bcmerchant.bsky.social
author of Blood in the Machine, tech writer, luddite
newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/
cohost, System Crash: https://systemcrash.info/
1,964 posts
39,224 followers
1,180 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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😂
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I don’t think I was on that podcast?
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Organize and/or protest, and support those who are doing both or either
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That's the top of the newsletter this week. I also get into the great new @ainowinstitute.bsky.social landscape report, and, for paid subscribers, the $1.5 billion startup that was just human workers in a trenchcoat, WaPo's new AI initiative, and more. Consider supporting, if you can. Hammers up.
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And Vought project 2025 crew too
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Here, by the way, is a handy interview with a labor historian who works with federal workers on ways they can do exactly that:
www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-elon-...
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how about this? 🤖🔨❤️
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There's danger as well as opportunity here — with Musk out of the picture, there will be fewer headlines and opportunities to generate outrage; DOGE will work more in the shadows. However, it may also be weaker organizationally, and more vulnerable to federal workers standing up and resisting.
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By touting DOGE as a tech project driven by "AI-first strategies", efficiency mandates, and entrepreneurial logic, Musk handed the GOP a framework for gutting the government. Now they can use it whether Musk is there or not. As @wired.com reports, even with Musk gone, DOGE is "busier than ever."
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It's hard to overstate the magnitude of the favor Musk performed for Trump, the GOP, and the Project 2025 faction by launching and executing DOGE.
Culling the federal government of public servants and replacing them with loyalists or nothing at all was an arch goal—Musk and DOGE made it happen.
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i know we were texting each other going 'welp' lol
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this is a not a knock on the live blogs I should clarify, as I am reading them
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Love it! Cheers, glad it spurred some good discussion there
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❤️🤖🔨❤️
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Someone responded to the video above about AI displacement with “This is why the Luddites smashed the mechanical looms” and I realized I’d been meaning for ages to talk about @bcmerchant.bsky.social’s book Blood in the Machine. :)
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they absolutely won't
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The bottom line is that management is always looking for ways to use tech as a means of undercutting or degrading labor—AI is the latest and most ubiquitous iteration
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seriously
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❤️🤖🔨❤️
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❤️🤖🔨❤️
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❤️🤖🔨❤️
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❤️❤️❤️🤖🔨❤️
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Congrats to @ambakak.bsky.social, @smw.bsky.social, and @kate-brennan.bsky.social, for this definitive report, and to everyone who contributed and made it possible. Proud to have played a small part in its genesis.
I encourage anyone to spend some serious time with it—it will be well rewarded.
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Most importantly, the final section outlines strategies for organizing and resistance to an era of AI dominated by big tech firms and oligarchs.
The coming fight is over who holds power over AI and how it impacts—not over "progress."
ainowinstitute.org/publications...
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Like I said, there's so much more—including a section on AGI that draws from my report on AI-generated business models last year, and how AGI functions as a beacon for investors and a bulwark against hard questions.
ainowinstitute.org/publications...
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From Chapter 3, which dives into AI's *actual record so far*, some key takeaways: