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bcmerchant.bsky.social
author of Blood in the Machine, tech writer, luddite newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ cohost, System Crash: https://systemcrash.info/
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Posts 22 Comments 28

A worse-case scenario here is DOGE-like work continues in shadows while EM gets publicly scapegoated for unpopular cuts & data theft/misuse; EM gets brought to heel with leverage over his companies/contracts; others take note of this; and T consolidates power. (This is not a pro-EM take whatsoever)

submitted 48 minutes ago • 1 comment

Even if the Musk-Trump feud is permanent, he will have already done incalculable damage to federal programs, workers and civilians. But it's even worse than that—he's installed a framework and a logic that will *continue* to tear apart the federal government. Musk's job has already been automated.

submitted 1 hour ago • 11 comments

lol we recorded on Wednesday and posed the question: what will Musk and Trump’s relationship be like after he’s gone and were like ‘only time will tell’

submitted 3 hours ago • 4 comments

"This was Musk’s job: to use his tech billionaire mythos to give technocratic cover for an expansive and widely unpopular political project." @bcmerchant.bsky.social www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/elon-musks...

submitted 17 hours ago • 2 comments

this is like drake and kendrick lamar but they're both drake

submitted 23 hours ago • 531 comments

Love to live in a time when our most august news organizations must run live blogs to keep us updated about two men posting about each other online www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

submitted 22 hours ago • 6 comments

Good piece on the new AI Now report from WIRED's @lmatsakis.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/report...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this NYT article about programming work at Amazon (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html) because it perfectly illustrates how “productivity” trends in AI in the workplace benefit so few.

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

A tip for parsing exec quotes: Maybe they're strong personal beliefs. Definitely they're self-interested corpo marketing. Epic makes an engine that stands to benefit from people relying on its AI tools. 9 years ago, Epic made an engine that stood to benefit from people relying on its VR tools.

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

SCOOP: Trump to launch branded crypto wallet and trading application, encouraging his supporters to purchase his memecoin and other crypto assets. www.citationneeded.news/trump-crypto...

submitted 3 days ago • 153 comments

On the one hand this is sad and stupid and an example of the creep of AI into every conceivable orifice, on the other hand it's a lot like when newspapers added blogging 'portals' as a means to justify underpaying writers a decade ago, which was also sad and stupid

submitted 2 days ago • 12 comments

I went through a 6mo hiring process for a WaPo job in 2022, finally got an offer, then passed after passive-aggressive convos that culminated w/ the hiring manager asking me to take down a post I'd written a couple years prior lightly criticizing efforts to incorporate AI into newsrooms. So: lol.

submitted 2 days ago • 25 comments

I'm preparing the first piece in this series, and there so are many revelations. But I want to say I feel such gratitude for everyone who shared their stories so far—some are more deeply personal and sad and funny and moving in ways that I hadn't really fully braced for. Thank you all, more soon.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Blood in the machine.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Thanks for posting this! Life @parismarx.com and @bcmerchant.bsky.social ‘s work. New version of this article with oral history interviews with Navajo workers coming out in my new book The Inattention Economy this fall!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Exactly

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

A group who is desperate to be seen as innovators, unwilling to make any personal committments or sacrifices, while having an inflated view of their role in society.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025. It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

Absolutely the correct framing. AI increasingly has a single audience: managers laser focused on destroying labor. Those unworkable, largely nonexistent "agentic" technologies being pushed everywhere? They were purpose-built for this specific audience.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The “AI jobs apocalypse” heralded by AI CEOs like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman is a story with one particular audience in mind: the bosses who are eager to see it happen

submitted 4 days ago • 9 comments

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

remember, without societal uptake, there is no "AI"... so backlash on the "massive backlash"

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments