We're fucking rats in a maze for them. They are just torturing us as much as possible at this

point. And I think that they have just reached a level where they're trying to find a way

to build products that will get used enough to make the street not think they're complete con artist.

But these aren't products for people. Generative AI isn't for people. It's so that they can

say Google has grown the AI part of the company 10%. We're investing this much. We are doing future stuff. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, made in partnership with The Nation magazine.

I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Ed Citron. Ed is the host of the Better Offline podcast. He also writes the Where's Your Edat newsletter and is the CEO of

EZPR. Ed has been on the show in the past. And the last time he was on, I feel like listeners

really resonated with his anger and frustration with where the tech industry was at at that moment,

as we were seeing the crypto boom, as we were seeing what Elon Musk was doing with Twitter and all

these sorts of things. So, you know, as we are in the midst of this AI hype and everything that is

going on with companies laying workers off and just trying to do whatever it is that they can

to keep investors happy and keep their share prices up, that it was a good moment to have Ed

back on to talk about

what is going on now, but also the things that led up to this point over the past 10 years or so

to get us to this place where I think people are becoming so disillusioned with the tech industry

and even with the internet and the promise of the internet itself, because that is a place I

increasingly find myself in. And I think you'll hear that in this conversation as well,

as I talk about how I feel like the drawbacks of this internet revolution are really starting

to outweigh the benefits as these companies continue to erode the benefits in order to

maximize their profits.

So this is a really wide-ranging conversation that goes in many different directions.

And one of the things that I enjoy about talking with Ed is I feel like he really kind of

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