI and the Rush to Find a Working Business Model,
• Paris co-authored a white paper to make an ambitious case for countries to reclaim their digital sovereignty. On Disconnect, he wrote about why it’s essential in shaky geopolitical times and in light of the return of Trump.
• Business Insider reported on growing tensions inside Microsoft over Copilot's shortcomings.
• The Financial Times reported on OpenAI’s plans to embrace advertising.
• Reed Albergotti in Semafor reports a new lawsuit from employees accuses Apple of spying on them via their personal iCloud accounts and non-work devices.
• NYT reported Google had concerns about potential human rights violations connected to Project Nimbus, while The Intercept reported the contract is subject to an “adjusted” terms of service.
• The Financial Times says Zuckerberg seeks an “active role” in tech policy with the administration.
• NPR reported on jailbots in Georgia being used to track prison inmates.

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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Brian Merchant and Paris Marx are back with the very first guest of System Crash: Molly White! With Molly’s help, we walk through the biggest stories in the crypto world. We explore the resurgence of crypto, how its backers influenced the election and won Trump’s favor, what the crypto industry wants from the incoming administration—and how it plans to wield power. 

Mentioned this week:

• Molly White is the creator of Web3 is going just great and Follow the Crypto.
• Paris wrote about the return of self-driving hype and its relationship to the broader AI bubble.
• Molly was part of a complaint alleging Coinbase violated campaign finance laws.
• Brian wrote about Luigi Mangione and how the rise in violent politically coded acts reflects a growing despair over failing institutions.
• The Hawk Tuah girl launched a memecoin and (unsurprisingly) seems to have done a rug pull.
• OpenAI launched a $200 ChatGPT subscription and claimed to make its Sora video generator public, but many people couldn’t actually access it.
• GM has pulled the plug on its Cruise robotaxi and self-driving division after spending nearly $10 billion on it.

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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After hearing from a very special guest, Brian and Paris consider: Is the US really about to ban TikTok? If nothing changes come January 19th, it will. We explain why Congress *really* moved to shut down the massive social media app, and what might happen next, now that the Supreme Court is getting involved and Trump's changed his mind. Plus, Elon Musk points his cash cannon at the UK, and Amazon goes on strike. 

Mentioned this week:

• Shoshana Wodinsky explained why the data argument about TikTok makes no sense.
• Jacob Silverman wrote about Jeffrey Yass’ influence on Trump’s TikTok position.
• Reform UK leader Nigel Farage met Elon Musk and says he might donate to the political party.
• Paris wrote about Elon Musk’s growing relationships with the global far right and how this is coming to Canada through Shopify.
• A Senate probe found Amazon knew its high production quotas were increasing worker injuries and ignored safety recommendations aimed at reducing them.
• The UK government is studying new copyright exemptions for generative AI training.
• Google warned the UK in September it would be left behind if it doesn’t build work data centers and change copyright rules.

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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Every month, Brian Merchant and Paris Marx will be digging into writings, worldviews and future visions of the tech titans shaping our lives, exclusively for Patreon supporters. To give you an idea of what that will sound like, the first bonus episode is free for everyone. To keep getting them, support the show at patreon.com/systemcrashpod.

In this episode, Brian and Paris dig into Sam Altman’s vision for the Intelligence Age he says we’re entering—or will enter if OpenAI gets the funding and data centers and power he wants—and explore what Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s Little Tech Agenda tells us about the politics of Silicon Valley as we lurch into the second Trump administration.

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The new year has arrived, and luckily Mark Zuckerberg has started it by saving free speech! Brian and Paris break down the latest announcements from our benevolent social media overseer, what they signal about the tech oligarchy’s embrace of MAGA, and how they’re crushing any attempts to rein in their power. Plus, how Elon Musk is interfering in politics in Europe, ChatGPT Pro isn’t profitable, and more!

Mentioned this week:

• Mark Zuckerberg is ditching fact checkers and Republican operative Joel Kaplan got a promotion to president of global affairs — the same guy who was stifling action against conservatives breaking rules several years ago.
• OpenAI is losing money on its $200 a month ChatGPT Pro subscription.
• Google sent $100 million to the collective representing Canadian news organizations, in response to government legislation.

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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Jason Koebler joins the show to chat with Paris and Brian about the looming TikTok ban (that got even less likely after we recorded) and what Mark Zuckerberg is really looking for from the Trump administration. Plus, the new Free the Feeds initiative, John Deere in the FTC’s crosshairs, and more bad AI news.

Mentioned this week:

• Jason Koebler is a cofounder of 404 Media and cohost of the 404 Media Podcast.
• Paris wrote about Mark Zuckerberg’s embrace of the MAGA movement in Disconnect.
• Jason wrote about what Mark Zuckerberg is looking for from Donald Trump.
• Meta told the Brazilian government that its changes only apply to the United States — for now.
• The US Federal Trade Commission is suing John Deere for illegally restricting tractor repairs.
• The British Labour government says AI is going to be “mainlined into UK’s veins.”
• The Biden administration has a new executive order to ease the construction of hyperscale data centers on federal land.

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Is the AI hype going to evaporate after Chinese startup DeepSeek shows it can do generative AI way cheaper than OpenAI, Anthropic, and big tech? AI watcher and tech PR guru Ed Zitron joins Brian and Paris to break down what the company has achieved and why it completely upends the assumptions the US AI boom was built on.

Ed Zitron is the host of Better Offline, CEO of EZPR, and writer of the Where’s Your Ed At newsletter.

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Trump’s back in office, Elon’s doing “awkward hand gestures,” and the oligarchy 2.0 is right behind them.

This week on System Crash, Paris and Brian welcome special guest Jacob Silverman to dive into the grotesque spectacle of Trump’s second inauguration, why he lined up the nation’s tech titans for the occasion, and where this Silicon oligarchy is headed. Jacob explains all four of Trumpworld’s crypto coins.

Jacob Silverman is the author of the forthcoming book “Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley” and the co-author of “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.”

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Paris is out this week, so we found another esteemed Canadian writer, activist, and tech critic to log in as System Crash's first-ever guest host: Cory Doctorow. Brian and Cory examine Elon Musk’s campaign of governmental destruction in Washington DC, how enshittification will continue to unfold in 2025, and what, if any, hope there is for us, the humans and the users.

Cory Doctorow is the author of many bestselling science fiction novels and works of nonfiction. His latest is Picks and Shovels, out February 18th from MacMillan. 

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, looking into a recent op-ed by none other than Peter Thiel that gives us important insight into how he’s thinking and the political moment we find ourselves in. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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Silicon Valley hard at work turning DC into an AI-fueled dystopia. This week Paris and Brian dig into three big trends all converging at once: Elon Musk’s expanding power over the federal government, JD Vance’s speech in France declaring American AI will “dominate,” and Meta’s soaring share price on its pivot to AI strategy. Things seem to be going from bad to worse, but we’ll be here to chronicle the crash.

Find out more about the Tesla Takedown protests.

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A media narrative has taken shape that there’s little resistance to Trump and Musk, but protests against the administration’s antidemocratic push for power are growing. In fact, they’re everywhere. This week Brian and Paris chat with actor, director, and activist Alex Winter about the Tesla Takedown protests he’s been helping to organize, how quickly they’ve grown, and all the people who want to push back on Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government. Plus, Alphabet AI workers being silenced, Javier Milei’s memecoin, and whether anyone cares about the new iPhone.

Find out more about the Tesla Takedown protests.

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In a break from chronicling Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government, Paris and Brian share some thoughts from Monterey, California, where they attended a convening to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark Asilomar biotechnology conference. They reflect on how AI is playing into conversations about biotech’s future and the unsurprising deregulatory thrust. Plus, DOGE’s email to US federal workers, Donald Trump goes after digital services taxes, Apple is investing $500 billion in the US, and Elizabeth Holmes is trying to get out of prison early.

Also, the British monkey movie is called A Better Man. Paris has not actually seen it.

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our first episode, Bloomberg senior reporter and author of The Contrarian Max Chafkin joins the show to give us the scoop on Elon Musk’s time at PayPal and the ups and downs of his long relationship with Peter Thiel.

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Donald Trump finally launched his trade war on Canada and Mexico. For two days. Some tariffs remain, and they could all be back in April, and who knows what happens then. As Trump abandons allies, there’s a lot of uncertainty—but there’s also opportunity. Silicon Valley wants its alliance with Trump to cement its global power, but what if the actions of the United States actually push them to end their dependence on US tech and begin building an alternative set of technologies? In the second half, writer and podcaster Ed Ongweso Jr. joins to talk about the Silicon Valley Consensus that could be unraveling, then Paris and Brian dig into OpenAI’s new tiers, ad spending on X, and the LA Times’ new AI bot.

You can read Ed’s newsletter over on The Tech Bubble.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, breaking down the White House crypto summit and recent speeches by AI and crypto czar David Sacks praising Donald Trump. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, CNBC Digital tech reporter Lora Kolodny joins the show to fill us in on how SpaceX got off the ground and the role it’s played in building Musk’s empire.

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In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, Ludicrous author and Autonocast cohost Ed Niedermeyer joins the show to dig into the history of how Elon Musk took over and reshaped Tesla, how he built the company through deception, and why it’s not a vulnerable part of his corporate empire.

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After a few weeks of digging into Elon Musk’s past, Brian and Paris are taking a little break to dig into recent tech developments. They discuss the troubles facing Tesla, OpenAI’s new funding round, and the despicable display of AI-generated Studio Ghibli images circulating on social media. Plus, they discuss some important labor stories and how Google’s AI Overviews are hurting website traffic.

Brian mentioned an article called “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism.”

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Liberation Day has come and gone, leaving Brian and Paris to pick up the pieces. So the Trump administration may or may not have used ChatGPT to whip up its half-assed plans to instigate a global trade war, which tanked the market for days on end before Trump hit the pause button. There’s still much wreckage to sort through: Elon Musk is furious at Trump’s top trade adviser, China isn’t giving in, and electronics are about to get a lot more expensive. We dig into what all this means for big tech, Elon’s status at the White House, and your iPhone—and what it all says about the way team Trump wields power and thinks about American workers.

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In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders to dig into how science fiction shaped Elon Musk, and how Musk uses it to shape his own mythology. We explore the problems with how Musk interprets (and fails to interpret) sci-fi stories, and the ways sci-fi memes are deployed to justify the visions of the future tech billionaires are trying to realize. Annalee and Charlie Jane also share their thoughts on where they find hope in this moment, and how science fiction can help us through it.

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Elon Musk is trying to clean up the mess his DOGE escapades have made for Tesla — and it’s not going very well. Brian and Paris dig into the terrible news he had to share in the company’s earnings call and whether we should really believe his claims about scaling back his DOGE involvement next month. Either way, the right still loves the idea: Paris speaks with DeSmog Global Managing Editor Geoff Dembicki about a recent conference where Canadian conservatives — including an Amazon senior principal in public policy — laid out their vision for how to create a DOGE that can wreak havoc of its own on the Canadian government.

Geoff Dembicki wrote about how Canada’s conservatives are planning for their own DOGE.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, pulling back the curtain on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s pivot to a national security hawk using the threat of China to sell artificial intelligence to the military. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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This week on System Crash: Mark Carney is elected prime minister of Canada with a promise to take on Trump and accelerate AI adoption. Jeff Bezos backs down on Amazon’s plans to display how much tariffs have increased prices. Tech billionaires are radicalizing in a bunch of weirdly named Signal groups. Plus, X users drop, Duolingo replaces workers with AI, Microsoft pulls back on data centers, and more!

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This week on System Crash: The Vatican has spoken and we have a Luddite Pope; the Republicans are pushing a 10-year ban on state AI regulations to sate their tech industry friends; and Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia shows the power and geopolitics behind AI. Plus, Canada’s AI minister, UK artists pushing back on copyright changes, Microsoft layoffs, and more.

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This week on System Crash: AI madness hits a new peak: Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to give everyone AI companions, OpenAI’s boardroom drama gets a new chapter, and the impact of AI on education and work has become a full-fledged disaster.

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This week on System Crash: Sam Altman and Jony Ive announce they’re expecting — a piece of AI hardware. Donald Trump wants to hit iPhones with a 25% tariff if Apple doesn’t start making them in the United States, and we discuss whether that’s possible. Plus, BYD beats Tesla in Europe, Google’s Veo 3 goes viral, Duolingo tries to clean up its AI mess, Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist screed gets a print edition, and so much more!

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This week on System Crash: A new poll shows that nearly half of all teens wish the internet simply did not exist, and what can we say, the children are the future. Meanwhile, the reason why the kids hate the internet are dead set on making it all worse: Google and Microsoft announced their plans to continue stuffing AI into every available surface—the future they see is 100% AI-generated. Plus, SpaceX flexes its legislative muscle in Texas, an AI-generated book list makes it into print, Netflix gets the rights to Sesame Street, and more!

You can find Satya Nadella’s Bloomberg profile here.

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This week on the show: Elon Musk is out at DOGE, kind of. He leaves with a black eye, literally. And figuratively. We dive into what Musk’s exit means for the Department of Government Efficiency, the role of the Tesla Takedown protests in tanking his reputation, and where things stand to go from here. PLUS: Musk’s failed quest to kill OpenAI’s Stargate, Palantir’s mass data collection on Americans, and so much MORE.

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This week on the show: The Donald Trump/Elon Musk feud continues into a second week and protests torch Waymos as Trump ramps up an authoritarian clampdown of Los Angeles. Plus, Ohio state mandates AI use to make undergrads “bilingual” in AI, video game performers have a tentative union agreement, Chinese tech companies are restricting AI tools, and more.

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, digging into Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey’s scary vision for the future of warfare — and how he plans to profit off the whole thing. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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This week on System Crash: A new player is about to take the smartphone world by storm, the AI industry is forging deeper partnerships with the military, and the Iran-Israel conflict is already overrun with AI slop. Plus, Tesla pauses production again, AI is creating problems for libraries, some Danish governments want to get off Microsoft, and more!

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This week on System Crash: A court rules Anthropic can train on copyrighted works as long as they’re not pirated, and Elon Musk rolls out Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin — with all the problems you’d expect. Plus, Australia’s social media ban for under 16s moves forward, a new Fairphone is coming soon, Brian has a new series, and more!

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This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, where Paris and Brian present the first System Crash Culture Club by interrogating the new film Mountainhead and how it gets into the minds of our Silicon Valley oligarchs. To get the full bonus episode, become a supporter on Patreon.

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This week on System Crash: Canada drops its digital services tax under pressure from Trump, the 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation is dead, and the backlash to generative AI just keeps growing. Plus, Peter Thiel and his buddies are starting a new bank named after something else from Middle Earth, Microsoft is cutting thousands of jobs, and people are using chatbots to text their friends.

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Brian is out this week, so we’re dropping one of our bonus episodes to give you a preview of the benefits of supporting the show over on Patreon. In the episode, Brian and Paris dig into Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey’s scary vision for the future of warfare — and how he plans to profit off the whole thing. Arming countries to the teeth with automated weapons, to the degree they’re considered “porcupines,” might sound bad to some people, but to Luckey it’s the obvious goal of the Western “warrior class.”

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Some news, as they say: System Crash is going on hiatus as Brian and Paris are overloaded with other projects they need to take care of. Thanks for plugging in, and stay tuned to this feed for updates on what's next.

Until then, subscribe to Brian’s newsletter Blood in the Machine, check out Paris’ newsletter Disconnect, and go listen to Tech Won’t Save Us.

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