Dreaming Against the Machine

This week is a reversal: Adam is interviewed by Jack Stilgoe, professor of science and technology studies at University College London. Jack and his colleagues ask Adam about how he came to write his most recent book, what the process of writing it was like, and how things have changed since he wrote it. Messages:   • Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine   ...

This week, Adam talks with Katie Mack, physicist and author, about feeling some type of way about the end of the universe. Along the way we also discuss illusions of control, entropy, and why it can be good to feel insignificant. Messages:   • Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine   • Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram   • Subscribe to the show whe...

This week, Adam talks with Cory Doctorow, author, blogger, and tech policy advocate. Cory explains why your boss wants to replace you with an AI, why that won't work, and why they're trying to do it anyhow -- and what you can do about it. Cory and Adam also talk about the AI bubble and how its myth of perpetual growth is fed by greed, along with some terrible misunderstandings of science fiction.&...

This week's guest is tech critic, podcaster, and professionally angry dude Ed Zitron . Adam asks Ed what things would have to happen for him to be less angry (mostly, regulating the tech industry). Along the way they also discuss the SpaceX IPO and why it's a scam, the absolute folly of data centers in space, and the bizarre financial vortex of Coreweave. Messages:   • Support the show a...

This week, Adam talks with Safiya Noble , professor of social science at UCLA and author of Algorithms of Oppression. They talk about how algorithms reinscribe systemic biases, what a better tech industry might look like, and how we might get there. Messages:   • Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine   • Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram   • Subsc...

This week is a ✨Very Special Episode✨, a crossover with the hosts of our fellow Multitude show Wow if True ! Isabel J. Kim is an award-winning science fiction author, Amanda Silberling is a journalist at TechCrunch, and this week they're talking with Adam about horrible little guys on the internet and how they've seeped out into the real world. You can listen to Wow if True anywhere you get your...

This week, Adam talks with historian Susannah Glickman about the recent history of how we think about the future of technology, and why we have more power over that future than we might think. Along the way, they talk about AI, Moore's Law, quantum computers, a rocket-ships-and-chrome vision of the future, the problems with the "Great Man" theory of history, the most important physicist you've nev...

This week, Adam talks with Moiya McTier about the power of myth in shaping our sense of the past and the future. They also talk about the nature of genius and inspiration, and why Dreaming Against the Machine itself is (partially) Moiya's fault. Messages:   • Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine   • Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram   • Subscribe...

This week, Adam talks with Shannon Vallor, a philosopher of AI, about the metaphors we use to talk about AI and ourselves. They also dunk on libertarians and San Francisco billboards, and consider what kind of hope we can have for the future of technology. Messages:   • Support the show at  patreon.com/DreamingAgainstTheMachine   • Follow us on  Bluesky  and&nbsp...

This week, Adam talks with political scientist and internet curmudgeon Dave Karpf about some really bad ideas about the future in two really bad books, why those books are bad, why Ezra Klein is too credulous about one of them, and whether Adam should organize an intervention for Dave to stop him from reading so many bad books in the first place. Messages:   • Support the show at  p...

This week's guest is the legendary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future, the Mars trilogy , and many other books. Adam asks him about the role of science fiction in shaping our ideas about the future, how his own ideas about the future have changed over the course of his long career, and what we should be hopeful about looking forward. Messages:  ...

This week, Adam talks with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, physicist and author of the new book The Edge of Spacetime , about their shared love of Star Trek and its vision of a hopeful future. They also talk about labor organizing, freaking out people at conventions, and how the real Star Trek is (literally, unironically) the friends we made along the way. Messages:   • Support the show at&nbs...

Welcome to our debut show! This week, Adam talks with Reo Eveleth, journalist and podcaster, about who gets to imagine the future, the power that comes with that role, and why certain visions of the future have endured in American culture. They also discuss problematic faves, radical almanacs, a hundred years of horrifying manifestos, and the virtues of being cheesy. Messages:   • Suppor...

What would a good future look like? In this solo preview of the show, journalist and astrophysicist Adam Becker explains his struggles with this question, and how that led him to start this podcast. Along the way, he talks about the psychic toll of writing about terrible people, George Orwell, and the power of touching grass. Messages:   • Support the show at patreon.com/DreamingAgainstT...

What might a good future look like? Explore ideas about how to envision better, realistic, equitable futures with astrophysicist and journalist Dr. Adam Becker. Each week, Adam and a new guest will try to find hope in the darkness of the current political moment through earnest (and entertaining!) conversations about what such a future might look like. In a world where tech oligarchs and their pow...