The Data Fix with Dr. Mél Hogan – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode with Dan McQuillan, we discussed the current AI moment as/within the polycrisis, and also as a temporary period between illusion and simulation. Dan proposes a series of countermeasures to AI under the umbrella of 'decomputing'. We also spend some time talking about illusion, shame, authenticity, and a slew of other contradictions that are important to note in relation to this AI moment. Recorded Apr 7, 2026. Released Apr 27, 2026.

Preprint: AI, Decomputing and the Interregnum

https://www.danmcquillan.org/ai_decomputing_interregnum.html 

Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence (2022)

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/resisting-ai 

Meta Security Researcher's AI Agent Accidentally Deleted Her Emails

https://www.pcmag.com/news/meta-security-researchers-openclaw-ai-agent-accidentally-deleted-her-emails

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For this episode, I interviewed someone who asked to be made anonymous (and voice altered) in order to openly discuss their complicated feelings of regularly offloading work tasks to an AI chatbot. Is there any shame is using AI? Isn’t everyone doing it? Why would people pretend not to? Does it change you? Is it bad for the brain? Recorded Mar 22, 2026. Released Apr 13, 2026.

How I Realized AI Was Making Me Stupid—and What I Do Now

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-i-realized-ai-was-making-me-stupidand-what-i-do-now-5862ac4d

Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills

https://futurism.com/study-ai-critical-thinking 

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In this episode, I got to walk through a recent report called “the high stakes of tracking menstruation” with its author, Stefanie Felsberger, a sociologist of tech & gender. I cannot express enough how much there is to learn from this topic that can help us understand the bigger landscape of tech promises and harms. Recorded Oct 23, 2025. Released Nov 24, 2025.

The High Stakes of Tracking Menstruation - MCTD Cambridge

https://www.mctd.ac.uk/femtech-high-stakes-tracking-menstruation/ 

https://www.mctd.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-High-Stakes-of-Tracking-Menstruation_Accessible.html 

Menstrual apps harvest data that ‘puts women’s safety at risk’

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/menstrual-apps-harvest-data-that-puts-womens-safety-at-risk-bd0srb8mt? 

Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (by Kate Clancy)

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691191317/period? 

Website

https://www.stefaniefelsberger.com

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In this episode, I speak with Justin Hendrix, the CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press, a nonprofit media venture concerned with the intersection of technology and democracy. We talk about ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), surveillance, and AI. Recorded Oct 21, 2025. Released Nov 10, 2025. 

Republican Budget Bill Signals New Era in Federal Surveillance

DEAN JACKSON, JUSTIN HENDRIX / JUL 2, 2025

https://www.techpolicy.press/republican-budget-bill-signals-new-era-in-federal-surveillance/

Amidst Violent Immigration Raids, DHS Turns to Big Tech to Silence Dissent

JENNA RUDDOCK / OCT 3, 2025

https://www.techpolicy.press/amidst-violent-immigration-raids-dhs-turns-to-big-tech-to-silence-dissent/ 

AI Surveillance on the Rise in US, but Tactics of Repression Not New

DIA KAYYALI / MAR 26, 2025

https://www.techpolicy.press/ai-surveillance-on-the-rise-in-us-but-tactics-of-repression-not-new/

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Host of Tech Won't Save Us and acclaimed tech critic, author, and international speaker, Paris Marx joins me for this episode where we discuss AI futures in a Canadian context: the idea of a "sovereign cloud", an "AI minister", and much more! Recorded Oct 15, 2025. Released Oct 20, 2025.

Website

https://parismarx.com/

Tech Won't Save Us

https://techwontsave.us/

Disconnect

https://disconnect.blog/im-writing-a-new-book/

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In this episode, I get to chat with the brilliant Michael Richardson on the concept of "Nonhuman Witnessing" especially in how this relates to algorithms and AI. In his book, "Nonhuman Witnessing" (Duke), he argues that a "radical rethinking of what counts as witnessing is central to building frameworks for justice in an era of endless war, ecological catastrophe, and technological capture". Recorded August 13, 2025. Released August 25, 2025.

Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World (Duke, 2024)

https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3310/Nonhuman-WitnessingWar-Data-and-Ecology-after-the

Website

https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/michael-richardson

Bluesky

@richardsonma.bsky.social‬

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Rohit Revi walks us through paranoia, care, conspiracy, capitalism, and catastrophe, in relation to technology and culture, to draw us into a deeper consideration of collective psychic resources and psychological commons. We talk about psychometry and linger on the dopaminergic. Recorded July 16, 2025. Released August 11, 2025.

Great Delirium: Culture, Technology, and Paranoia in the New Age of Catastrophe

(2025-02-24) Revi, Rohit; Cultural Studies; Murakami Wood, David; McBlane, Angus

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Emily M.Bender and Alex Hanna have been leading the charge against "AI", helping us understand it for the con that it is, and how AI companies are turning to health, education, and other social realms to try to recover their costs. In this episode we discuss LLMs vs. what the AI (and AGI) con is -- who benefits, and who loses -- and much more. Recorded July 15, 2025. Released July 28, 2025.

The AI Con

https://thecon.ai/

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

The predatory fantasy of worker empowerment in AI marketing

Justine Zhang, Su Lin Blodgett, Nina Markl

AI x Crisis: Tracing New Directions Beyond Deployment and Use workshop, Aarhus 2025.

AI isn’t replacing student writing – but it is reshaping it

https://theconversation.com/ai-isnt-replacing-student-writing-but-it-is-reshaping-it-254878

Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4

https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12712

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In this episode, Paul Schütze and I pick apart the inherent contradictions of “sustainable AI”, marketing language that aims to convince the public that one of the most extractive industries can be used to solve climate change. We delve into the layers of control embedded in the logics of AI, when technology becomes the fix that needs fixing. Recorded May 20, 2025. Released July 7, 2025. 

The impacts of AI Futurism

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09758-6 

The Problem of Sustainable AI

 https://doi.org/10.34669/WI.WJDS/4.1.4 

contact paul.schuetze@uos.de and website: paulschuetze.de 

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In this episode I speak with Rebecca Kilberg, Mary-Clare Bosco and Jonathan Gilmour who together use policy approaches to solve problems related to data center water usage and the various planetary and health outcomes that emerge from water consumption and extraction. They talk about how you get such data and what to do with it, and the importance of creating many local sites of resistance for a more sustainable future. Want in? Get in touch. Recorded May 19, 2025. Released June 16, 2025.

Voices: Data centers must be transparent about water usage — for the sake of the Great Salt Lake

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2024/12/31/voices-utah-data-centers-must-be

Reducing Data Centers’ Water Consumption

https://aspenpolicyacademy.org/project/reducing-data-centers-water-consumption

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