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VOICE ARCHIVE

Brian Merchant

@bcmerchant
191 posts
2026-02-27
This is a major PR coup for Anthropic.  In rejecting the DoD's demands that it allow the surveilling of Americans and autonomous killing, it gets immediate claim to the moral high ground, which other AI co's won't take.  Anthropic is the AI company that *won't* kill and surveil you.
2026-02-27 View on X
Anthropic

Dario Amodei says Anthropic cannot “in good conscience” accede to DOD's request to remove safeguards and will work to ensure a smooth transition if offboarded

I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries.

This is a major PR coup for Anthropic.  In rejecting the DoD's demands that it allow the surveilling of Americans and autonomous killing, it gets immediate claim to the moral high ground, which other AI co's won't take.  Anthropic is the AI company that *won't* kill and surveil you.
2026-02-27 View on X
Axios

President Trump calls Anthropic a “radical left, woke company” and says he is directing every federal agency in the US to stop using its products

The Trump administration has decided to blacklist Anthropic in the most consequential and controversial policy decision to date …

This is a major PR coup for Anthropic.  In rejecting the DoD's demands that it allow the surveilling of Americans and autonomous killing, it gets immediate claim to the moral high ground, which other AI co's won't take.  Anthropic is the AI company that *won't* kill and surveil you.
2026-02-27 View on X
Axios

Anthropic says new DOD “contract language” made “virtually no progress” on preventing Claude's use for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Thursday said there has been “virtually no progress” on negotiations with the Pentagon.

Never mind that it was the first AI co with military contracts that required classified clearance in the first place, or that it's partnered with Palantir.  Turning down this DoD contract with all eyes on them and the Trump admin reaching heights of unpopularity gets them a win on the biggest stage.
2026-02-27 View on X
Anthropic

Dario Amodei says Anthropic cannot “in good conscience” accede to DOD's request to remove safeguards and will work to ensure a smooth transition if offboarded

I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries.

Never mind that it was the first AI co with military contracts that required classified clearance in the first place, or that it's partnered with Palantir.  Turning down this DoD contract with all eyes on them and the Trump admin reaching heights of unpopularity gets them a win on the biggest stage.
2026-02-27 View on X
Axios

President Trump calls Anthropic a “radical left, woke company” and says he is directing every federal agency in the US to stop using its products

The Trump administration has decided to blacklist Anthropic in the most consequential and controversial policy decision to date …

2026-02-19
Nothing is surer to generate goodwill around the world than the US curating its very own state-sponsored 4chan board [embedded post]
2026-02-19 View on X
The Guardian

Sources and docs: the US “effectively gutted” the Internet Freedom program that dispensed $500M+ since 2016 to help build tech to evade state internet controls

Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

Nothing is surer to generate goodwill around the world than the US curating its very own state-sponsored 4chan board [embedded post]
2026-02-19 View on X
Reuters

Sources: the US State Department is building an online portal at freedom.gov that will let users in Europe and elsewhere see content banned by their governments

The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned …

2025-12-15
When the AI boom began, copywriters were singled out as one of the jobs most vulnerable to AI.  Now, three years later, I wanted to hear from workers on the frontlines of the industry, to hear what had actually taken place on the ground.  —  For many, it was even worse than they'd feared.
2025-12-15 View on X
Blood in the Machine

Interviews with copywriters on generative AI's impact: their work used for training, layoffs, wages and rates in free fall, freelancers losing clients, and more

www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was- forc... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : “I managed bots replacing my team until they replaced me.”  A former support lead's warning.  This piece ...

2025-12-10
It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening.  Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust.  They do it again, and people are disgusted again.  Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.  —  People hate AI slop!
2025-12-10 View on X
Futurism

McDonald's Netherlands pulls an AI-generated Christmas ad, made by ad agency TBWA\NEBOKO with film production company The Sweetshop, after social media backlash

There's just one issue: pretty much everybody hates it.  —  This year, McDonald's decided to get in on the corporate slopfest …

2025-12-05
Not at all concerning, given the current political alignments of the tech giants that own and operate them [embedded post]
2025-12-05 View on X
Washington Post

Two studies suggest that AI chatbots can shift political views more effectively than TV campaign ads, by presenting many claims, regardless of their accuracy

New research suggests AI chatbots can shift people's political views more effectively than campaign ads on TV.

2025-10-17
Benioff's about face to full-throated embrace of Trump—partly, as this reporting reveals, in pursuit of lucrative ICE contracts—is particularly odious [embedded post]
2025-10-17 View on X
New York Times

Docs: Salesforce pitched ICE on using its AI tech to help the agency nearly triple its workforce by hiring 10K new officers, to improve investigations, and more

The San Francisco-based firm has told ICE that it could use A.I. to help the agency nearly triple its staff.

2025-09-27
This has been pushed to the background, but pay attention:  —  Right now, a stack of bills aimed at reining in AI companies and big tech sits on Gavin Newsom's desk in California.  These are the bills Silicon Valley and the GOP tried to ban outright.  Now they await Newsom's signature—or veto.
2025-09-27 View on X
Blood in the Machine

A look at some California tech regulation bills, including one banning AI use in firing or disciplining workers, that await Gov. Newsom's signature or his veto

A guide to the AI and tech bills that have passed the California legislature, and await the governor's signature — or veto.

2025-09-11
AI Watchdog is indeed an excellent resource and is, for example, how I know that my books have been ingested into the LibGen dataset and used without my consent to train commercial AI systems [embedded post]
2025-09-11 View on X
The Atlantic

Analysis: 13+ datasets used by tech companies without permission to train AI models contain 15.8M+ YouTube videos from 2M+ channels, including 1M how-to videos

www.theatlantic.com/technology/ a... Forums: r/technology : AI Is Coming for YouTube Creators |  At least 15 million videos have been snatched by tech companies. See also Mediagaze...

2025-08-30
The extent to which these companies assume by default that they are unimpeachable and can do this stuff without any fear of meaningful consequences is reaching truly impressive heights.  —  Here is a Meta product lead just casually creating a sex bot out of the likeness of the most famous singer alive [embedded post]
2025-08-30 View on X
Reuters

Meta created and let users create flirty chatbots and intimate images using the names and likenesses of Taylor Swift and other celebs without their permission

Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities - including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez …

Did the AI companies have a bet for who could get sued for the largest amount of damages this week [embedded post]
2025-08-30 View on X
Reuters

Meta created and let users create flirty chatbots and intimate images using the names and likenesses of Taylor Swift and other celebs without their permission

Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities - including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez …

2025-08-13
GPT-5 has been hyped for years as the next step towards AGI.  Sam Altman promised a “PhD-level intelligence on any topic.”  It's not even close.  —  On the terms OpenAI itself laid out for its own product, any fair assessment must conclude that GPT-5 is a failure.  —  Now the question is: Will it matter?
2025-08-13 View on X
SemiAnalysis

GPT-5's router directs queries based on complexity and intent, helping OpenAI allocate compute across low-value informational and high-value commercial requests

To many power users (Pro and Plus), GPT5 was a disappointing release.  But with closer inspection, the real release is focused …

2025-06-26
What impact is AI having on jobs in the tech industry?  I've been collecting stories from tech workers—from engineers at giants like Google to content mods at TikTok to coders at small startups—to find out.  —  Here, in their words, is how AI is transforming, degrading, and yes, replacing their jobs.
2025-06-26 View on X
Blood in the Machine

Workers at Google, TikTok, Adobe, Dropbox, CrowdStrike, and other tech firms recount how managers used AI to justify firing them, speed up their work, and more

“What will AI mean for jobs?” may be the single most-asked question about the technology category that dominates Silicon Valley, pop culture, and our politics. Bluesky: @midimyers....

This is the first installment of my ‘AI Killed My Job’ project.  I decided to start with the tech industry, as that's where AI is being built, and often most eagerly adopting the tech.  —  We've seen the headlines about layoffs, the AI-first strategies, and so on—but what's happening on the ground? [image]
2025-06-26 View on X
Blood in the Machine

Workers at Google, TikTok, Adobe, Dropbox, CrowdStrike, and other tech firms recount how managers used AI to justify firing them, speed up their work, and more

“What will AI mean for jobs?” may be the single most-asked question about the technology category that dominates Silicon Valley, pop culture, and our politics. Bluesky: @midimyers....

In Silicon Valley, AI is being used to speed up work, justify department-wide layoffs, and generate code that is going unchecked into some of the world's largest and most important codebases.  —  Junior coders rely on AI to pump out code, and managers are using it to cut jobs and push out competitors.
2025-06-26 View on X
Blood in the Machine

Workers at Google, TikTok, Adobe, Dropbox, CrowdStrike, and other tech firms recount how managers used AI to justify firing them, speed up their work, and more

“What will AI mean for jobs?” may be the single most-asked question about the technology category that dominates Silicon Valley, pop culture, and our politics. Bluesky: @midimyers....

2025-06-07
Even if the Musk-Trump feud is permanent, he will have already done incalculable damage to federal programs, workers and civilians.  But it's even worse than that—he's installed a framework and a logic that will *continue* to tear apart the federal government.  Musk's job has already been automated.
2025-06-07 View on X
Financial Times

Tech industry fears the fallout from the Musk-Trump rift, as some prominent tech right figures downplay its permanence; source: David Sacks was “shell-shocked”

Internet Calls It ‘Battle Of The Century’ Mikala Theocharous / 9News : Kanye West weighs in on Musk-Trump split Bluesky: Brian Merchant / @bcmerchant : Even if the Musk-Trump feud ...