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This week we are joined by two guests, Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha and tech Professor Ramesh Srinivasan. First is Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha, who recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker, and authored the new poetry book is Forest of Noise. He is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which was destroyed by Israel.
Over the course of Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, Mosab has lost 31 members of his family. He has expressed his catastrophic loss through poetry:
“All of Gaza has become a funeral home,” Mosab explains to us, “because the mourners themselves are killed. Who is going to mourn the death of someone when their father, their mother, their siblings were killed? And sometimes we do the funeral on the phone. We call someone and say, ‘I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.’ And then a few minutes later, that person, the caller or the recipient of this condolence, would be killed.”
Mosab also explains why he doesn’t consider this pause in Israel’s attacks on Gaza to be a ceasefire.
“The whole area is a pile of rubble, so where do you place your tent? People are deciding to go back. Going back for what and for how long? No one knows. This is why it's not a ceasefire.”
We also talk to Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA and author of Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow.
The big news out of the tech world this week is that Chinese AI company DeepSeek has surpassed the abilities of ChatGPT. In response, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs against China, a move that exposes a fear of falling behind.
We ask Ramesh: why does the US government see DeepSeek as a threat, and should regular Americans see this new AI as a potential for human progress or as a dangerous new advancement? His answer gives a clear explanation for why the US is losing the AI War so far.
Ramesh also explains the surprising effect AI usage has on depleting natural resources.
Subscribe for the full interview with Ramesh Srinivasan on how the government uses tech companies to spy on Americans through the Patriot Act, the lack of disclosure by Big Tech of anything that they’re doing behind the scenes, and what the oligarchs who sat front row at Trump’s inauguration are planning next to tighten their control.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Exposes Hamas Condom Bombs
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