How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late

Galaxy Brain

The Atlantic

Technology

4.5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

Cory Doctorow has a refrain: “The most important thing about a gadget isn’t what it does; it’s who it does it for and what it does it to.” In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” he sits down with Charlie Warzel to talk about the AI boom, making the case that the hype, vision, and dreams of endless growth are unsustainable. Doctorow expands on his viral “enshittification” thesis: a critique of AI based around power and whether we are using AI tools or being used by them. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Join me, Grant Hill, for a deeper look at what it means to be a thought leader today.
0:05.0	Watch the Drive to Lead, a new series from Range Rover and Atlantic Rethink at the atlantic.com slash drive to lead.
0:13.0	Your team just added its 67th AITL and also your 67th security blind spot.
0:20.0	The good news, the Vantor agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every
0:25.6	app your team uses, scoring the risk and drafting fixes for you.
0:30.0	Vanta is the platform used by over 16,000 fast-moving companies like Synthesia, Nandoz and
0:36.4	Granola, who are shaping the future with AI
0:38.9	and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at vanta.com.
0:48.2	Bosses are infinitely horny for firing workers and replacing them with machines, and they have
0:53.5	been since forever, right?
0:55.0	That's the story of the Industrial Revolution.
0:57.0	They just, there's something about this, and it's not just cutting costs.
1:01.0	I think that if you're the boss, you are haunted by the knowledge that if you don't show up for work,
1:06.0	the business just ticks over as per normal, but if all the workers don't show up, that's, you're out
1:11.3	of business. And so maybe you tell yourself you're driving the car, but secretly you worry that
1:16.3	you're in the backseat with a Fisher Price steering wheel. And one of the things about AI is it,
1:20.7	is it dangles the possibility of wiring the toy steering wheel into the car's drive train.
1:31.0	I'm Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we are going to examine the case against AI.
1:37.9	Well, sort of.
1:40.0	What follows isn't a case against the technology, machine learning, generative AI, coding agents.
1:45.8	It is instead a case against this particular ideology behind AI, how it's built, how it's implemented.
1:52.6	Corey Doctor-O is a little bit of everything.
	...

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