443. Behold the Big Beautiful AI State (ft. Brian Chen)

We’re joined by Brian Chen — policy director at Data & Society — to discuss his new report on the Trump administration’s industrial policy for building The Big AI State. We lay out how Trump’s is bringing together various forms of intervention to ensure America achieves “global technological dominance.” This includes de-risking the construction of data centers and energy infrastructure, ensuring the American AI tech stack takes over global markets, and even acquiring equity stakes in major private industries in the AI supply chain. We discuss the means and ends of Trump’s industrial policy — and how these policy tools should be wielded differently by future administrations. ••• Great Power Antinomies ••• The Big AI State Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: •••

You can listen to 443. Behold the Big Beautiful AI State (ft. Brian Chen) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

443. Behold the Big Beautiful AI State (ft. Brian Chen) is an episode from This Machine Kills by This Machine Kills.

This episode is 01:12:46 long.

This episode was published on Feb 4, 2026.

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