Internet Hate Machine

AI girlfriends are everywhere. So why are the humans they're replacing being pushed off the internet?
This is a chapter from Internet Hate Machine host Bridget Todd’s new Simon & Schuster audiobook, Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy.
In this conversation, Bridget sit down with 404 Media cofounder Samantha Cole to unpack the booming business of AI companions, sex bots, and erotic role play. They explore why tech companies are racing to build AI girlfriends while human sex workers continue to face censorship, deplatforming, and financial discrimination.
It's a conversation about labor, consent, power, and what happens when Big Tech decides to monetize our most intimate relationships.
If you enjoy this episode, you can find Love at First Prompt wherever audiobooks are sold, or learn more at LoveAtFirstPrompt.AI.
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Tech shapes almost every aspect of our daily lives. And yet the tech we use has been controlled by a select few for far too long. On the new show B the Way Forward, Bridget talks to AnitaB.org's President and CEO Brenda Darden Wilkerson about challenging this disparity head-on. Let’s reclaim our digital agency, redefine tech, and create a future where those who create tech truly mirror the faces of those who use it.
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In the final episode of Internet Hate Machine, we look back on where we’ve been and where we’re going. Plus some big news from Cool Zone Media!
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Ifeoma Ozoma has spent her career trying to make the internet safer. At Pinterest, she created clear content policies that earned the company praise. In return, she was targeted and doxxed by a white supremacist colleague, and then retaliated against by management when she spoke up. She talks with Bridget about the Sisyphean struggle of Black women trying to make a difference.
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Bridget is joined by James Stout to discuss Cecilia Lewis, a Maryland educator who was targeted and run out of Georgia after being hired to lead a DEI program in Cherokee County schools, thanks to a cooked up moral panic about Critical Race Theory.
"Why the Black Educator Forced Out Over Bogus Critical Race Theory Claims Agreed to Share Her Story": https://www.propublica.org/article/cecelia-lewis-educator-cherokee-georgia
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