Notices by Brian Merchant (brianmerchant@mastodon.social)

Did a long investigation for WIRED looking at how studios are already using AI to degrade and kill jobs in the video game industry

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-is-already-taking-jobs-in-the-video-game-industry/

It’s pub day for Blood in the Machine, the book I’ve been working on for over five years. It tells the story of a chapter in history too often papered over—how workers rose up at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution when entrepreneurs used machines to take or degrade their jobs.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown

This is a good example of what AI systems like ChatGPT excel at—giving managers and administrators the ability to automate top-down, controversial and harmful decision-making while shielding themselves from accountability. They're a sort of authoritarianism accelerator

https://www.popsci.com/technology/iowa-chatgpt-book-ban/