Brian Merchant

@bcmerchant.bsky.social

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author of Blood in the Machine, tech writer, luddite

newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/

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Every startup in JD Vance's VC fund, ranked from least to most hillbilly elegiac: www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/every-star...

Every startup in JD Vance's VC fund, ranked from least to most hillbilly elegiacwww.bloodinthemachine.com What can we learn about Donald Trump's VP pick from his VC fund's investment portfolio?

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Brian Merchant

I was up late last night reading Blood in the Machine by @bcmerchant.bsky.social which is making me think about the #SLA2024 keynote about AI in that frame. Balancing curiosity with skepticism is hard, but it seems worthwhile to think about the history of technology innovation and exploitation.

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Brian Merchant

So I’m reading @bcmerchant.bsky.social’s Blood in the Machine and lemme tell ya - as a fibre artist and former senior programmer, it hits DEEP. *insert deranged rant saying how much you need to read it too etc*

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Brian Merchant

Once you start cornering them on this stuff, it quickly becomes apparent that, far from 'democratizing' anything, the real goal is proving that creativity - like consciousness or emotions or materialism or anything else - is a fake concept that can easily be done by machines

We've all probably heard Silicon Valley's favorite AI buzzphrase du jour by now; OpenAI CTO Mira Murati used it when she caught flack for saying AI will kill jobs, etc. But to be clear: AI is not "democratizing creativity"—it's doing the exact opposite. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-is-not-...

AI is not "democratizing creativity." It's doing the oppositewww.bloodinthemachine.com Why Silicon Valley's favorite AI buzz phrase is so misleading and insulting

Help me out here — I *think* it was going around on Bluesky but maybe it was one of the Other sites; the guy who posted how he'd made millions of images with LLMs but didn't know what to do with any of them? reddit maybe? anyone remember this?

has there been a joke along the lines of 'looks like we might see a Bernie presidency after all—a WEEKEND at Bernie's presidency' yet because in the right hands that might have some juice

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Brian Merchant

"Expand the court" has gone from radical solution to the most exceptionally moderate option on the table.

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Brian Merchant

trying to convince Comcast's stupid AI chatbot to reveal to me their support phone number and I just have @bcmerchant.bsky.social's Blood in the Machine chanting in the back of my head

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Brian Merchant

If you care about the way AI is steamrolling environmental concerns you might be interested in this (free, online) conference happening in July—program just posted, and link to register: uva.theopenscholar.com/rethinking-t...

Rethinking the Inevitability of AIuva.theopenscholar.com

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Brian Merchant

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Devon

Luddites get an unfair bad rep! @bcmerchant.bsky.social has a ton of interesting writing on the Luddites and what we can learn from them

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Brian Merchant

Currently reading @bcmerchant.bsky.social's book 'Blood in the Machine'. Puts this into a completely different light. www.npr.org/2024/06/17/n...

A supermarket trip may soon look different, thanks to electronic shelf labelswww.npr.org With electronic shelf labels, prices can change up to six times a minute. Grocers including Walmart, Whole Foods and Schnucks are adopting them.

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Brian Merchant

we are, oh I'd say, three months out from this thing generating never-before-seen photos of a deceased love one and triggering a psychotic break

One of the bleakest uses for gen AI I've seen yet: a bank is rolling out a system to detect when a call center worker is on the brink of "losing it"—and play them AI-made family photo montages to calm them down. Behind the latest fresh hell AI promises: www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-cant-fi...

AI can't fix everything automation already brokewww.bloodinthemachine.com Generative AI is the latest in a long line of technologies that promise innovation and fixes but grind away at public life

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Brian Merchant

I worked at a call center for three weeks during college because they love recruiting desperate college students. I got let go for removing deceased people from the call list because to them as long someone answers there’s someone to collect data from.

AI can't fix everything automation already brokewww.bloodinthemachine.com Generative AI is the latest in a long line of technologies that promise innovation and fixes but grind away at public life

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Brian Merchant

Facebook Memories but weaponised into a coercive productivity tool

AI can't fix everything automation already brokewww.bloodinthemachine.com Generative AI is the latest in a long line of technologies that promise innovation and fixes but grind away at public life

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Brian Merchant

Reply to

Lexys🏳️‍⚧️

We had a guy who was clearly constantly about to snap, we were divided on whether we expected him to shoot up the place or just like, smash his phone. Ultimately when he finally snapped he just set his headset down mid call, walked outside and we simply never saw him again, good for him

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Brian Merchant

i can’t believe AI is plagiarizing plots from the Simpsons

AI can't fix everything automation already brokewww.bloodinthemachine.com Generative AI is the latest in a long line of technologies that promise innovation and fixes but grind away at public life

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Brian Merchant

Picture perfect illustration of how this thing is being sold to us by tech billionaires and CEOs as something to liberate us from work, but in actuality what they want it for is to grind human workers down to paste with automation, surveillance, de-skilling, and exploitation.

AI can't fix everything automation already brokewww.bloodinthemachine.com Generative AI is the latest in a long line of technologies that promise innovation and fixes but grind away at public life

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Brian Merchant

this is good

The anxiety around AI and the backlash to AI-generated products is strong enough that even corporations like Dove and Discover are declaring their human-first bonafides and creators and startups are making "No AI" pledges A '100% LLM-free' consumer trend is here www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

We're not sending our best to media leadership positions. Holy shit. Medium CEO on Threads says to @bcmerchant.bsky.social that the journalists the company hired, then laid off, SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!

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Brian Merchant

I used to buy cameras from adorama.com , but they replaced almost all staff with AI. I sent them a lens for sale, & their site told me they’d get back to me by “April 1969”. I kept sending emails, got no response, called finally got a human. Told them: Never buying there again.

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

Love that, keep it coming.

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

You've heard of organically made Now here's made by organics

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

I have software engineering work experience so still get recruiter messages regularly. The email I got literally this morning has a little aside at the bottom: "PS: This was NOT written by ChatGPT!" So, yes, even the tech recruiters can see that not using AI is a selling point!

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

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Brian Merchant

5 years…I gave this shit too much credit.

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Brian Merchant

Being “ai” free is already becoming a selling point.

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

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Brian Merchant

Let's just hope it's not as hollow as their climate pledges 😬

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.

It's a lot of both! I do think a number of companies see a real material opportunity to make genuine AI-free products and market them as such, and expect their users to hold them to that (Cara app, AnswerConnect, 404 Media). With Dove or Discover, obvs, I'd be less inclined to expect such dedication

I wonder how many of them actually mean it, and how many think of it as just another piece of bullshit to add to their marketing and labeling.

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Brian Merchant

Think about the lightning-speed shift here -- two months ago you didn't see anything like this.

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?www.theatlantic.com Businesses and creators see a new opportunity to brand their work as 100 percent human-made.