The people vs. the cloud

When Big Tech brought plans for a giant data center to St. Charles, Missouri, one college student decided to fight back. And it raises a question that small towns all over the US are asking: What happens when the cloud touches ground? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Car theft has gone digital. We talk to a white-hat hacker about how cars became computers on wheels—and why, in the race for smarter tech, safety is still trying to catch up. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Volvo built its reputation on safety. Then a software update nearly sent one driver off a cliff. We look at what happens when car companies start acting like tech companies — and discover the danger of “move fast and break things” on the open road. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As the Trump administration pressures Apple and Google to remove apps that track ICE activity from their stores, locals are going old-school. Francisco Chavo Romero, an LA-based activist, explains how it works. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When the Trump administration began rounding up immigrants, a new kind of resistance took shape — digital, crowdsourced, and built for the smartphone era. Activists used apps and social media to keep watch on the government. But before long, the government started watching back. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The A.I. boom is reshaping our world—and quietly guzzling power. This week, sustainable code advocate Stuart Clark explains how the race to build smarter machines is heating up our planet—and how we can code our way to a cleaner future. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What happens when you cross a marine biologist with a machine-learning engineer? You get someone who thinks humpback whales might be saying something meaningful—and that artificial intelligence could help us finally understand it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We return to a story about bitcoin mining in Kentucky. When Richard Hunter heard about the state's generous crypto incentives, he packed up his bitcoin machines and pointed them south. He imagined a booming business, jobs for locals, and maybe — just maybe — a shot at redemption. But what he got … was a buzzkill. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Since the collapse of coal, Eastern Kentucky has lived through a procession of supposed revivals. Each new idea was treated as something close to salvation. But things like cryptocurrency and AI data centers may not offer a break with history – just a continuation of it. We return to a story we did last year about Kentucky's crypto mining industry. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Tech giants say artificial intelligence can outsmart the storm, predicting tomorrow’s weather faster than ever. We return to a conversation we had with Paris Perdikaris of the University of Pennsylvania. He tells us about a new tension: forecasts are only as good as the public data that fuels them – and now even that is in doubt. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices