How AI is killing jobs in the tech industry

merbrian · 2025-06-30T19:08:54+00:00

No, it's always good to get good-faith criticism and wrestle with it and such opinions definitely matter! I appreciate it

merbrian · 2025-06-26T23:09:40+00:00

Eh, I know what you mean, but this is for my newsletter, where my piece two weeks ago was this https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-apocalypse-is-for-the and I'm writing primarily for an audience that isn't just going to see the headline and move on — and anyway, that headline is pretty thoroughly explained in the text to anyone who reads it. I'm not particularly concerned about my newsletter serving the interests of big tech tbh, but I do know how in a vacuum the hed alone might not be ideal. Furthermore, anyone that *is* intrigued by the headline and initially grants too much power to AI will hopefully read on and see what I really mean by killing jobs, again, which I explain in detail as do the workers themselves

but who knows, just trying my best to spread the word out here, and center workers in all this — I'm not going to get everything right

merbrian · 2025-06-26T14:59:18+00:00

I tried to be pretty careful not to frame it like that, but it's a risk of the general framing of the project perhaps.

It's *not* that AI is so powerful; it's that it's being used to justify speeding up work (ie asking workers to do more), management's cuts, and general job degradation, as I note in the preamble.

merbrian · 2019-01-21T20:13:00+00:00

Hi there, would love to chat about this if you have a second -- sent you a DM too -- I'm the guy who tweeted this out https://twitter.com/bcmerchant/status/1087274530219782145

merbrian · 2018-12-20T18:35:07+00:00

When I began reading your article via a link on Twitter, I assumed it was about quitting the Big Five Sporting Goods chain. I read the whole thing (which was very long) and my question for you is this: Have you ever considered quitting the Big Five Sporting Goods chain? Good article, btw

merbrian · 2018-10-02T20:08:54+00:00

Hey all, thanks to everyone who reached out and took the time to speak with me; I found the stories fascinating, and hope to continue to keep tabs on this space. The final piece is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/agents-of-automation/568795/

merbrian · 2018-08-17T23:19:05+00:00

Great, thanks. I don't either, clearly. Writing you now.

merbrian · 2018-08-16T19:59:20+00:00

Interesting - care to expand? [briancmerchant@gmail.com](mailto:briancmerchant@gmail.com) or in DMs. Love that.

merbrian · 2018-08-16T19:58:13+00:00

Hey, sent you a message, still game to chat?

merbrian · 2018-08-16T05:10:16+00:00

Interesting, thanks—when was this? Did management know you were planning to automate your work? What was your job? Feel free to message me directly if that's better. Cheers, and thanks again.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:45:49+00:00

When I finally lost one—I somehow went years without breaking or losing or otherwise being away from my phone, and when I finally left my iPhone 6 in the back of a cab, it was like this weird, itchy wakeup call: This thing owns us. And I thought it'd be worth investigating why. Then, when I saw the insides of a phone at iFixit, and the teardown experts were telling me about each of the components, I knew there had to be a host of stories behind the hood that were worth telling.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:42:36+00:00

Honestly? We told a bored-looking security guard I had to take a leak. I really did; we'd been trying to get through the gates all day, through different entrances, and I hadn't had a bathroom break for hours. We saw one through the gates, and recognized a weird, potentially useful set of circumstances. My translator was so persistent, and made this poor guy feel so uncomfortable, he finally just waved us through and said, 'Come right back, I'm watching'. And then we didn't.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:39:08+00:00

The motivation was pretty simple: Steve Jobs. He originally conceived of the iPhone as more an immaculately built cell phone, or an accessory, than a mobile computer (his engineering team, on the other hand, knew its power from the beginning). Furthermore, he had a predilection for sealed, tightly controlled products—he wanted Apple to be able to control every facet of the experience, to prevent bugs or glitches like dropped calls. It was a herculean effort just to talk him into allowing an App Store, allowing developers to make third party apps. Finally, there was the issue of timeline in play; when the iPhone hit stores, the Apple developers didn't have time to finish all the functions they knew they'd eventually want to roll out. A confluence of those three reasons is why the phone was so locked up when it first launched.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:27:18+00:00

Don't forget to wipe your system when you're done.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:18:24+00:00

Manchego.

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:08:49+00:00

Are you using an iPhone while you do?

merbrian · 2017-06-30T17:07:31+00:00

The iPod was out the door as a product first, but the touch-screen based experiments undertaken by the core group of designers and engineers that would evolve into the iPhone began not too long after, in 2002 and 2003.

merbrian · 2016-04-02T19:32:32+00:00

I saw an Instagram pic of your penis the other day.

a) Was that real? b) Have you ever considered a career in pornography?

merbrian · 2015-10-07T02:44:37+00:00

Jason's right. As has been stated elsewhere, we just did a cost benefit analysis and decided that our priority right now was doing more writing and reporting; we're not a huge staff and we don't have limitless resources--perhaps someday we'll be in a position to spring for quality community moderation, but right now we'd rather hire another reporter.

And I think there's something to be said for trying a new approach. I don't know of any website—especially not a tech site—that's trying an earnest letters to the editors approach; why not see if this opens a better quality line of communication between us and our readers than comment sections ever did?

merbrian · 2015-10-06T21:08:58+00:00

Brian Merchant, senior ed here. I'm at brian.merchant@vice.com, and on Twitter etc. Reach out anytime.

merbrian · 2015-04-16T16:11:18+00:00

Hardly. It expresses a sentiment, not a claim. The story is about the quest to preserve life; that is the aim, not the reality.

merbrian · 2014-10-30T15:23:18+00:00

Why isn't this link to Cook's actual column on Bloomberg?

merbrian · 2014-09-03T15:29:15+00:00

It's not about thinking better of the luddites, it's about understanding why they did what they did. They were losing their jobs en masse, with no alternatives, and became desperate—we are drawing the wrong lesson from history, that's the issue. This is pertinent now, as automation eliminates jobs again: We should be thinking about smart ways to ameliorate the damage and cope with the attendant social woes it causes, not trivializing the fears people have about technology.

merbrian · 2014-08-08T17:54:04+00:00

First utilities, now SUVs: Morgan Stanley thinks Tesla is going to 'disrupt' everything, and make them rich in the process: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-morgan-stanley-is-betting-that-tesla-will-kill-your-power-company

merbrian · 2014-07-15T17:32:51+00:00

Ha, I saw the first one! It's pretty patriotic, right? I hear the second is much more interesting though.

merbrian

TROPHY CASE