Government Is Putting AI Before People and the Planet—With Matt Haugen
Paris Marx is joined by Matt Haugen to discuss how AI policy benefits tech giants at the planet’s expense—and what a people- and climate-first alternative could look like.
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Government Is Putting AI Before People and the Planet w/ Matt Haugen / Tech Won’t Save Us
Governments are prioritizing data centers and AI at the expense of communities and the planet, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Matt Haugen joins Paris Marx to discuss the AI First report, which examines how national strategies are dismantling environmental protections and enacting market policies that allow a handful of megacorporations to abscond with billions of dollars, and what an alternative policy agenda focused on people and the planet could achieve instead.
Matt Haugen is Research and Editorial Manager at the Climate and Community Institute.
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People hold signs during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion in New Port Richey, Florida, on July 18, 2026.
(Thomas Simonetti / AFP via Getty Images)Governments are prioritizing data centers at the expense of communities and the planet, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Matt Haugen joins Paris Marx to discuss how national strategies are dismantling environmental protections while enriching a handful of megacorporations, and what an alternative agenda could look like. Matt Haugen is research and editorial manager at the Climate and Community Institute.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/subscribe.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
How Mass Layoffs Changed Working in Tech w/ Clarissa Redwine & JS Tan / Tech Won’t Save Us
Not long ago, tech jobs were sought after for their security, benefits, wages, and the progressive values promoted by Silicon Valley companies. But now workers are barely hanging on. Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan join Paris Marx to discuss the state of worker organizing in the tech industry, including how it’s changed since the mid-2010s and where it needs to go from here.
Clarissa Redwine is a tech worker and labor activist. JS Tan is a PhD candidate at MIT and writes the Value Added newsletter. They are the authors of Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry.
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