Generative AI Is Not Inevitable
On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna on the dangers of generative AI.

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On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss some of the harms caused by generative AI, address the industry's ploys to keep the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what folks can do to push back.
Emily M. Bender is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Institute. They are the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.
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People attend Computex 2025 at Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei on May 20, 2025.
(I-Hwa Cheng / AFP via Getty Images)On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, I am joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss some of the harms caused by generative AI, address the industry’s ploys to keep the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what folks can do to push back.
Emily M. Bender is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington. Alex Hanna is director of research at the Distributed AI Institute. They are the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Paris Marx is joined by Karen Hao to discuss how Sam Altman’s goal of scale at all costs has spawned a new empire founded on exploitation of people and the environment, resulting in not only the loss of valuable research into more inventive AI systems, but also exacerbated data privacy issues, intellectual property erosion, and the perpetuation of surveillance capitalism.
Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist and the author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
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