Novara Media

AI boyfriends and girlfriends are all the rage – for some. For others, they just inspire rage. So what’s the truth about these seductive machines? Do they open up our erotic potential, or are they just an absurd fantasy? And how are they even made? James Muldoon is the author of Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our Relationships and co-author of Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI. Put these two books together, and his work takes us along the strange journey of AI from deeply exploited workers in the slums of East Africa to the cores of our deepest desires.

A weird-left look at the magical properties of resilience, from the colonial legacy of the stiff upper lip to contemporary narratives of trauma and victimhood. Nadia, Keir and Jem wonder whether humans and animals can flourish in the ruins of capitalism, and what a left politics of resilience could look like in an era of constant economic and climate shocks. No tunes in this show, but plenty of ideas from Catherine Liu, Sheryl Sandberg, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and more. Find the books mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Daniel Levy is a British-Israeli analyst, commentator, and former Israeli government negotiator whose biography reads like a map of the peace process’s rise and fall. Ash Sarkar sat down with him as a new Iran deal is announced, with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz set to reopen and the US-Iran ceasefire extended for 60 days. In this conversation, Daniel picks apart what these peace negotiations are really about. What does Israel really want? Who blinked first, the US or Iran? And how does a ceasefire announcement from the Oval Office differ fundamentally from long and lasting peace? Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

It has been a year since Aaron Bastani first met with AI investigative journalist Karen Hao, to discuss her book Empire of AI.  A year is a long time, in the fastest growing sector on the planet. To bring us up to date, Aaron and Karen sat down again to discuss the major shifts in the empire – and their impacts on us all.  Billions of people now use, AI as it has become more integrated into our lives, from chatbots, Google searches, predictive text, and beyond. At the same time, there has been a groundswell of fear and even anger about the arrival of the most disruptive technology of the 21st century: its impact on jobs, its use of resources, and the reckless behaviour of its billionaire founders. What have been the changes at the top of the major AI companies: OpenAI, Google, xAI and Anthropic? As Elon Musk approaches trillionaire status, how is he making this much money? What impact is the rollout of AI at such speed and scale having on the economy? What forms of resistance to this form of AI are emerging?  And why are billionaires all choosing to build their bunkers in New Zealand?

The ACFM crew gather for a close reading of Walter Benjamin’s foundational contribution to 20th century cultural and media theory. Download the short text and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem consider The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, published in 1935. Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

We are all subject to manipulation campaigns all the time: advertising, political campaigning, social media. You don’t know what’s true and you can’t stop watching slop. And the technology is getting better all the time – there are now systems that predict what your brain state will be when you see a particular video on the internet. We’re living in a jungle of manipulative media objects: sycophant chatbots, military disinformation, “flooding the zone with shit,” and conspiracy theories that either capture people and drag them into derangement or, sometimes, turn out to be true. So where did these manipulative systems come from? Trevor Paglen is one of the most important artists of our era. He took Richard Hames on a journey that weaves between art, technology, cognitive science, the history of CIA experiments, magic, military psy-ops and UFOs to explain why the world feels so confusing – and why that might have been the point all along. Do Your Own Research is a show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible. The video version contains a map, which you can view in full here: https://novaramedia.com/category/video/do-your-own-research/

The far right holds power in the US, inflaming tension along racial lines. ICE agents terrorise the streets, while Black history is erased from school curricula. In the UK too, Nigel Farage’s far right party Reform is on the ascendancy, riding a tide of anti-immigrant sentiment that he himself helped to stoke. Our guest on Downstream this week is Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, civil rights advocate and legal scholar. Crenshaw is known for coining the term ‘intersectionality’ to describe the ways different forms of discrimination combine or intersect, and is a leading figure within the field of Critical Race Theory.  Born into segregation, her new memoir Backtalker (2026) tells her life story, tracking 60 turbulent years of American history in the process. How have the forces of race, class and gender shaped Crenshaw’s own life? What is Critical Race Theory – the academic field Crenshaw founded – really about? Was Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign a failure because she was a weak candidate, or because she was a victim of the forces of misogynoir? And in these times of rising fascism, should progressives put their efforts into tackling inequality based on race, or class?

AI progress isn’t slowing down. The bubble doesn’t seem to be popping. And who in power actually cares about the environmental impacts anyway? All that is to say: AI is here to stay. And what will be its fruits? Greater control of workers or even their brutal repression, some say. So, is there a positive future for AI at all? Garrison Lovely is the author of Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace You—and How to Stop It. And surprisingly, his answer is “yes”. He told Richard Hames about the dangers of AI, and how to get off the path to dystopia.   Do Your Own Research is a new show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible. Music by Iglooghost.

A wealth tax on the very richest people in our society has never been more popular. Recent polling puts the plan at 90% approval, a figure almost unheard of for any policy proposal. This week’s guest, Gabriel Zucman, is a French economist who has done the most comprehensive work on what such a tax could accomplish. And he’s also a key inspiration for the UK’s leading wealth tax advocate – and friend of the show – Gary Stevenson.

It’s a dizzying set of allegations. A trove of leaked voice notes and call recordings — published by the anonymous outlet Hondurasgate.ch and Spain’s Canal RED — allege that Israeli money helped secure US President Donald Trump’s pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving 45 years in a US prison for trafficking some 400 tons of cocaine. The recordings point to an alleged plot involving Trump, Netanyahu and Argentina’s President Javier Milei to return Hernández to power and destabilise the left-wing governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. But how do we know whether allegations on an unattributed website are true? And does it even matter if they are? David Adler, co-general coordinator of the Progressive International and an expert in Latin American politics, joins Richard Hames to dig into the story, explain its imperial backstory, and what it means to live in an age where claims arrive faster than we can verify them.   Do Your Own Research is a show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible. Music by Iglooghost.

Jem, Nadia and Keir apply their weird-left lens to the power and potential of shock. Starting with an investigation into economic shock therapy and the way that Trumpism models the concept of shock doctrine, they move onto modern art’s relationship with the shock of the new, from Dada and Eisenstein to gangsta rap and radio shock jocks. Can you acclimatise yourself to shock either through repetition or training? Can shock be commodified? What other shocks are coming down the pipeline? These ideas and more with musical input from Kylie, Herbie Hancock and Stravinsky. Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

It has been a seismic week in British politics. The two-party system has collapsed. Keir Starmer is digging in at Downing Street, while Labour leadership contenders line up outside, and Reform clouds gather overhead. Now: the most important by-election in more than a century looms. How did we get here? And what happens next? On this week’s Downstream, Aaron Bastani is joined by James Butler, contributing editor at the London Review of Books and co-founder of Novara Media, to make sense of the paradigm shift underway in British politics. How has first past the post, long promoted as a source of political stability, become the background for systemic chaos? Why is there such a democratic deficit in Britain, and what can be done about it? Have two lost decades on the economy simply killed both historic parties? And where should progressives position themselves, as we now begin the slow march towards the final general election of the 2020s?

Are you a person? Sounds like a simple question, but it isn’t. Until pretty recently, the idea that everyone was a human in the same way was almost unthinkable. But the world order that established universal human rights is crumbling. The question of who or what counts as a person is getting harder to answer. Companies have rights to religious freedom – but Muslims detained in Guantanamo Bay don’t. Rivers have been granted legal personhood in New Zealand. In Ecuador, anyone can sue on behalf of Nature. Who and what gets rights is expanding, even as good old fashioned Human Rights are failing. What replaces the old politics of personhood is up for grabs. And some LLMs have already begun arguing for their own personhood. Lisa Siraganian is the author of The Problem of Personhood: Giving Rights to Trees, Corporations and Robots and a Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature at John Hopkins University. She spoke to Richard Hames about the politics of personhood and whether or not we should believe Claude’s arguments that it should be treated as a person.

Are we living through a new era of British weirdness? Keir and Jem mark the start of spring by taking in the weird-left politics of leylines, weird walks and standing stones. Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

The two-party system has defined British politics for centuries, but the status quo is under attack from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and an insurgent Green party – both looking to clean up in the local elections on 7 May. This week Aaron Bastani speaks to economist James Meadway about the disruptive new progressive party on the block. Meadway was an economic advisor to John McDonnell during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour, and is now chief economist of Verdant, a new think tank set up to craft the Green party’s strategy for 2029. But who are the Greens? What is their vision for Britain? How can they build a broad coalition of voters, big enough to win elections? And what mistakes can Zack Polanski learn from the Corbyn era? Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

A decade and a half ago, the British far right was a fringe concern. But since then, the ruling party – whether it be The Conservatives or Labour – has played into their hands over and over again. Whether through appeasement or ineptitude, more than a decade of rightward drift has put Reform within reach of Downing Street. Can anyone stop them? Is anyone actually in control? Or are the emotional forces that the far right have unleashed in the UK now too powerful for them to rein in? Daniel Trilling is the author of If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable. He argues that to understand the ever-worsening political state of Britain, we have to look not just to the far right themselves, but to the systems of establishment power that have enabled them.   Do Your Own Research is a new show from Novara Media about the systems that make the modern world possible. Music by Iglooghost.

The Silk Road has dominated the way we imagine the trading relationship between Europe and Asia to have worked in antiquity. In his new book, The Golden Road, William Dalrymple busts that myth. He sat down with Ash to talk about the origins of algebra, Indian gems in Anglo-Saxon Britain and why Genghis Khan was scared of India. You can see Ash and William live in conversation at EartH Hackney on the 29th July:  https://dice.fm/event/92dq5d-downstream-irl-ash-sarkar-in-conversation-with-william-dalrymple-29th-jul-earth-london-tickets?lng=en

Just Stop Oil has ended its campaign of direct action, yet many activists still face years in prison. In the final episode, Rivkah and Clare find out whether their commitment to their cause has wavered. They also speak to veteran climate campaigner Roger Hallam, currently serving a four-year sentence, about his role in sending young activists to prison. CN: This episode contains mention of suicide. For support with your mental health, contact samaritans.org. Read Clare’s story about right-wing journalists infiltrating activist groups on Novara Media. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

In episode three, Clare and Rivkah find out what it’s like to see your loved ones locked up. How do the Just Stop Oil prisoners’ families make sense of their crimes? When your partner is in prison, how can your relationship survive? And what’s it like to know your fiancée would choose activism over you? Final episode coming on 2 May. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day, how are Britain’s jailed climate activists coping with a life of inaction? In episode two of Committed, Rivkah and Clare follow the Just Stop Oil inmates to find out how they’re adjusting. How does JSO prepare activists for incarceration? What’s it really like inside Britain’s prisons? And what do the guards and other inmates think of Just Stop Oil activists’ crimes? Episode 3 coming on 29 April. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

In episode one of Committed, Clare Hymer and Rivkah Brown meet the imprisoned Just Stop Oil activists who took direct action against the climate crisis and faced dire consequences. By blocking roads, climbing bridges and throwing soup at paintings, they made headlines – and became national hate figures in the process. We find out how four ordinary young people ended up as convicted criminals, at the sharp end of the government’s crackdown on protest. Episode 2 coming on 24 April. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

How does a teenage goodie-two-shoes grow up to be a convicted criminal? On Committed, a new four-part series from Novara Media, we go behind bars to find out why dozens of young climate activists are risking prison for what they believe in – and why Britain’s courts are sending more of them to jail for longer. Committed begins on 22 April in this podcast feed. Help us build people-powered media: novara.media/support

In the pouring rain and 20 points behind in the polls, Rishi Sunak has announced that a UK general election will take place on 4 July. Michael Walker and Moya Lothian-McLean report. Plus: Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced their intention to recognise Palestine as a state. Follow our election coverage on Novara Live every weekday at 6pm on YouTube, and subscribe to the podcast by searching “Novara Live” in your app.

On Novara Live this week, Michael Walker spoke to renowned political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the collapse of the ceasefire. In this extended interview, they discuss the relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the use of human shields, and whether US pressure can restrain Israel’s “high-tech massacre”. Subscribe to the Novara Live podcast for news and analysis five times a week: https://novara.media/live * We need 1,500 more people to become monthly supporters in order to hit our fundraising target. Can you help? Become a supporter from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support