Read Max

Jul 26 2024 9 ep. 30 mins 24
Read Max Podcast artwork

Explaining the weird new future, one podcast at a time. Subscribe for internet culture, mega-platform grotesquerie, crypto conspiracies, deep forum lore, fringe politics, and other artifacts of what's to come.

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Talking with John Ganz about J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel and the tech right

Jul 26 2024 53 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! Ongoing request alert: I’m still looking for stories and examples of A.I. slop, wherever you encounter it: On platforms! In your workplace! On the subway! In the library! In the background of movies! I will take any and all anecdotes and samples of weird, shoddy, uncanny, annoying A.I. crap in your day to day life. If you have any good leads or stories

[PODCAST] A guide to the new annoying A.I. influencer guy

Jun 07 2024 18 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! Today’s Read Max Experimental Audio Product is a reading of this week’s newsletter, covering:* Who is “Leopold Aschenbrenner,” and why is he suddenly a top A.I. influencer?; and* A short history of the anti-woke finance grift, starring Bill Ackman and Vivek Ramaswamy.A reminder: The Read Max Experimental Audio Product is supported entirely by pay

[PODCAST] Google's AI Overview fiasco

May 31 2024 22 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! In today’s experimental audio product:* The Google “AI Overview” fiasco, why it was so funny/depressing, and what it tells us about Google* A theory about the “All Eyes on Rafah” A.I.-generated Instagram image and why it (and not others) went viral* My pick for “most dangerous app”A reminder! We are still in the midst of a WEEK-LONG SALES E

[PODCAST] OpenAI's new talking computer and Google's terrible search

May 17 2024 19 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! In today’s Read Max Experimental Audio Product, I’ll be reading from this week’s newsletter on two items:* A critical exploration of this week’s announcements from OpenAI and Google, and why I think the new Google search stuff sucks.* Looking at The New Yorker’s Lucy Letby story as a story about media in the U.S. and the U.K.In addition to the

[PODCAST] Egg Horror A.I. Recipe Videos! Cyberpunk Scam Miami! Bitcoin Freak-Enforced Mandatory 4 Non-Blondes Singalong!

May 10 2024 22 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! In today’s episode of the Read Max Podcast--an experimental audio product in which I read the text of the newsletter for busy and/or illiterate subscribers--we’ll be covering the following:* What the f**k is up with this weird f*****g recipe video? And what can it tell us about the effect of A.I. on social media?* Miami watch: Zoomer con-man package-

What is A.I.-generated audio good for?

May 03 2024 29 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ, and please, enjoy this, the second episode of the Read Max Experimental Audio Product--a “podcast”-style reading of this week’s newsletter. In addition to the embed above, the podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts here, as well as many other popular podcast platforms. It can also technically be found on Spotify but I recommend you do not find it t

One weird trick for fixing Hollywood

Apr 26 2024 37 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ! I’m very pleased to publish this “experimental Read Max audio product,” which is to say a podcast of me reading this week’s newsletter--with some of the classic off-the-cuff riffing you’ve come to associate with the Read Max brand identity 😎.In addition to the embed above, the podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts here, or Overcast. It can

A.I. and writing: What we won in the strike

Sep 29 2023 33 mins  
Greetings from Read Max HQ in rain-soaked Brooklyn, N.Y.! Today, an emergency experiment: a solo podcast. I was prepared to offer a column today on the A.I. provisions of the Writers Guild of America contract, but our downstairs neighbors’ apartment flooded, my son’s after-school has been canceled, and my wife is trapped in Yonkers (??), which means that my ability to gather my

Talking with former Threads editor-in-chief Katie Notopoulos

Jul 11 2023 38 mins  
Greetings from Read Max temporary HQ in Downeast Maine! This week’s newsletter is an experiment: A podcast, featuring my old friend Katie Notopoulos, who was, briefly, the editor-in-chief of Meta, Inc.’s “Threads” product.Katie Notopoulos is a former Buzzfeed News writer and host of the late lamented Internet Explorer podcast, but for the purposes of this show her most impo