The Data Fix with Dr. Mél Hogan

In this episode, Adam Becker and I talk about our AI overlords and their “philosophical” influences — mostly eugenics-based pseudoscience and bad readings of sci-fi that make tech billionaires feel like they’ve earned their billions by being the smartest people on the planet… while ruining the planet. Recorded Feb 13, 2026. Released Feb 16, 2026.More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity (2025) https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9781541619593 BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172zsskmkss5ll (start at 39:15)Rolling Stone Q&A: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/tech-billionaires-adam-becker-1235381649/Dreaming Against the Machinehttp://dreamingagainstthemachine.com/Forthcoming: Adam Becker’s new podcast website (bookmark this now for later!) Mentioned in our conversation:I Am An AI Hater by Anthony Moserhttps://anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/haterdom/2025/08/26/i-am-an-ai-hater.html 

Great theorists make you see the world differently forever after. This is the case with my guests for this episode, Zoë Sofoulis (Zoe Sofia) and Ingrid Richardson — brilliant scholars helping us rethink containers and containment as a feminist strategy to rework worldly narratives about what holds, filters, leaks. This conversation was a special honour for me. Recorded January 23, 2026. Released February 2, 2026. Containment Technologies of Holding, Filtering, Leaking (2025) https://meson.press/books/containment/ Zoë Sofia Container Technologies (2000)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227700296_Container_Technologies Shoutouts to:Re-Understanding Media: Feminist Extensions of Marshall McLuhan (Duke University Press) https://dukeupress.edu/re-understanding-media Insufferable Tools: Feminism Against Big Tech https://www.dukeupress.edu/insufferable-tools Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man Paperback –1994 https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262631594/understanding-media/ And much more…

In this first episode of 2026, I speak with Am Johal and Matt Stern, authors of the "O My Friends, There Is No Friend: The Politics of Friendship at the End of Ecology" (2025) to better understand what friendship means these days... at the "end of ecology". Is friendship political? Can an AI chatbot be a friend? Recorded Jan 16, 2026. Released Jan 19, 2026. Matt Hern, Am Johal O My Friends, There is No Friend (pdf)https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/022e1f6f-f14a-4c11-a94c-c95610919f8c/9783839470268.pdfBelow the Radar podcast:https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast.html***New Cover art by Oona Ode!

José Marichal is exceptionally good at making the case for why we should all become algorithmic problems and also much more reflective of our engagement with social media. We are altered by recommendation algorithms -- and we should probably think now about how to renegotiate these terms? Happy holidays! Recorded Nov 27. Released Dec 22, 2025.You Must Become an Algorithmic ProblemRenegotiating the Socio-Technical Contracthttps://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/you-must-become-an-algorithmic-problem 

In this episode I speak with friends-neighbours-advocates Meg Rintoul and Kathryn Barnwell about current plans in place to build an AI data center in Nanaimo, B-C. -- and allowing ourselves to write a new story about the future. Recorded Nov 27. Released Dec 8, 2025.'Very scary': Nanaimo neighbours have water worries about new data centrehttps://www.reddit.com/r/nanaimo/comments/1oo24s3/very_scary_nanaimo_neighbours_have_water_worries/'An Island concern': Nanaimo water advocates want new data centre stoppedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OQzc2bhtXwCBC: AI-related data centres use vast amounts of water. But gauging how much is a murky businesshttps://www.cbc.ca/news/ai-data-centre-canada-water-use-9.6939684

In this episode, I got to walk through a recent report called “the high stakes of tracking menstruation” with its author, Stefanie Felsberger, a sociologist of tech & gender. I cannot express enough how much there is to learn from this topic that can help us understand the bigger landscape of tech promises and harms. Recorded Oct 23, 2025. Released Nov 24, 2025.The High Stakes of Tracking Menstruation - MCTD Cambridgehttps://www.mctd.ac.uk/femtech-high-stakes-tracking-menstruation/ https://www.mctd.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-High-Stakes-of-Tracking-Menstruation_Accessible.html Menstrual apps harvest data that ‘puts women’s safety at risk’https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/menstrual-apps-harvest-data-that-puts-womens-safety-at-risk-bd0srb8mt? Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (by Kate Clancy)https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691191317/period? Websitehttps://www.stefaniefelsberger.com

Host of Tech Won't Save Us and acclaimed tech critic, author, and international speaker, Paris Marx joins me for this episode where we discuss AI futures in a Canadian context: the idea of a "sovereign cloud", an "AI minister", and much more! Recorded Oct 15, 2025. Released Oct 20, 2025.Websitehttps://parismarx.com/Tech Won't Save Ushttps://techwontsave.us/Disconnecthttps://disconnect.blog/im-writing-a-new-book/

In this episode, I get to chat with the brilliant Michael Richardson on the concept of "Nonhuman Witnessing" especially in how this relates to algorithms and AI. In his book, "Nonhuman Witnessing" (Duke), he argues that a "radical rethinking of what counts as witnessing is central to building frameworks for justice in an era of endless war, ecological catastrophe, and technological capture". Recorded August 13, 2025. Released August 25, 2025. Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World (Duke, 2024)https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3310/Nonhuman-WitnessingWar-Data-and-Ecology-after-theWebsite https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/michael-richardsonBluesky@richardsonma.bsky.social‬