Day 1: Redefining Our New “Normal” with Brian Merchant

Brian Merchant is a writer, tech journalist, and the author of a bestselling book about the iPhone, The One Device. His most recent book is Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (2023).

He has been the Los Angeles Times‘ tech columnist, an editor at Motherboard, VICE’s science and technology publication, and the founder of Terraform, its online fiction site. He founded Automaton, a project that examined the human impact of AI and automation, for Gizmodo. He currently serves as Journalist in Residence, AI Now Institute.

Brian is also the co-editor of a print anthology of Terraform stories, called Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn (2022). His work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, Wired, the Atlantic, the Guardian, Slate, the Washington Post, Fast Company, Fortune, and beyond. He lives in Los Angeles. 

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:

• Who really benefits from the AI fear narrative
• Dig into a history lesson that reframes how we see technology today
• Recognize how power, labor, and resistance repeat with each wave of new technology
• Why AI’s good enough standard challenges every creative skill level
• How AI is accelerating the never-ending hustle in creative industries
• The true cost of workforce exploitation on the future of storytelling
• How to future-proof your creative career by thinking like a generalist and acting in solidarity
• Starting points for building collective creative leverage

RESOURCES:

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech

Blood in the Machine Newsletter