"We Cannot Rely on Five Nerds": AI Urbanism from Amazon Go to Tech Sovereignty

It’s a new year and a new season! Welcome to 2026 and the first episode of Season 6 of the Anti-Dystopians.

I talked to Casey Lynch, the Ramon y Cajal researcher in the Department of Geography at the University of Girona. Casey is a human geographer with interests in AI digital, political, urban, and labour geographies (what could be relevant about those topics?!) .

We discussed AI urbanism and how different technologies and corporate actors are shaping our everyday lives and politics. Do you remember that SNL skit about “Just Walk Out” Amazon Go stores? Why did those highly-surveilled brick and mortar Amazon stores never get off the ground? What are iBuyer programmes, and can an AI replace your real estate agent? And finally, what were the promising ideas about technological sovereignty and local communities that emerged in Barcelona—so that we don’t just have to rely on “five nerds” all the time.

As always, you can listen to it here or subscribe here (Spotify) or here (Apple Podcasts). If you like us, please rate, review and share the Anti-Dystopians to help us get new listeners.

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By Casey:

• Contesting Digital Futures: Urban Politics, Alternative Economies, and the Movement for Technological Sovereignty in Barcelona

• “Vote with your feet”: Neoliberalism, the democratic nation-state, and utopian enclave libertarianism

• Blockchain urbanism: Evolving geographies of libertarian exit and technopolitical failure

• Internet infrastructure and the commons: grassroots knowledge sharing in Barcelona

• Control and Resistance in Automated Shops: Retail Transparency, Deep Learning, and Digital Refusal

• Rethinking urban AI: a critical posthumanist perspective on intelligence, autonomy, and agency

If you’re still trying to make sense of the row of Silicon Valley CEOs sitting behind Donald Trump’s inaugural podium, and what it means for the technology industry’s political power, I have a short essay contribution in an Review of International Studies forum about oligarchic sovereignty—alongside some truly incredible scholars.

doi:10.1017/S0260210525101599

• Iran’s Case Should Put an End to Illusions About Digital Sovereignty

• Our Man for Tehran: The U.S.- and Israel-backed campaign positioning Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah, for regime change in Iran.

• ICE’s Tear Gas Sent a 6-Month-Old to the Hospital, the Latest in an Alarming Pattern

• ‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid

• ChatGPT wrote “Goodnight Moon” suicide lullaby for man who later killed himself

• Here is the Agreement Giving ICE Medicaid Patients’ Data

• Love Machines by James Muldoon review – inside the uncanny world of AI relationships

• US gets first $500 million Venezuelan oil deal, holding some proceeds in Qatar

• Cops Forced to Explain Why AI Generated Police Report Claimed Officer Transformed Into Frog

• Handing Out Free Tickets, Mamdani Says Theater Should Not Be ‘a Luxury’