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

Longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year

The "rich and gripping" true story of the first time machines came for human jobs--and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today (Naomi Klein) The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods.

The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines--on punishment of death--and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.

Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy. How will this change the way we live? And what can we do about it?

The answers lie in Blood in the Machine. Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world--and is shaping our future.

Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 09/26/2023
Pages: 496
Weight: 1.56lbs
Size: 9.41h x 6.35w x 1.27d
ISBN: 9780316487740


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 03/01/2022 pg. 18
Library Journal Prepub Alert 04/01/2023 pg. 18
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2023
Booklist 09/01/2023 pg. 29
Publishers Weekly 09/11/2023

About the Author
Brian Merchant is the bestselling author of The One Device. His work has appeared in WIRED, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Guardian, and beyond. He is the founder of Terraform, VICE Media's speculative fiction publication, and Automaton, a special project examining AI and automation at Gizmodo. He lives in Los Angeles.