The 404 Media Podcast

This week, we talk to Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, about a rash of people physically destroying AI and surveillance infrastructure. Brian puts this wave of attacks in the historical context of the Luddites, who are notoriously misunderstood and fought for worker protections against automation during the Industrial Revolution. Over the last few months, we have seen people in San Francisco and Los Angeles torch Waymos, bash delivery robots with baseball bats, destroy Flock cameras, and threaten AI data centers and the politicians championing them. This type of political violence doesn’t and cannot occur in a vacuum, it happens because people feel they are being taken advantage of and that their representatives aren’t listening to them. Given the current state of things, we can likely expect more of these sorts of attacks to occur.

Blood In The Machine

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/1Z4k_vDovbY
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This week, Jason explains the conspiracy theory circulating behind a trippy stock image that went viral after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—was it sent here by a time traveler? (Spoiler: It was not.) Then Sam unpacks what’s happening at Arizona State University with a messy rollout of a new AI-powered tool that generates lessons by scraping professors’ lectures without their knowledge. In the second for subscribers at the Supporter level, Emanuel gets philosophical with a discussion about the question of machine consciousness and how it relates to a new paper from a Google-affiliated scientist.

⁠University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up and Turned Into AI Slop⁠

⁠Did a Time Traveling Superintelligent AI Try to Warn About White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting? An Investigation⁠

⁠Google DeepMind Paper Argues LLMs Will Never Be Conscious⁠

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/VOo0ZpIagP0

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This week Joseph talks to Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a journalist at TechCrunch. Lorenzo has possibly the deepest understanding of one of the wildest cybersecurity stories in years: how an employee of Trenchant, a government malware vendor that is supposed to only sell to the ‘good’ guys, secretly sold a bunch of hacking tools to a Russian company. Those tools, it looks like, then ended up with the Russian government and possibly Chinese criminals too. It’s a really insane story about how powerful hacking tech can fall into the wrong hands.


Inside the story of the US defense contractor who leaked hacking tools to Russia


US military contractor likely built iPhone hacking tools used by Russian spies in Ukraine

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/MWxLqopMo5o
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This week Sam unpacks how social media algorithms manipulate our emotions around everything from engagement rings to wedding dresses to babies, and what it feels like getting lost in the #Weddingtok sauce, and Emanuel breaks down a satirical but functional AI tool that rips off open source software. There’s a long history in “clean room” software that’s really interesting. In the section for subscribers at the Supporter level, Jason walks us through “tokenmaxxing” and startups obsessed with spending as much money as possible on AI—and as little as possible on humans.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.


I Almost Lost My Mind in the Bridal Algorithm


This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/-NEjEaOp1tI
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This week, Sam is joined by Maddy Myers, editor-in-chief of Mothership. She’s also a co-host of the video games podcast Triple Click. 

Maddy launched Mothership with co-founder Zoë Hannah in January. It’s a queer and women-owned independent publication that focuses on gender and games. They discuss Maddy’s early days of games journalism via a (print!) alt-weekly in Boston and then at the Mary Sue, how she and Zoë decided it was time to quit Polygon and launch their own indie outlet, and the importance of owning your own work as a journalist.

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Why I’m launching a feminist video games website in 2026 - The GuardianMothership and a History of Women in Games Media - the Post Games podcast

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/sQUqYKXW3fE

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