In the previous episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly examined James Agee and Walker Evans classic documentary book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men from several viewpoints: as a public art project, as ethnography, as literature, and as an historical document.

In this episode Owen Kelly uses this as the starting point for an argument that locates this, and the book USA, as crucial points on the road to agentic AI.

EPISODE 89 | August 7 | 2026

Owen Kelly

The trilogy of novels by John Dos Passos collectively known as USA mixed fact and fiction to produce a powerful work that refused to act as “a novel” in the usual sense.

Owen Kelly discusses this as the starting point in a century long move towards blurring the distinction between fact and fiction with the express purpose of baffling and demoralising people.

His argument takes in the radio and television show Dragnet, Al Gore’s introduction of the metaphorical information superhighway, Daniel Dennett’s idea of the intentional stance, professional wrestling, social influencers, reality television, and agentic AI.

He suggests where we might go from here.

USA, available to borrow from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-DIH-783

The 42nd Parallel, the first volume of USA is also available to borrow from the Internet Archive for those wanting to try it first. https://archive.org/details/42ndparallelusa0000john