Another Thursday, another episode of Monitoring the Situation!
Kale has been on the road, but we managed to pull off a recording yesterday from his parents’ home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (In an odd twist of fate, I also spent half the day with my own parents yesterday.)
In this episode, we continue our exploration of social trust, the algorithm, AI, and what our digital imaginary is doing to us, to our creativity, and to our ability to relate to one another.
From the show description:
Why did one debate dominate thousands of feeds while AI agents were quietly breaking out of a test environment? Steve and Kale begin with Candace Owens, conspiracy culture, and the epistemic wreckage left by COVID, then follow the same pattern through UAP disclosure, TikTok mimicry, algorithmic therapy, and the pressure to join every noise story.
The conversation widens through Neuromancer, Childhood's End, Babette's Feast, and the emerging AI arms race. If the feed trains our desires and the swarm pursues goals beyond its instructions, what values are these systems serving? The answer may lie in friendship, boredom, books, feasting, laughter, and the embodied life technology keeps making easier to abandon.
As always, you can grab the audio-only version right here or from your favorite podcast provider.
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