What are large language models, really? A genuinely different frame for what AI is, where it came from, and what it means to live alongside it.

This episode of Permanently Moved is an hour-long audio essay on artificial intelligence, agency, and the history of computing that made LLMs possible.

The essay moves from the invention of the mirror to double-entry bookkeeping, the printing press, the Manhattan Project, the transistor, and the particular civilisational strangeness of ChatGPT and its successors. It argues that the question everyone is asking about AI "is it intelligent?" is a trap, and it tries to ask a better one.

START SELECT RESET

Issue 15 of SSRZ, the print companion to this episode, is available to pre-order now until Monday 16th March. 36 pages, A5, containing the full transcript plus an introduction and afterword not in the audio.

Membership (£5/month) shipping included: https://thejaymo.net/support/

Pre-order the zine (£18 + shipping): https://thejaymo.etsy.com/uk/listing/4465040020/monsters-in-the-mirror-start-select

CHAPTERS

(00:00:02) Introduction
(00:00:34) Monsters In The Mirror
(00:01:00) Part 1. The Mirror of Modernity
(00:05:33) Part 2. The State's Gaze
(00:11:28) Part 3. Paper Truths
(00:17:27) Part 4. Crystal Fire
(00:26:13) Part 5. The Silicon Mirror
(00:31:54) Part 6. World(view) in the West
(00:35:28) Part 7. Haunted Habitats
(00:40:45) Part 8. Thinking Machines
(00:49:28) Part 9. Abracadabra
(00:54:26) Part 10. Monsters in the Mirror
(00:59:03) Afterward
(01:00:05) Support the Show
(01:00:48) Credits

Mentioned in this episode

Tyson Yunkaporta — Sand Talk
James C. Scott — Seeing Like a State
Marion Fourcade & Kieran Healy — The Ordinal Society
Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo — Exocapitalism
Marshall McLuhan — The Gutenberg Galaxy
Walter Ong — Orality and Literacy
Jean Baudrillard — Simulacra and Simulation
Nick Land — Fanged Noumena
Monica Gagliano — Thus Spoke the Plant
Benedict Anderson — Imagined Communities
Bayo Akomolafe
Gordon White — Rune Soup

Permanently Moved is a quarterly podcast written, recorded, and edited by Jay Springett.

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SHOW NOTES

https://thejaymo.net/2026/03/02/302-monsters-in-the-mirror-permanently-moved/

FIND EVERYTHING ELSE

thejaymo.net: https://thejaymo.net/

Experience.Computer: https://experience.computer/
Worldrunning.guide: https://worldrunning.guide/
Subscriber Zine support the show! https://startselectreset.com/

Permanently Moved is back! Six months of silence, time in a chrysalis, and now a changed format.

This is the wake-up episode. Before Episode 302 drops in your feed, Jay explains what happened after finishing the biggest creative project of his life — and what the show looks like from here.

Permanently Moved is now quarterly. Four audio essays a year, longer and more considered. Less treadmill, more terrain. And for the first time, each episode comes with a print companion: a physical zine, posted to you as part of your membership.

Episode 302 - Monsters in the Mirror - is next up in the feed.

THE ZINE

Each episode of Permanently Moved now comes with an accompanying issue of Start Select Reset. Issue #15 is a 36-page A5 zine - properly printed, thick covers - containing the full transcript of Monsters in the Mirror plus an introduction and afterword that aren't in the audio.

Pre-orders are open for two weeks. After that it goes to print.

Membership (£5/month) shipping included: https://thejaymo.net/support/

One-off pre-order (£18 + shipping): https://thejaymo.etsy.com/uk/listing/4465040020/monsters-in-the-mirror-start-select

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FIND EVERYTHING ELSE

thejaymo.net: https://thejaymo.net/

Experience.Computer: https://experience.computer/
Worldrunning.guide: https://worldrunning.guide/
Subscriber Zine support the show! https://startselectreset.com/

8 years, 15 seasons; 301 episodes; over 25 hours of audio and roughly 290,000 words of script. 301 Permanently Moved was begun at age 32 and completed today, the day after I turned 40. One fifth of a lifetime, distilled into a body of work.

Full Show Notes: https://thejaymo.net/2025/07/26/2520-episode-301/

Experience.Computer: https://experience.computer/
Worldrunning.guide: https://worldrunning.guide/
Subscriber Zine support the show! https://startselectreset.com/