Brian Merchant

writer, former la times tech columnist, science fiction editor, luddite

NEWSLETTER: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/

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Last Notes

2025-08-12 19:42:20 GMT

GPT-5 has been hyped for years as the next step towards AGI. Sam Altman promised a "PhD-level intelligence on any topic." It's not even close.
On the terms OpenAI itself laid out for its own product, any fair assessment must conclude that GPT-5's launch is a failure.
Now the question is: Will it change anything?
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/gpt-5-is-a-joke-will-it-matter

2025-07-23 17:20:21 GMT

Big tech promotes the story that since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, AI has become so popular it's rushed to meet the demand.
The reality on the ground is a bit different. A study by a trio of design scholars shows how tech co's have had to push AI on its users with a variety of intrusive tactics.
This is how big tech is force-feeding us AI:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-big-tech-is-force-feeding-us

2025-05-09 17:12:28 GMT

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There are *so many ways* that bosses use AI—not just to replace work, but to speed it up, surveil workers, gain leverage over them, or erode what made a job worth doing. Sometimes AI *creates more work*.
I've heard lots of these stories, and want to hear more.
Here's an explanation of what I'm trying to achieve with the project:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/did-ai-kill-your-job

2025-05-09 17:11:44 GMT

Did AI kill your job? If so, I want to hear about it.
The response to my recent story on the AI jobs crisis has been pretty overwhelming. I heard from so many people hit by AI I decided to collect and organize such stories to better understand the phenomenon.
Share yours at: [email protected]

2025-05-06 20:23:57 GMT

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Last week, I spoke with a Duolingo contractor impacted by its 'new' AI strategy, and they clarified that
1) it's not new. Duolingo has *already* fired an estimated 100 writers and translators.
2) they worked for months training an AI system that still makes egregious mistakes.

2025-05-06 20:23:36 GMT

The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look like what many thought it would.
From Duolingo firing scores of writers and translators to the AI-first strategy that has helped justify thousands of federal workers to artists, illustrators, and freelancers seeing their incomes decline—the AI jobs crisis is here, now:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-crisis-is-here-now

2025-04-12 03:32:57 GMT

Therapists at Kaiser went on a hunger strike in Los Angeles to protest "factory" like working conditions and the automation of healthcare. I went down to the picket line on the last day to talk to the workers, some of whom hadn't eaten for 100 hours.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/therapists-went-on-a-hunger-strike

2025-04-09 17:11:06 GMT

After Trump was elected the first time, there was also a lot of talk about making iPhones in the US. At the time, I was co-editor of the sci-fi outlet Terraform, so I asked @nprofile…prw6 to imagine what such a future might really look like.
With his permission, I'm republishing the story in full:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/flyover-country

2025-03-27 23:20:20 GMT

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Here's how one artist, Reid Southen, told me he feels about the AI Studio Ghibli trend:
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/236/953/974/440/634/original/9d7c4eb8f6c682ad.png

2025-03-27 23:18:26 GMT

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I realize that language is strong, and for a long time I have been skeptical of this notion that 'AI bros hate artists' or such—but seeing the response to this critique, which on the other site really actually has too often been literally 'Fuck Miyazaki', what other conclusion are we to come to?

2025-03-27 23:17:57 GMT

OpenAI is using Studio Ghibli-style memes as an ad hoc promotional campaign for its new image generator—despite Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki's famous hatred of AI. Sam Altman even made his X avatar a 'Ghiblified' portrait.
Disgracing Miyazaki is part of the point: It's more proof to the industry's biggest boosters that they have won—that they're free to use, appropriate, and commoditize art however they see fit.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/openais-studio-ghibli-meme-factory

2025-03-10 16:50:23 GMT

So the LA Times replaced me with an AI that defends the KKK
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/so-the-la-times-replaced-me-with

2025-02-26 20:58:39 GMT

DOGE's new AI, built to scan federal workers' emails to see if they get to keep their jobs, is the latest in a number of AI schemes from Musk.
We might scoff at how dumb these ideas are, but the truth is, they're not even supposed to work. They're built to eliminate accountability.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/whats-really-behind-elon-musk-and

2025-02-18 19:57:16 GMT

Hello all. As many of you know, I've been writing BLOOD IN THE MACHINE: The Newsletter for months, but I've been on the fence about going all-in. Recent events have made the call easier.
Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley oligarchs and their AI are taking over. I want to do all I can to push back. I hope you'll join me, and I'm asking for your support.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-tech-oligarchs-and-their-ai-are

2025-02-14 21:19:00 GMT

As DOGE began infiltrating government agencies and targeting federal staff for termination, I started interviewing tech workers on the front lines. With the mass layoffs unfolding today, and with their permission, I'm sharing their stories.
This is what it's been like to endure Musk's campaign to gut the government.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-federal-tech-workers-facing-down

2025-01-23 21:46:13 GMT

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@nprofile…c5zd @nprofile…qz4x love it — and me too!

2024-08-23 22:39:03 GMT

This week, in a stunning series of events, a bill that was written to save local journalism from big tech was gutted in a backroom deal—and wound up bailing out Google and *boosting AI* instead. You can't make this stuff up.
How it happened:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-a-bill-meant-to-save-journalism

2024-06-03 19:57:55 GMT

What threat to jobs does generative AI truly pose? In my latest newsletter, I did my best to assess the technology's impact on jobs, based on my research on the first industrial revolution and recent reporting.
Some jobs truly are threatened, many others will not be — a lot depends on how aggressive management chooses to be, and whether it proves to be a reliable and sustainable enough technology for many tasks. But it could be a wrecking ball nonetheless:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/understanding-the-real-threat-generative

2024-05-14 21:38:01 GMT

For tech CEOs, the dystopia is the point
Why Altman, Musk, and Zuckerberg turn bleak sci-fi works into useful dystopias for marketing their products:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/for-tech-ceos-the-dystopia-is-the

2024-05-10 18:52:51 GMT

Wrote about that Apple ad everyone hated—for a lot of people it's not just bad taste, it's lived experience
To wit: Vice.com, once the work of very human people, is being transmuted into a staff-free content farm operated by an AI-loving venture firm as we speak
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/for-artists-writers-humans-big-techs

2024-04-22 19:42:40 GMT

AI really is smoke and mirrors—in so many more ways than we initially thought.
my latest newsletter:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-really-is-smoke-and-mirrors
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/316/576/813/637/600/original/844169ac22a2cfd2.png

2024-02-14 22:09:33 GMT

The torching of a Waymo car was not a random act of vandalism, as certain pundits want you to think, and it did not take place in a vacuum.
In fact, it's a major escalation in the growing revolt against Silicon Valley, and may just be the beginning:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/torching-the-google-car-why-the-growing

2023-12-14 17:35:10 GMT

2023 was the year of AI, of thunderous hype and massive investment
2024 is the year those big hyped AI companies need to start showing they can make money, that they're not like crypto
Next year the pitch for mass job automation begins in earnest
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-12-14/column-this-was-the-year-of-ai-next-year-is-when-you-have-to-worry

2023-08-15 19:41:31 GMT

This is a good example of what AI systems like ChatGPT excel at—giving managers and administrators the ability to automate top-down, controversial and harmful decision-making while shielding themselves from accountability. They're a sort of authoritarianism accelerator
https://www.popsci.com/technology/iowa-chatgpt-book-ban/

2023-08-10 18:28:09 GMT

BLOOD IN THE MACHINE is out next month, a phrase I can scarcely believe is true
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/866/548/173/935/128/original/19c28a8be529bd78.jpg

2023-08-08 22:15:14 GMT

Wrote about the ~current state~ of social media, and why Mastodon, while far from perfect, is pretty much the only decent app left standing at this point
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-08-07/column-its-the-end-of-social-media-as-we-know-it-we-should-feel-fine