PTO Extra! - Israel's techno-solutionism w/ Sophia Goodfriend
Added 2023-11-16 06:00:04 +0000 UTCA 'start-up country', the world's first 'AI superpower', an 'innovation nation', those are some of the breathless descriptions used by Israeli politicians, security officials, journalists and business leaders to hail Israel's high-tech industry and its synergy with the Israeli military. But on October 7th, Israel's obsession with what Sophia Goodfriend describes as 'techno-solutionism' came back to haunt the country as Hamas succeeded in breaching the Gaza barrier at eighty different points and disabling many of Israel's automated weapons and surveillance systems. In today's episode of PTO Extra! I spoke with Sophia about her recent articles in The Baffler and Foreign Policy regarding Israel's high-tech methods of waging war and how it conducts its illegal and brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Comments
Wow, this is such a useful aspect of the situation to learn about. It really helps explain the dynamics. It makes perfect sense that some unhinged rightwing powerful men would lap this stuff up and really believe in the AI hype, like we see everywhere. (Although I am a bit surprised and definitely worried that they really believed in it.) And it makes sense that they would loose it in spectacular ways when their hubris is so spectacularly laid bare. I think the technological aspect is a clear example to see how what happens there also happens here, with the adoption by gov and its implementation and related but different disciplining and immiseration of people and workforces in the UK through automation of various kinds.
Andrew J
2023-11-16 19:12:01 +0000 UTCfinal solutionism, more like
David
2023-11-16 06:08:29 +0000 UTC
