Computer Says Maybe

Klaudia Jaźwińska, Aliya Bhatia, and Yanick Kemayou come together to answer: What happens when a small collection of AI companies start colonising the truth?
More like this: The Toxic Relationship Between AI & Journalism w/ Nic Dawes

This is REAL Resistance, a collection of conversations produced in collaboration with Real ML, featuring the experts and advocates who make up Real ML’s global network.
In this conversation, three guests from the network share all the ways in which AI is shaping our relationship with news, language, and learning:
People are increasingly using AI for search and to get their news; but Klaudia Jaźwińska’s research finds that chatbots have a huge citation problem
Many LLMs claim to be ‘multi-lingual’ — but also only tested in US English? Aliya Bhatia explains that porting outputs from English into all other languages in not gonna cut it
Higher education in Africa is completely disconnected from local knowledge, which is why Yanick Kemayou founded Kabakoo: an alternative learning platform that leverages and preserves local knowledge with the use of technology, and without exploitation
As Yancik says in this episode, “openness without governance is extraction with extra steps”.
Further reading & resources:
AI Search has a Citation Problem — Klaudia Jaźwińska & Aisvarya Chandrasekar
Lost in Translation: Large Language Models in Non-English Content Analysis — Gabriel Nicholas, Aliya Bhatia
More on Kabakoo Academies, founded by Yanick Kemayou
The SPUR Coalition — a UK org seeking to create standards and infrastructure for AI companies and news publishers to do business
The State and Fate of Linguistic Diversity and Inclusion in the NLP World — by Pratik Joshi et al, 2020
The #BenderRule: On Naming the Languages We Study and Why It Matters — Emily Bender, 2019
The silicon gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place — Francisco W. Kerche et al, 2026
Bamako AI Festival
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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

How do we stand up against the human rights violations that exist in the gruesome relationship between the business of AI and war?
More like this: Computer Says Kill: The AI Safety Circus w/ Heidy Khlaaf

In our final installment of Computer Says Kill, Matt Mahmoudi returns, this time with Marwa Fatafta, to share the why and how of their recent joint statement on AI in warfare. The calls on AI companies to stop selling their products for use in military contexts, and for governments to cease buying them. The asks are simple while the execution is complex: what is the historical context of this fight and how long will it take to achieve some level of justice?
Further reading & resources:
Read the joint statement on Access Now and share across your networks
Microsoft: it’s time to come clean about your ties to the Israeli military — Access Now
A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians — The Guardian, 2025
AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation — Al Shabaka, 2025
On Violence by Hanna Arendt
Anthropic announces 'Claude Corps' to teach nonprofits to use AI more effectively — The Independent, June 2026
Artificial Genocidal Intelligence: how Israel is automating human rights abuses and war crimes — Access Now, 2024

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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

The AI industry loves to talk about safety, but their version of safety is putting us at risk.

More like this: The Palestine Laboratory w/ Antony Loewenstein
For our second to last series episode of Computer Says Kill, we’re joined by Heidy Khlaaf, a global expert in designing safe critical systems for high-risk infrastructures such as energy grids, nuclear power plants, and weaponry. Heidy outlines how the AI industry is working to redefine and shrink this essential, established field of expertise. By parading around sham “safety benchmarks”, this circus of an industry is marketing statistics that literally amount nothing at best, and proof that today’s LLMs aren’t safe at all, at worst. We explore the centuries of precedent and practice established in the safety field and examine how today’s AI safety “experts” are eroding this work to rush the incorporation of shoddy tech into the lucrative nooks and crannies of our militaries, economies, and physical infrastructure.
Further reading & resources:
Safety Co-Option and Compromised National Security: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Weakened AI Risk Thresholds — Heidy Khlaaf & Sarah Myers West, 2025
Social Benefit versus Technological Risk: What is our society willing to pay for safety? — Chauncey Starr, 1969
Israel built an ‘AI factory’ for war. It unleashed it in Gaza. — WaPo December 2024
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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

Israel has a long history of making new technological weapons of war and exporting them to the world. They have used Palestine as a testing ground to show how new tools can enable mass killing. And they are banking that demand for their products might protect them on the world stage.
More like this: Anthropic is NOT the Good Guy w/ Maddy Batt
In part seven of Computer Says Kill, author of The Palestine Laboratory Antony Loewenstein explains that for Israel, precision warfare is just performative. Israel has the means to kill with precision, but this is at odds with the logics of genocide. Antony will take us through the history of Israel’s dealings with authoritarian states, and Israel and American states do not need to take state control of a their domestic tech industries because they are already so ideologically aligned with their regimes.
Further reading & resources:
Buy The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein (Verso Books)
Watch The Palestine Laboratory series on Al Jazeera
‘Hondurasgate,’ the alleged US and Israeli interference plot to destabilize Mexico and other progressive governments — El Pais May 2026
Israeli drone strikes on vehicles in Lebanon kill 12 people, including 2 children — LA Times May 2026
What is Project Nimbus? Al Jazeera, 2024
Israeli authorities are using facial recognition technology to entrench apartheid — on ‘Red Wolf’ from Amnesty International, 2023
Check out our Youtube for Tech Story of the Week
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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout

The Israeli military is using data, surveillance, and AI to kill noncombatants in Southern Lebanon.
More like this: Computer Says Kill: Collapsing the Chain w/ with Matt Mahmoudi
This week, we're kind of taking a break from our Computer Says Kill series to play a interview from our YouTube channel that is extremely relevant to the conversations we've been having about AI and militarization. Alix sat down with Nabih Bulos, the Middle East Bureau Chief at the LA Times, to discuss his recent reporting on Israel’s complex system of surveillance-driven targeting where, as he writes, even data from a phone can become a death sentence.
Further reading & resources:
Inside Israel’s AI targeting system: How data from a phone become a death sentence — Nabih Bulos, The Los Angeles Times, May 2026
Watch the interview on our YouTube channel
Catch up on episodes of Computer Says Kill, our series on AI, warfare, and power 
**Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!**
Computer Says Maybe is produced by Georgia Iacovou, Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Sarah Myles, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout