'Corporations are Robots': David Runciman on AI, states, robots and the first singularity

Anti-Dystopians 2.11

The Anti-Dystopians is back from our break with a very exciting guest, David Runciman! David is a professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, the host of the critically acclaimed podcast Talking Politics—and he also happens to be my PhD supervisor… We talked about why corporations are a kind of robot, how singularity might have already come about and why we should think seriously about the political philosophy of Silicon Valley.

As always, you can listen to it here or subscribe here (Spotify) or here (Apple Podcasts). If you like us, please rate, review and share the Anti-Dystopians to help us get new listeners. If you want to support the production of the show, you can visit here.

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Further reading from the episode:

• Silicon Valley’s Vampire: David Runciman on Peter Thiel

• ‘I read Dominic Cummings blog so you don’t have to’: David Runciman on Dominic Cummings

• Elon Musk and sea turtles

• The dangerous ideas of longtermism

• Nick Clegg’s profile in Politico 

• The Evening Rocket: Jill Lepore’s podcast series on Elon Musk’s ideology

• A long-read in the FT about how the US shut down Facebook’s crypto-currency

• The Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang

• The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 by David Edgerton

Tweet(s) of the week

Lauren Kaori Gurley @LaurenKGurley

“We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because while he was up there we were organizing a union”

Jason Corcoran @jason_corcoran

Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash

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What I’ve been reading

• Elon Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder (and, as the good people of Twitter pointed out, thus the largest shareholder of the network that drives Tesla’s stock prices . . .). Can companies ban their largest shareholder from their platform, I wonder? 🤔

• Speaking of which, does anyone have an updated figure on how much money Elon Musk’s companies have gotten from government subsidies/grants/tax breaks? Last I have is 4.9 billion in 2015…

• On how big tech infrastructure can be used during war, Google disables Maps traffic data in Ukraine

• A really excellent long-read on Putin’s anti-gay war in Ukraine in the Boston Review (and a good complement to Judith Butler’s article on the anti-trans discourse and the relationship between the far-right and fascism in the West)

• The incomparable Abbas Milani on the “new international of authoritarianism” and why "you can't pick the human rights you suddenly care about” (featuring thoughts on McKinsey’s involvement in Saudi Arabia)

• A REALLY excellent long read on how Google billionaire Eric Schmidt’s fingers are all over the Biden administration . . .

• Interesting story about an Airbnb suit by a couple whose host recorded them without their knowledge, and how Airbnb’s terms essentially require the dispute to be settled by an arbitrator

• Incredible long-read in The New Yorker about how an Ivy League school (and the Rhodes Scholarship) turned against a student. Very important for those connected to elite institutions and scholarships, and how they profit from and police the “suffering” of their applicants.

• After the notebooks of Charles Darwin went missing (worth millions of pounds !!) and a worldwide appeal, someone left them in a pink gift bag outside the Cambridge University Library. Someone, please—the historian in me is begging for the tv adaptation of this story to be made!

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PS - PSA

If you’re an academic heading to PSA, please do give me a shout!

Alina Utrata @AlinaUtrata

Super excited to present at @PolStudiesAssoc #PSA22 next week! Monday 11th at 16:45 — come say hi!👋👋👋