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.

Last year, Zack Polanski’s Green Party suggested changes could be made to Britain’s prohibitionist approach to drugs – and felt the full force of the mainstream media’s indignation.

But all over the world, the War on Drugs is shifting shape. Drugs are being legalised and commercialised. America now has its first legal weed-selling billionaire, while others serve out huge prison sentences for possession.

Ash Sarkar sat down with Professor Kojo Koram, to discuss his latest book The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, which travels from a plantation-turned-prison in Louisiana to the psychedelic boom of Silicon Valley.

So what does a drug policy fit for the 21st century actually look like?

* Last call for our show at Crossed Wires in Sheffield this Saturday, 4th July! Final tickets: https://crossedwires.live *

A brush with an old enemy brings up big questions about letting go and moving on. What does forgiveness really mean in a secular society? Is punishment ever the answer? Plus: advice for a special one who fears they’ve outgrown their 15-year relationship.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

We need critical minerals for the green transition, the military and the AI boom. In barely a year, lithium and the rare earths have become some of the most fought-over objects on earth. But the scarcity is manufactured — by refineries, choke points and the states that control them.

Richard talks to Thea Riofrancos, author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, about what these minerals really are, the gutted landscapes the green transition runs on, and the new geopolitics of extraction, from Trumpian state capitalism to Latin America to China.

Mariana Mazzucato is a towering figure in contemporary economics, best known for her work on the entrepreneurial state and mission-oriented economics. Her congregation is broad, ranging from an ascendant Andy Burnham, to the Pope, to Marco Rubio. Ash Sarkar sat down with her in front of a live audience at EartH Theatre in Hackney to test the ideas in her new book, The Common Good Economy.



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