Please Reboot Your System

System Crash

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 dig into how the alliance of Donald Trump and Elon Musk—along with his Silicon Valley cohort—is poised to transform both our politics and the tech world. Plus, how generative AI is trained on thousands of Hollywood scripts and why Bluesky gives us (a least a little) hope.

Mentioned this week:

• Sam Biddle on how Trump is a win for tech’s “warrior class” in the Intercept.
• The Financial Times wrote about advertisers heading back to Twitter/X to gain the favor of Trump and Musk. (See also: Paris’s newsletter on Musk and advertising.)
• Alex Risner wrote about generative AI being trained on Hollywood scripts for the Atlantic.
• The Hollywood Reporter on the #Xodus. (See also: Brian’s newsletter on why Bluesky is succeeding because it’s everything big tech’s not)

Theme music is “Dystopia” by YACHT. Production is by Eric Wickham.

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