Working through (or re-reading) so many great books this winter break… Thank you @emilymbender.bsky.social, @alexhanna.bsky.social, @karenhao.bsky.social, @bcmerchant.bsky.social (& all the authors whose handles I can’t find on here!)

Before I sign off for the rest of the year, I am pleased to present the complete and 100% correct BLOOD IN THE MACHINE guide to the best books, TV and film about AI and tech in 2025 (that I managed to read/watch). Enjoy, and happy holidays everyone www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-best-b...

NEW: A variety of military and intelligence contractors have already signed on to help ICE's immigrant bounty hunter program. A review of procurement data shows 10 companies stand to make up to *ONE BILLION* dollars from the program by 2027. theintercept.com/2025/12/23/i...

Was pleased to take the opportunity to contribute to Max's round up to write about the only thing I really wanted to write about all year: the best death metal songs about AI

Highly recommend this Year in Review of books, shows and films best exemplifying our relationships and concerns about tech, labor, ethics, sustainability and more By @bcmerchant.bsky.social, subscribe to him, it’s worth it!

“As @jacobsilverman.com puts it in his book, these tech titans ‘had the world at their fingertips and they couldn’t stand the touch.’” @bcmerchant.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social @jathansadowski.com @hagenblix.bsky.social

Join us later today as we chew through a year that, thanks in part to the tech oligarchy and its AI, has been at least a decade long. Live chat will be for paid subscribers of Blood in the Machine, @techwontsave.us, and This Machine Kills, and will be posted in full afterwards.

Excited for the year-end @techwontsave.us live stream and the great guests who will be joining me to round out the year! Become a Patreon supporter to join us live! Otherwise, wait for it to be posted as a podcast episode next week.

What’s the equivalent of composting AI? 😆

I’m sadly reminded of one of my favourite Mad Men characters, who foresaw his own obsolescence.

Thank you, @bcmerchant.bsky.social! www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/a-complete...

“It is, in other words, perfectly feasible for AI companies to document copyrighted works and to ask them to rightfully credit their creators—and, if the courts rule that training on such material is *not* fair use, to compensate them.”

Excellent, thorough reporting (as usual) from Brian Merchant that provides a good overview of the current state of AI, potential legislation, and Hollywood.

2024's word of the year was 'enshittification' was and 2025's is 'slop'. Either next year the word is something like 'encrusted' or we figure out a way to bury the garbage or use it as fuel for something more productive

Very disappointed in the new Nebula Award eligibility information from SFWA that allows partially-generated works to be on the ballot. See 9.11.2. www.sfwa.org/complete-neb... This shouldn't be difficult. #noAI

@bcmerchant.bsky.social on the AI jobs crisis podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

@Brian Merchant at Blood in the Machine has been doing powerful reporting on the carnage across many professions, thanks to AI and bosses eager to use its slop instead of paying humans. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forc...

"The industry’s relentless, thoughtless expansion strains to conceal a lack of imagination, a confidence of vision; in fact, the desperation suggests a brittleness, a weakness. And what might fill the void should the AI bubble burst?"

Awful.

“…the feature helps Ring determine who is visiting your house based on their apparel, actions, and what they are holding, and responds accordingly.” Doorbells with dress codes now. 🤷🏿‍♂️

We can do even more.

NEW: ICE has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company that makes “AI agents” to rapidly track down targets. AI Solutions 87 did not respond to a request for comment on how its AI agents work.

Within 15 minutes today, I got two back-to-back notifications of deaths at ICE facilities. 28 people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. These facilities are overcrowded & are putting their own profits over health and safety. We need oversight & accountability NOW.

Last week, hundreds of creative workers amassed at a public hearing for an AI transparency bill to testify how AI was corroding their lives. Days later, Disney cut a deal with OpenAI, and Trump moved to stamp out state AI laws. On art and labor in the age of AI and American authoritarianism:

Listening to @bcmerchant.bsky.social BLOOD IN THE MACHINE on @libro.fm and hit the part in the early 1800's where tradespeople worked from home, made their own hours, and the bosses said "We're putting an end to THAT shit", and reflecting on COVID "back to the office" mandates. Plus ça change ...

In advertising, we would have clients who would ask for dozens of copy options and repeated rewrites from our copywriters. Those same clients are now content with mindless slop, as long as it costs them very little.

Join leadership and experts from @aaup.org AI team and Mijente for an online press conference on the urgent concerns about Palantir Technologies' involvement with the Department of Education. fedscoop.com/palantir-edu... TOMORROW Wednesday, December 17, 4PM ET Register here: bit.ly/4p3iCh7

Merriam's word of the year is slop: "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."

When I started collecting stories for AI Killed My Job in the summer, I heard from Jacques, who headed up support operations at a small tech company. The company was training AI on he and his colleagues' work, and he was concerned. When I checked in with him last month, he had been laid off.

This post appeared under this Techmeme headline:

Perversely, I'm seeing a lot of postings for copywriter positions via Linkedin, Indeed, etc. -- but they're almost all part-time and/or contract jobs writing copy for AI training purposes. They want people to sign up to train their own shitty replacements.

It's so fucked up to have been a kid during the D&D is the devil freakout and the Tipper Gore dirty lyrics freakout and live to see the teen suicide machine get such a pass.

I ran a marketing business heavily reliant on copywriting. Once AI was released, client work dried up almost completely.

Not just copywriting. This happened to me as a technical writer.

my last (probably final) copywriting client hired me because they weren’t happy with ChatGPT because “it didn’t sound human enough.” then they stopped using me because I “sounded too human”

I saw someone whom I love with my whole heart who had a job that was fulfilling and she enjoyed doing be taken away from her, not because of her performance, but because the companies no longer cared to be accurate in the text they published.

I got fired from copywriting at a popular ecomm company in my state. I was paid at entry-level for almost 3 years & we were manually writing content. When I was let go we were extensively revising generated content and training AI bots to take us over. I only ever got one $.50/hr raise working there

Again, it will never be as good as a person doing it but it will be cheaper and everyone will have shittier and shittier services, imagine everything being CVS forever

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.

“The work was emotionally exhausting, with chat users confiding intimate details about their real-life relationships, as well as their own emotional trauma, falsely believing they were talking to an unfeeling AI chatbot.”

This single mom is squeezed by LA’s cost of living. Now she’s running for mayor. Progressive housing advocate Rae Huang is challenging Karen Bass for Los Angeles mayor, promising free transit and social housing.

Self-enshittification

Love this from Bookshop description:

Excellent.

In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science. The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

First, this ad was hot garbage and I'm glad it's gone. But second, why are we so capable of seeing this slop for what it is in commercial advertisements yet so relatively passive in the face of AI intrusion into education? Is it just that it's less visible? A conundrum.

I actually thought the ad saying “check out this sickening artificial slop” was perfect brand synergy for what McDonald’s sells to customers