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by Brian Merchant
A show about AI, labor, and power. Veteran tech journalist Brian Merchant chronicles the growing backlash and resistance to Silicon Valley and big tech.
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- 1 weeks ago1h 23m
2026 election breakdown: Americans vote down data centers, AI and oligarchy
Greetings all. For the podcast this week, I thought we’d try something a little different, to help digest the impacts of the game-changing midterm elections. First, in case you missed it, here’s my breakdown of this very generative election. Naomi Klein called it a must read; thanks Naomi. To discuss what the election means for AI, the tech lobby, data centers and beyond, for the podcast this week I gathered an all-star panel of journalists, academics, and tech critics, including Molly White of Citation Needed and Tech Influence Watch, Dave Karpf, a professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University (and author of the forthcoming book Vaporware, Inc), and Sophie Song, a Data Center Policy Fellow at the AI Now Institute. We held a roundtable chat about what did and didn’t go down during this historic, data-centered, AI-and-oligarch-hating election, and what we should be looking out for moving forward. Hope you enjoy the discussion as much as I did. GuestsMOLLYMolly White on BlueskyCitation NeededTech Influence WatchDAVEDave Karpf on BlueskyThe Future, Now and ThenPreorder VaporwareSOPHIESophie Song on LinkedIn Get full access to Blood in the Machine at www.bloodinthemachine.com/subscribe
- 2 weeks ago1h 12m
Data centers, AI, and the 2026 elections. Ft. Paris Marx.
If you’ve heard anything at all about the midterm elections, you’ve heard at least two things: it’s going to be a ‘blue wave’ in which Democrats are poised for major electoral gains, and that everyone involved hates data centers.We’re all used to hearing about that data center hate now, it’s almost a given; “the single most bipartisan issue in politics,” and so on, but I want to pause to underline how remarkable this is. This time last year, data centers were a niche issue in a handful of local political fights. Now they’re one of America’s most visible, universal and undeniable political battlegrounds.To investigate how we got here, I sit down with Paris Marx; tech reporter, critic, and author of the new book Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires. Plus, I dig into three things we should be watching during the midterm elections next week.Hyperscale by Paris MarxParis’s Disconnect NewsletterParis on BlueskyBrian’s BlueskyProducer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s BlueskyStories MentionedTexas sues OpenAI, Sam Altman over product safety - POLITICOMedia — Angela Gonzales-Torres for CongressJames Talarico on X: “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal U.S. Senator.” / XElon Musk’s America PAC Is Quietly Funding November’s Most Consequential ElectionsSpaceX and Tesla have high election stakes as Elon Musk pours $366 million into campaignsOhio Senate special election | Tech Influence WatchLeading the Future | Tech Influence WatchExclusive: GOP warns AI companies that data centers are politically radioactiveAI and data centers are incredibly unpopular in every poll | The VergeThe data center backlash reveals NIMBYism’s great contradictionTexas gubernatorial election, 2026 - BallotpediaData Centers | Gina Hinojosa for Texas GovernorElon Musk Is Trying To Buy Texas. It Might Earn Him ‘Retribution.’How Billionaires Are Fighting the Prop 40 California Wealth Tax - The New York Timeshttps://thewatt.org/en/nota/gas-centros-datos-capacidad-eeuu/Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit landExclusive: 75% of Americans Now Oppose Local Data Center Development - Heatmap NewsCheyenne Won’t Take Data Center Wastewater After Meta Contractor Contaminated System | Cowboy State Daily<a target="_blank" href="https://www.waterless.com/blog/why-do-data-centers-u
- 3 weeks ago47 min
The big tech defectors you’re not hearing about
Among the biggest stories in the tech world of late have been the string of high-profile resignations of workers at the major AI companies. Employees like Jacob Coxon at Anthropic have quit their jobs with splashy warnings that AI companies might build a machine god so powerful it exterminates humanity. Those workers get invited onto primetime news shows and weeks of high-profile media coverage.And yet, workers who’ve protested, resigned, or been fired for speaking up about the harms these companies are causing right now are given nowhere near the same treatment. This is maddening, because the AI companies are currently, as we speak, helping to automate, abet and facilitate mass death in Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine; we don’t have to speculate about some future tragedy; the tech companies are directly involved in those tragedies, right now, as I speak these words.This week, on Blood in the Machine, we’ll talk with another employee who was fired from Apple after speaking out against the company’s policies with regards to Palestine, and its treatment of Palestinian employees. Tariq Ra’ouf helped found Apples Against Apartheid, and on October 23, the launch day for iPhone Duo, the group calls on communities everywhere to picket their local Apple Stores.Tariq Ra’ouf on InstagramApples Against ApartheidBlood in the Machine: The NewsletterBrian’s BlueskyProducer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s BlueskyStories MentionedApple facing new forced labor and child labor charges - FreedomUnitedUS group sues Apple over Congo conflict minerals | CNBC AfricaApple accused by DR Congo of using conflict mineralsProtesters worldwide claim that Apple is complicit in human rights violations in the DRC and Gaza; co. did not respondApple Accused of Using “Blood Minerals” in the CongoApple employees demand CEO Tim Cook speak up for Palestinian livesTeam CongoFriends of the CongoRotten to the Core: How the Gaza genocide has revealed anti-Palestinian racism at Apple – Mondoweiss“When the Bubble Bursts”: Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor on Reclaiming Democracy from AI OligarchsThe Ukraine ‘Kill Zone’ Is AI’s Testing Ground - WSJIran war shows how AI speeds up military ‘kill chains’Probes Reveal Depth of Big Tech Complicity in Israel’s AI-Driven Gaza Slaughter | Common DreamsGoogle DeepMind Engineer Resigns in Protest of Pentagon ContractBrazil’s President Lula Accuses Meta of Helping His Right-Wing Opponent - The New York TimesMusk Ordered Starlink Slowdown That Blindsided Ukraine - WSJ Get full access to Blood in the Machine at www.bloodinthemachine.com/subscribe
- 4 weeks ago1h 8m
“They should be afraid.” The tech elite vs the first billionaire wealth tax
It’s election season, and while most of the national conversation is focused on the midterms and the increasing likelihood that Democrats will take back the House and perhaps even the Senate, in California, the eyes of the tech elite are focused on another target: The ballot measure Proposition 40, aka the billionaire tax.Prop 40 would enact a one-time 5% wealth tax on the 250 or so billionaires that reside in California, and redirect the funding towards healthcare and education. Predictably, billionaires are furious about the idea; leading opponents include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who, along with other ultra-wealthy Californians, has spent some $200 million dollars to oppose the measure.Today, on Blood in the Machine, we’re going to dive into these fights, with the woman who’s at the center of many of them. Lorena Gonzalez is a former state legislator and current president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, and she’s a driving force supporting both Prop 40 and the slate of new laws designed to protect workers from AI.California Labor FederationBlood in the Machine NewsletterBrian’s BlueskyProducer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s BlueskyArticles MentionedCalifornia just passed the strongest AI labor laws in the USCalifornia Proposition 40, One-Time Wealth Tax for State-Funded Healthcare, Education, and Food Assistance Programs Initiative (2026) - BallotpediaParamount completes $111B Warner merger, creating “Skydance” behemoth - Ars TechnicaNewsom signs landmark bill aimed at giving lifeline to struggling California newsrooms - Los Angeles TimesThe NO FAKES ActAI in hiring and firing: California’s No Robo Bosses ActGet the Facts: NO on PROP 40An AI School, With No Teachers, To Open in Chicago This FallThe billionaires fight back: Propositions 41 and 42 could kill California’s billionaire tax even if it passesBillionaire Google Co-Founder Pumps $102 Million Into Fighting California Wealth Tax | Common DreamsCalifornia Billionaires Are Spending Big in Costly Wealth-Tax FightThe Blue Wave Could Reshape Politics in the South | The New Republic$200 million-plus spent fighting and supporting billionaire tax - Los Angeles TimesGavin Newsom backs measure to kill the billionaire tax and ban future wealth taxesGavin Newsom opposes California’s $100 billion billionaire tax. The fight may outlast the voteBillionaire Tax Explained: What Proposition 40 Would Mean for California</a
- Oct 2, 202650 min
The two words the AI industry hates more than anything
“Stochastic parrots,” a term coined in an influential 2021 paper written by two AI researchers and two computational linguists, essentially holds that large language models are not “intelligent” but are rather systems that output material based on what’s in their training data. Now, while LLMs and technologies described as AI today have become more sophisticated and complex over the last 5 years, the term remains a fundamentally accurate way of describing LLMs.Yet the industry hates it like the plague. AI industry folks absolutely lose their minds over the term, and often bring it up, unprompted, just to try to debunk it again and again.Why does this particular term have a unique capacity to enrage AI industry folks? I had a theory that, even more so than other critiques about shaky financing or dubious functionality, stochastic parrots undercuts the very foundation that the AI boom is built on: That tech companies are building a machine god of infinite power and potential. These firms have relied on narrative to build up and to sell to the world a very expensive, resource-consumptive technology. If it turns out it’s an unthinking system that’s often fallible in predictable ways, well, that might not be worth quite as many trillions of dollars.To discuss this theory in greater depth, I thought I’d go right to the source—to one of the paper’s co-authors, professor Emily M. Bender, of the University of Washington.Quick PSA: I can only do this work thanks to readers, listeners, and viewers who chip in a few bucks each month to help me keep the lights on. If you’re one of them, you have my sincere thanks; you’re the reason I can cover subjects and do the sort of reporting so few others will. If you’re a fan of the “Great 2026 Blood in the Machine Podcast Experiment” or appreciate what we’re doing here, consider upgrading to a paid subscription; it takes no small amount of work to book great guests, research, write, and produce the thing, and we’re early days yet. Okay! That’s enough from me; thanks for tuning in, and hammers up.Articles and media mentioned in the show:The “Stochastic Parrots” paperStochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions | by Emily M. Bender | MediumEmily M. Bender on BlueSkyThe AI Con, with Alex Hanna.Producer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s BlueskyArticles mentionedAI Bros Are Having a Meltdown Because the Associated Press Stylebook Clarifies That AIs Don’t Have FeelingsWeekend Update: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on AI’s Threat to Humanity - SNLAlec Stapp on XTrump AI deal rebrands ‘artificial intelligence’ as ‘superintelligence’ | Donald Trump | The GuardianTrump’s new accord on ‘super intelligence’ includes spelling error“White House Accord on Super Intelligence” / XStochastic Parrots paperStochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions | by Emily M. Bender | MediumNate Silver on X:View of The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence“Be willing to destroy a rogue data center by airstrike” - leading AI alignment researcher pens Time piece calling for ban on large GPU clusters<a target=
- Sep 25, 202651 min
What’s really behind AI ‘super intelligence’
While billionaires and world leaders expound the dangers of all-powerful, “super intelligent” AI, the reality on the ground is that it's a tech product that’s only made possible by countless human beings, laboring for sometimes dollars a day, doing work like “cleaning” data sets so they’re usable, scanning books and literature into databases, creating usable content, and moderating the output of AI systems to weed out offensive, gruesome, and racist content. These workers are underpaid, overtaxed, and fighting for better conditions—even as AI executives are declaring that the systems they prop up are so powerful they’re about to extinguish life on the planet. In the meantime, workers like Joan Kinyua and Michael Geoffery Asia of the Data Labelers Association just want fair pay and basic protections. I recently spoke to both of them about what it’s like to perform crucial work day in and day out and yet be completely invisible to the company that relies on your labor—and to the world at large. To help feed Silicon Valley’s illusion that these systems are actually machine gods. And to fight for better conditions, rights and recognition in spite of it all.Show NotesData Labelers AssociationBlood in the Machine NewsletterBrian’s BlueskyProducer Ryan’s NewsletterRyan’s BlueskyArticles mentionedMy latest newsletter:Dario Amodei — We Must Pace the FrontierThe hidden workforce behind every AI tool you use: Announcing the data work landscape 2.0 - TechEquity CollaborativeAltman and Amodei address UN: ‘There are many things that AI cannot and should not automate’Tech Influence WatchHow to use AI doom marketing to dupe the media and rake in billions in 10 easy stepsFrontier AI safety regulations: A reference for lab staff - METRAI giants tap into the social media playbook: self-regulationAI leaders call for tougher protections against AI-aided bioweapons | The VergeAI Labs Want Someone to Stop Them - BloombergThe AI extinction narrative is winning outModels Don’t Go RogueMisleading Metaphors, Real Risks - by Melanie MitchellRapid Response 47 on X: “.@POTUS: The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for Artificial Intelligence Get full access to Blood in the Machine at www.bloodinthemachine.com/subscribe
- Sep 20, 202654 min
How to kick Flock out of your town
In a year rife with backlash to big tech, data centers, and AI, one company still manages to stand out: Flock Safety. Over the past decade, Flock has been building out a massive network of surveillance cameras across the nation. The images those cameras record are uploaded to a central database, and can be accessed by law enforcement and federal authorities.Abuse of the system has been rampant. Police have used Flock’s Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) to stalk exes and to track women seeking abortions across state lines. ICE has accessed Flock data to assist in crackdown on immigrants. Innocent people have been wrongfully imprisoned after being flagged by the system. With the anti-Flock movement growing, and more people looking into how to get Flock out of their communities, I sat down with Ed, an organizer with DeFlock, to explain, step by step, how you can start a movement to get the surveillance tech out of your town, too.Check out DeFlock here.Blood in the Machine Newsletter: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/Brian’s Bluesky.Ryan’s Bluesky.Articles Mentioned in this Episodehttps://atlpresscollective.com/2026/07/28/flock-cameras-atlanta-clearance-rates/https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-romantic-interests-at-least-14-times-in-recent-years/https://www.commondreams.org/news/police-abusing-flock-camerashttps://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-ice-accessing-flock-automated-license-plate-reader-cameras-via-local-law-enforcement/https://cybernews.com/privacy/de-flock-america-halloween-flock-surveillance-cameras/https://www.cnet.com/home/security/flocks-ai-cameras-may-have-misread-over-70-of-license-plates-creating-new-headaches-for-cities/https://www.404media.co/flock-taught-cops-how-to-surveil-no-kings-protesters/https://www.gadgetreview.com/flock-safety-employees-watched-kids-gymnastics-room-to-pitch-surveillance-techhttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/she-got-abortion-so-texas-cop-used-83000-cameras-track-her-downhttps://deflocktheusa.com/cancellations/ Get full access to Blood in the Machine at www.bloodinthemachine.com/subscribe
- Sep 13, 20261h 4m
The ‘End Times Fascists’ of AI, ft. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor. Naomi Klein’s Newsletter, Patterns.Astra Taylor on BlueskyBlood in the Machine Newsletter: Brian’s Bluesky.Producer Ryan’s Newsletter: Ryan’s Bluesky.Articles mentioned in this episode:The Automation Charade by Astra Taylor.The politics and possibilities of ‘AI could kill us all’ by Brian.More:https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-and-nationalism-are-a-deadly-combinationhttps://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-apocalypse-is-for-thehttps://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-and-us-sign-strategic-artificial-intelligence-partnership-2623228https://theconversation.com/iran-war-shows-how-ai-speeds-up-military-kill-chains-278492https://influence.citationneeded.news/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdfhttps://www.axios.com/2025/09/17/anthropic-dario-amodei-p-doom-25-percenthttps://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5926181-xai-naacp-memphis-grok/ Get full access to Blood in the Machine at www.bloodinthemachine.com/subscribe
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About Blood in the Machine
A show about AI, labor, and power. Veteran tech journalist Brian Merchant chronicles the growing backlash and resistance to Silicon Valley and big tech.
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