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There are robot dogs patrolling the US–Mexico border. This story starts somewhere gentler: with Kurt Vonnegut leaving the house to buy one envelope.
His wife wanted him to buy a hundred and keep them in a closet. He refused. The walk was the point. "We're here on Earth to fart around," he said. "And of course, the computers will do us out of that… we're dancing animals."
This is part one of a two-part investigation into the physicality of the internet and AI. The bodies it runs on, and the bodies it runs over.
Pulitzer Prize–winning Wall Street Journal reporter John West (The Internet Will Die, and So Will You) makes the case for friction: for doorknobs, mixtapes, and every inefficient thing the frictionless web was built to eliminate. Then lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar (The Walls Have Eyes) takes us to the border, where the frictionless future is already deployed — robot dogs, AI lie detectors, algorithms profiling people before they cross. And what gets tested at the border never stays there. Just ask the American towns, red and blue alike, tearing down their surveillance cameras.
Also: the rise and demolition of GeoCities, my sixth-grade punk band's privacy disaster, Walter Benjamin's ninety-year-old warning, and the panopticon we finally built. It even has a subscription model now.
Part two, Dreaming Machines, arrives next week.
We hope you enjoy this episode of our second season of Suspicious Minds. Be sure to follow here, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates: https://agoricmedia.substack.com
Our full long-form expert interviews are available ad-free on Patreon. Hear complete conversations with John West, Petra Molnar, Dr. Jeremy Heffner, Dr. Joel Gold, and more: https://www.patreon.com/cw/AgoricMedia
A Wondermind and Agoric Media Production
Agoric Media
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Wondermind
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Host and Creator: Sean King O’Grady
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https://seankingogrady.substack.com/
Guests:
John West — Pulitzer Prize–winning computational reporter, The Wall Street Journal / Author, The Internet Will Die, and So Will You — https://amzn.to/4zIp97C
Petra Molnar — Lawyer and anthropologist / Refugee Law Lab, York University / Author, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — https://amzn.to/4zIhN3M
Other works and things mentioned:
Kurt Vonnegut’s envelope story (“we’re dancing animals”) — from his 2004 PBS interview and A Man Without a Country — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/god-bless-you-mr-vonnegut/
Kurt Vonnegut — The Sirens of Titan — https://amzn.to/4h6hcl2
Andor — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andor_(TV_series)
GeoCities (1994–2009, RIP) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoCities
A family logging onto the web — https://youtu.be/A81IwlDeV6c
Bad Religion — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Religion
and Rage Against the Machine — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine (we sounded like neither)
Walter Benjamin — “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction
Olia Lialina — “Once Again, the Doorknob” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olia_Lialina
Don Norman and frictionless design — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman
Liz Pelly — Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist — https://amzn.to/4iIrQQd
Cheapo Records, Minneapolis–St. Paul — https://cheapodiscs.com
DHS announces robot dogs for the US–Mexico border (Feb 2022) — https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2022/02/01/feature-article-robot-dogs-take-another-step-towards-deployment
The NYPD’s Digidog (yes, one was painted like a Dalmatian) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digidog
Todd Miller and the “border industrial complex” — Empire of Borders — https://amzn.to/3Urj9Qs
Aimé Césaire — Discourse on Colonialism — https://amzn.to/4qQcX0s
Hannah Arendt — The Origins of Totalitarianism — https://amzn.to/4iIrZDf
Michel Foucault and the boomerang effect — “Society Must Be Defended” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_Must_Be_Defended
Flock Safety cameras, and the towns taking them down — https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/nx-s1-5612825/cities-ditch-license-plate-readers-over-privacy-worries
DeFlock — the volunteers mapping the cameras — https://deflock.me
Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon (subscription sold separately) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Dr. Joel Gold and Dr. Ian Gold — Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness — https://amzn.to/4upyA8U
The AI Resist List — Petra’s living archive of resistance — https://airesistlist.org/
Karen Hao — Empire of AI — https://amzn.to/3Ss0Mu6
Bill Gates’ recent essay on the AI transition — https://www.gatesnotes.com/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make
Daniel Ellsberg — The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner — https://amzn.to/4qTaTor
The Oracle Test — last week’s episode, echoed in this one — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/suspicious-minds-ai-and-the-apocalypse/id1844631307?i=1000786005286
Suspicious Minds: AI and Psychosis (Season 1) — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/suspicious-minds-ai-and-psychosis/id1844631307
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. By buying our guests’ books through these links, you’re supporting this series too.
Credits:
Executive Producers: Mandy Teefey, Selena Gomez, Jonathon Glucksman, Molly Borman, Jesse Ford, David Tuohy, Feras M. Shammami
Produced by: Jesse Ford
Editor: David Justin Martin
Original Music: Shane Patrick Ford
Sound Mix: Mike Regan and Paul Bennett
Graphics: Semi:Formal
Film/TV PR: Emma Griffiths PR
Podcast PR: Tink Media (Shreya Sharma)
Wondermind Chief of Staff: Emma Wright
Special Thanks: Jessica Zagacki - DEY.NYC
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