Brian Merchant

5 days ago | bloodinthemachine.com | Brian Merchant

Over the past week or so, there’s been little need to imagine dystopian visions of what a world overrun by some of the worst-case AI scenarios might look like—the tech industry and its acolytes happily offered them up to us. And while grim portents of AI’s impacts on society and culture are not exactly uncommon, it’s somewhat rare we get to experience the full gamut of bad AI futures in such a compressed timeframe.

6 days ago | bloodinthemachine.com | Brian Merchant

The response to my recent story, “The AI jobs crisis is here, now”, has been pretty overwhelming. The piece, which examines how the language-learning app Duolingo fired its writers and translators to go all-in on AI, how DOGE uses an “AI-first strategy” to justify firing tens of thousands of public servants, and how both fit into a broader trend of executives using AI to erode conditions for creative, civic, and freelance work, has become one of the most-read stories in this newsletter’s history.

1 week ago | bloodinthemachine.com | Brian Merchant

On Monday, April 29th, Luis von Ahn, the billionaire CEO of the popular language learning app Duolingo, made a public announcement that his company is officially "going to be AI-first.” Duolingo, he wrote in an email to all employees that was also posted to LinkedIn, will “gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle,” while taking pains to note that “this isn’t about replacing Duos with AI.” According to one such Duolingo contractor, this is not accurate.

3 weeks ago | bloodinthemachine.com | Brian Merchant

Tomorrow, April 24th, is Take Your Child to Work Day, an occasion on which many federal workers would typically bring their kids into the office. This year, any celebratory mood will likely be dampened by the sweeping layoffs ordered by Elon Musk’s DOGE, which has fired tens of thousands of federal workers, threatened to fire of tens of thousands more, and promised to institute an “AI-first strategy” to replace the laid off employees.

3 weeks ago | bloodinthemachine.com | Brian Merchant

Greetings all, Hope everyone’s hanging in. The big news this week: Elon Musk is finally stepping back from DOGE. On an earnings call that revealed Tesla’s net income had fallen 71% in the first quarter of 2025, Musk announced that, starting in May, his “time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly.” This may scan as good news, and it’s a victory for the Tesla Takedown protests; popular backlash helped tarnish the brand, dip its stock, and push Musk out the door.