Brian Merchant blood machine

---

BLOOD IN MACHINE BK

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/

Greetings. I’m Brian Merchant, a tech journalist, columnist, critic, and the author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, the book this newsletter is named after. That book is about a legendary but misunderstood worker uprising—the Luddite rebellion—against the early tech titans. Drawing from historical themes, this newsletter posits that, in the age of Silicon Valley monopolies, gig apps, tech oligarchs, and AI, we should all be thinking a lot harder about who tech serves, and who it squeezes.

For a longer look at this newsletter’s mission, see this short introduction.

In my past life I was the technology columnist at the Los Angeles Times. Before that, I was the senior editor at Motherboard, the co-founder and editor of TERRAFORM, Vice’s speculative fiction site, and a freelance tech and environment reporter. I’ve written about tech and its discontents for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, WIRED, Harper’s, and too many more to count. My first book was nationally best-selling The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. I’m a reporter in residence at the AI Now Institute, where I write reports like this one on AI-generated business models.

The AI Industry is Pouring Hundreds of Millions Into US Elections

Jun 26, 2026

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 work hits the Senate. Plus, I speak with technologist and journalist Molly White about her new project: Tech Influence Watch, which keeps tabs on the enormous sums the AI and crypto industries are spending to influence elections. Articles mentioned in this episode: Tech Influence Watch,

Citation Needed https://influence.citationneeded.news/“We Will Fight to Our Very Last Breath” 404 Media https://www.404media.co/we-will-fight-to-o...Google is investing $75 million in A24 as part of an AI filmmaking partnership Quartz https://qz.com/google-a24-investment-deepm...Children’s book illustrators start “We Are Better Than This” campaign to “stop the theft by big tech” Bipartisan members introduce new bill to protect creators from AI style theft Axios Big Tech won the race. But the AI fight is just beginning Politico https://www.axios.com/2026/06/02/creator-s... https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/23/m...