Brian Merchant

Well hello all, and thanks for giving me a follow over here, and to the starter pack creators who kindly included me. I'm a tech journalist, critic, and author of Blood in the Machine, a book + newsletter about breaking oppressive machines: www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/one-year-o...

Ok, slightly conspiracy-ish but their whole bleating about AI's "existential risks" is a misdirect to get AI regulations to focus on idk ending humanity or whatever and not copyright and human responsibility for chatbots telling people to kill themselves etc.

what on earth is happening with this website today and why do I have to scroll for two and a half minutes before any of the posts show up

Anthropic is trying to write its own federal AI regulation law. The major AI firms have all issued feeble proposals for how their AI will serve the public, in anticipation of their pending IPOs. It's all a reminder that we cannot, any under circumstances, let AI firms govern the future.

Seems fine

Get it

The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilot A mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr...

Likely the most important thing I've ever written — if you're an academic and the AI mania unsettles you, here's my best shot at presenting some intellectual tools that might help you articulate why. arxiv.org/abs/2610.27251

Video games has decided to discontinue its once leading product, the video game

Join TODAY at 3pm ET and tell your colleagues! our 5th installment of our AI toolkit series about how the AI bubble affects us in higher ed and what to do about it. We will be joined by leaders from TIAA Divest!, Majority Action, and Make the Road. Register here www.aaup.org/event/higher...

My good friend @parismarx.com’s book is out this week and I can’t recommend it enough. This is the one-stop primer not just for the data center buildout but the logics of big tech’s broader project right now. Give it to anyone who wants to understand what’s happening with data centers right now.

this one goes out to @bcmerchant.bsky.social:

whoa, these already sold out. i'm reupping on this design, and adding three others. all of these are available for preorder* in my shop now. every purchase supports my independent, ai-free journalism. shop now: dinfontay.bigcartel.com/category/din... *at printer now, will mail out in ~2 weeks

Hearing lots of discourse about "stochastic parrots" recently? Here's a discussion of the backstory, both of the phrase itself and what's going on now.

Register for our AAUP webinar for the 3rd segment of our Toolkit series on intervening in institutional procurement TODAY Wednesday 10/7 at 3pm ET introducing our "Strategy Playbook for Addressing AI at Work" resource with Cynthia Conti-Cook! www.aaup.org/event/strate...

About damn time

BREAKING: A federal judge has ruled for the first time that a Flock search was unconstitutional and violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights. Oklahoma cop pulled over a woman and searched her in Flock "because he saw her license plate was from California" www.404media.co/federal-judg...

God this shit was cool as fuck

Announcing the merger with Titanic footage is an incredible bit

Democrats caved and/or facilitated this monopolization of practically every major media property in the US into the hands of a MAGA fascist psychopath. If the US had an opposition party, each of its presidential contenders would would vow to dissolve this monopoly by any means necessary.

Avengers: The 120 Days of Sodom

The CalFed and UCB labor center have been doing such amazing work to make this happen and I am grateful!

your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could they didn't stop to think if they should

This Browns-Steelers game, with Deshaun "20 sexual harassment and assault allegations but no announcer ever mentions them" Watson vs Aaron "withered husk of an anti-vaxxing QAnon elder" Rodgers" may have the worst vibes of any primetime sporting event I have ever seen

hell yeah

There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...

might as well light up a neon sign that says 'we're doing fascism' at this point

there's still this idea among some ai boosters that ai in law is gonna level the playing field for poor people/give them better access to law but so far it's been like: your state appointed attorney will shit out the worst possible ai-generated bullshit and you'll rot in prison

If you were looking for an artifact that encapsulates this moment in time you could do worse than an official federal document signed by our top oligarchs that both declares AI is a "super intelligence" and is slop that misspells the country's name as "the Unites States"

There will have to be a reckoning with the role the press has played in amplifying Alpha School’s narrative. Many exceptions to this. But nonetheless, a reckoning is due.