System Crash
Episodes
System Crash Is Paused
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some news, as they say: System Crash is going on hiatus as Brian and Paris are overloaded with other projects they need to take care of. Thanks for pl...
Palmer Luckey Wants to Arm the West With AI Weapons
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brian is out this week, so we’re dropping one of our bonus episodes to give you a preview of the benefits of supporting the show over on Patreon. In...
The Ban on State AI Laws is Dead, Canada Bows to Trump and Big Tech, and the AI Backlash Grows
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: Canada drops its digital services tax under pressure from Trump, the 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation is dead, and ...
Patreon Preview: Mountainhead Exposes the Minds of the Tech Elite
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, where Paris and Brian present the first System Crash Culture Club by interrogating the ne...
AI Has Its Day in Court and Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Already a Menace in Austin
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: A court rules Anthropic can train on copyrighted works as long as they’re not pirated, and Elon Musk rolls out Tesla’s ...
The Rise of the AI Military Industrial Complex, Trump’s Scam Phone, and Israel-Iran Slop
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: A new player is about to take the smartphone world by storm, the AI industry is forging deeper partnerships with the milita...
Patreon Preview: Palmer Luckey Wants to Arm the West With AI Weapons
15 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, digging into Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey’s scary vision for the future of warfare — and...
Donald Trump and Elon Musk Clash While Protesters Burn Waymos in Los Angeles
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the show: The Donald Trump/Elon Musk feud continues into a second week and protests torch Waymos as Trump ramps up an authoritarian clamp...
What Elon Musk’s “Exit” From White House Really Means and What’s Next for DOGE
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the show: Elon Musk is out at DOGE, kind of. He leaves with a black eye, literally. And figuratively. We dive into what Musk’s exit mea...
Sam Altman and Jony Ive Are Making an AI Device, OpenAI Gets Desperate, and Trump Goes After iPhones
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: Sam Altman and Jony Ive announce they’re expecting — a piece of AI hardware. Donald Trump wants to hit iPhones with a 2...
Teens Are Done with Big Tech’s Internet, Google Triples Down on AI, and Grok is Pro-White Genocide
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: A new poll shows that nearly half of all teens wish the internet simply did not exist, and what can we say, the children ar...
Republicans Want to Ban AI Regulation, Our New Luddite Pope, and the Obscene Saudi Spectacle
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: The Vatican has spoken and we have a Luddite Pope; the Republicans are pushing a 10-year ban on state AI regulations to sat...
The AI Education and Jobs Crisis, OpenAI’s Corporate Drama, and Zuck’s AI Friends
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: AI madness hits a new peak: Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to give everyone AI companions, OpenAI’s boardroom drama gets a ne...
Patreon Preview: Eric Schmidt’s Pivot to Military AI Salesman
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, pulling back the curtain on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s pivot to a national securi...
Canada Rejects DOGE, Bezos Caves to Trump, and the Tech Billionaire Signal Club
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on System Crash: Mark Carney is elected prime minister of Canada with a promise to take on Trump and accelerate AI adoption. Jeff Bezos back...
Tesla is Tanking. What That Means for Elon Musk and DOGE ft. Geoff Dembicki
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Elon Musk is trying to clean up the mess his DOGE escapades have made for Tesla — and it’s not going very well. Brian and Paris dig into the terri...
Science Fiction in the Days of American Authoritarianism ft. Annalee Newitz & Charlie Jane Anders
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie J...
What the Trade War Means for Tech, Musk, and American Workers
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Liberation Day has come and gone, leaving Brian and Paris to pick up the pieces. So the Trump administration may or may not have used ChatGPT to whip ...
OpenAI’s Massive Funding Round and Equally Massive Insult to Artists
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a few weeks of digging into Elon Musk’s past, Brian and Paris are taking a little break to dig into recent tech developments. They discuss the...
How Elon Musk Used Tesla to Build His Power ft. Ed Niedermeyer
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us abou...
Patreon Preview: The Trump Administration’s Crypto Dream
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, breaking down the White House crypto summit and recent speeches by AI and crypto czar Dav...
SpaceX and the Foundation of Elon’s Empire ft. Lora Kolodny
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us abou...
Elon in Power: The PayPal Mafia and Building the Myth of Musk ft. Max Chafkin
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us abou...
The Promise of a New Tech Era ft. Ed Ongweso Jr.
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump finally launched his trade war on Canada and Mexico. For two days. Some tariffs remain, and they could all be back in April, and who know...
Paris and Brian Crash a BioTech Conference
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a break from chronicling Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government, Paris and Brian share some thoughts from Monterey, California, where they att...
Taking Down Tesla ft. Alex Winter
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A media narrative has taken shape that there’s little resistance to Trump and Musk, but protests against the administration’s antidemocratic push ...
Patreon Preview: Decoding Peter Thiel’s Deeply Bizarre Manifesto
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, looking into a recent op-ed by none other than Peter Thiel that gives us important insigh...
Silicon Valley Enters Its Imperial Era
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley hard at work turning DC into an AI-fueled dystopia. This week Paris and Brian dig into three big trends all converging at once: Elon Mu...
Elon Musk's Digital Coup and the Future of the Internet ft. Cory Doctorow
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Paris is out this week, so we found another esteemed Canadian writer, activist, and tech critic to log in as System Crash's first-ever guest host...
Did a Chinese Startup just Burst the AI Bubble? ft. Ed Zitron
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is the AI hype going to evaporate after Chinese startup DeepSeek shows it can do generative AI way cheaper than OpenAI, Anthropic, and big tech? AI wa...
The Rise of the Silicon Oligarchy ft. Jacob Silverman
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Trump’s back in office, Elon’s doing “awkward hand gestures,” and the oligarchy 2.0 is right behind them.This week on System Crash, Paris and ...
What Meta Wants From Donald Trump ft. Jason Koebler
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Koebler joins the show to chat with Paris and Brian about the looming TikTok ban (that got even less likely after we recorded) and what Mark Zuc...
Mark Zuckerberg Saves Free Speech
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new year has arrived, and luckily Mark Zuckerberg has started it by saving free speech! Brian and Paris break down the latest announcements from o...
Welcome to the Intelligence Age: Dissecting the Tech Titans’ Key Ideas of 2024
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every month, Brian Merchant and Paris Marx will be digging into writings, worldviews and future visions of the tech titans shaping our lives, exclusiv...
The Looming Specter of the TikTok Ban
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After hearing from a very special guest, Brian and Paris consider: Is the US really about to ban TikTok? If nothing changes come January 19th, it will...
The Great Crypto Conquest of 2024 ft. Molly White
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Merchant and Paris Marx are back with the very first guest of System Crash: Molly White! With Molly’s help, we walk through the biggest storie...
ChatGPT’s Sad Second Birthday
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Merchant and Paris Marx are back to celebrate ChatGPT’s second birthday while questioning how OpenAI is really doing as it embraces advertisin...
Please Reboot Your System
22 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The system is crashing, and we’re here to guide you through the wreckage. In the inaugural episode of System Crash, Brian Merchant and Paris Marx di...
System Crash is Coming
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The system, clearly, has crashed — and we’re here to help you dig through the wreckage. System Crash is a weekly tech news show willing to tell th...