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Blood in the Machine: The Podcast

Brian Merchant 4 Episodes Jul 3, 2026

A podcast about Silicon Valley, AI, and the future of work. Hosted by Brian Merchant, it explores the intersection of technology and labor, examining how automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping industries and jobs.

Episodes

How and why to de-Google your life Jul 3, 2026 3255 While Google seems dead set on making their users hate their product, the courts in Europe are taking issue with their anti-competitive business practices. Meanwhile, the Summer of Ludd kicks off in New York and a new dating survey finds: It’s sexy to be a luddite. Plus, my good friend and fellow tech journalist Paris Marx joins us to discuss the final boss of Google's enshittification: Search goi

The AI industry is pouring hundreds of millions into US elections Jun 26, 2026 2802 The tech lobby spent $27 million on a single Congressional election in New York. OpenAI-backed Leading the Future spent $8 million on ads attacking Alex Bores, who vowed to rein in AI, in an effort to fire a warning shot—did it work? What does this mean for democracy? Meanwhile, a Michigan town takes on a nuclear AI data center, and a bipartisan effort to legislate against AI theft of artist’s wor

How to dis-enshittify the world, with Cory Doctorow Nov 10, 2025 4063 Does Cory Doctorow even need an introduction at this point? If you spend any amount of time at all online, then you’ve encountered his work, his ideas, his words. But the ultra-prolific science fiction writer, digital rights activist, and coiner of the “Enshittification” verbiage that’s become universal shorthand for the degradation of the internet (and, to an extent, everything else), has been es

Understanding the tech oligarchy and its gilded rage with Jacob Silverman Oct 31, 2025 3961 Happy Halloween all. I got into the spirit by catching up with the horror flicks I’d been sleeping on (28 Years Later was surprisingly good) and, more importantly, chatting with the great tech journalist Jacob Silverman, author of GILDED RAGE: ELON MUSK AND THE RADICALIZATION OF SILICON VALLEY, a book about some very scary people who hold immense sway over our politics and our lives. Before we get

Dismantling the Empire of AI with Karen Hao May 20, 2025 3425 Years before OpenAI became a household name, Karen Hao was one of the very first journalists to gain access to the company. What she saw when she did unsettled her. Despite a name that signaled transparency, executives were elusive, the culture secretive. Despite publicly heralding a mission to build AGI, or artificial general intelligence, company leadership couldn’t really say what that meant, o

Blood in the Machine: The Podcast

Episodes

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