One Nation United Against Data Centers - Week in Tech
TechStuff
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: AI regulation, dark money and data center backlash. Reed Albergotti (Semafor) helps decipher how the Trump Administration actually feels about AI oversight and it seems like a reversal of the hands-off approach they’ve taken so far. Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) exposes a dark money influencer campaign — one she was personally recruited for — that's paying creators to push pro-American AI, anti-China messaging on behalf of a Big Tech super PAC. And Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) reports on the fast-growing, bipartisan movement fighting data center construction in communities across the country. Plus: Sam Altman's leaked texts, 120,000 tech layoffs, and the GPT-5.5 launch party.
Additional Reading:
- So Long Jeeves and Ask.com, Relics of Yesterday’s Internet
- White House Considers Vetting A.I. Models Before They Are Released | The New York Times
- A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat | WIRED
- Inside a growing movement warning AI could turn on humanity | The Washington Post
- ‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers | The New York Times
Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuff
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.3 | Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. |
| 0:07.7 | Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand |
| 0:11.8 | new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. |
| 0:15.5 | Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the |
| 0:20.3 | biology of taunons and wampas |
| 0:22.2 | on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. |
| 0:28.3 | Listen to Stuff to Bo Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your |
| 0:33.5 | podcasts. |
| 0:34.8 | No gloss, no filter. |
| 0:39.1 | Just stories. |
| 0:40.9 | Spoken without fear. |
| 0:43.8 | A person who is not generous can not be an artist. |
| 0:48.2 | The world will be at peace only when it is ruled by poets and philosophers. |
| 0:53.4 | Listen to my weekly podcast, the Pooja Abhaw show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:57.9 | Come for the honesty. Stay for the fire. Taylor, Natasha, very good to see you all. |
| 1:17.9 | I want to ask you today about the sunseting of Ask.com and any fond farewells you all have for the artist formerly known as Ask Jeeves, who I think to my mind kind of scooped |
| 1:29.0 | the chatbot moment by almost 30 years before dying too young. Oh, so sad. I was going to, |
| 1:35.6 | that was what I was saving for my worst week in tech. That was going to be my joke. Oh, man, |
| 1:41.7 | you stole it for me. Very sad. End of an era. I had no idea they were still around. But it kind of makes me sad when these niche services die. I want to talk to the users that are still using it. You know, I'm curious. They could have just merged with SpaceX. Like, I don't know why they had to shut down. That's true because Barry Diller didn't have enough vision for the SpaceX merger of us.com. Taylor, you missed it. Reed is an AI engineer now. Oh, that's awesome, Reed. I am. Congrats. I am. Thank you. All right, Reed. Well, you're not going to be stuck in the permanent underclass. So take us with you. You were flexing before we started about how you were vibe coding into the early hours last night. |
| 2:18.3 | I was. I was vibe coding trying to figure out how to check my email more efficiently. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.