Brian Merchant reposted
“liz you can just use AI as a research tool, don’t be such a Luddite” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...
Who's Who of AI
Brian Merchant
author of Blood in the Machine, tech writer, luddite
newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/
books: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/contributor/brian-merchant/
kofi link: https://ko-fi.com/brianmerchant
What they're sharing
Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. nytimes.com
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Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked 404media.co
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Even If You Hate AI, You Will Use Google AI Search | WIRED wired.com
Anthropic Is Still at Odds With the White House Over Claude Fable 5 wired.com
bloodinthemachine.com
bloodinthemachine.com
bloodinthemachine.com
bloodinthemachine.com
Students Cheer Jeremy Scott for Ripping up His AI Commencement Speech - Business Insider businessinsider.com
Project Glasswing: Securing critical software for the AI era anthropic.com
read.dukeupress.edu
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How Anthropic used AI ethics slop to play the pope and eclipse OpenAI bloodinthemachine.com
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Articles & links
Brian Merchant reposted
NEW: Hackers say that they used Meta’s AI support chatbot to break into a host of high-profile Instagram profiles by asking the support bot to change the email address associated with the target account.
Counterpoint: No I will not
(from this WIRED writeup of the debacle) www.wired.com/story/anthro...
Wrote about the college kids booing AI, and how, in a moment rife with economic precarity, affordability crises, and collapsing job prospects, AI has become a new avatar of American capitalism
Last week, IT employees at the University of California system across the state formed the largest tech worker union in the United States. This is how they now plan to confront tech industry layoffs, rein in AI, and push for tech for the common good:
Anthropic's Mythos campaign—it must be understood as a marketing campaign above all—was the ne plus ultra of AI doom marketing. It was instrumental in vaulting Anthropic to its latest valuation and status as the top AI startup. But as AI firms are increasingly finding, there a…
Anthropic went from a distant #2 in the AI startup race to winning news cycles, sharing the stage with the pope, eclipsing OpenAI's valuation and barreling towards an historic IPO, all in a matter of months. How did Anthropic pull it off? By doubling down on its key export: AI…
Brian Merchant reposted
It’s a whole trend.
AI Weekly's analysis
→
- Jeremy Scott read an AI-generated speech aloud before destroying it on stage at the Kansas City Art Institute's 2026 commencement.
- His stunt is the third notable anti-AI commencement incident in 2026, following Eric Schmidt being booed and two AI name-reader failures.
- Scott explicitly argued AI cannot create original work, only replicate it, framing the issue as a threat to creative identity.
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again this does not preclude also recognizing what a great narrative it is and leaning into it via announcing your scary model with a polished website, an in-house doc ready for youtube, and a pre-placed column advancing your preferred narrative by tom friedman www.anthropic.c…
Brian Merchant reposted
#CriticalAI 4.1, artist Molly Crabapple speaks out against corporate tech’s fleecing of creative workers and the production of “vampiric slop” which mimics their artistry through AI. read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...
Brian Merchant reposted
Anthropic is succeeding “by building a popular product, partly by correctly recognizing which way the winds of public sentiment were blowing, partly out of luck, and also by being unabashedly full of shit.” Brilliant stuff, as usual, from @bcmerchant.bsky.social
Their own posts
Recent commentary
This Anthropic/White House spat is funny. Anthropic spent months declaring that its model is so powerful at finding bugs it threatens the world's digital infrastructure. The WH says OK it's banned then Now Anthropic and its allies have to say actually you know it isn't "uniquely good" at that stuff
My kingdom for a good, entirely AI-free web browser
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In Brian Merchant's orbit
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