This month I want to highlight an article, The New Luddites Aren’t Backing Down, by Brian Merchant. The author gives a brief history of Luddites in 19th century England and describes how they were demonized as anti-progress, when instead Luddites were focused on responsible progress.

Past technological revolutions deeply parallel today’s AI explosion. Today, generative AI is reshaping creative industries, much like machinery reshaped textile production in the past. As with those past changes, we are eager to optimize for financial outcomes without adjusting societal safety nets to offset the resulting human harm.

I am a technologist and I enjoy how technology has reshaped our lives. I find it exciting to think about how much better our lives will be with continual advancement, however I worry that society places too much value on increasing profit margins, and insufficient value on simultaneously solving the resulting negative social outcomes. Taken to an extreme, if generative AI removed the need for creative jobs (artists, script writers, etc.), how are we also taking care of our peers who currently occupy those roles? These days I find myself want to spend more time advancing technology alongside social welfare, as opposed to viewing them as separate and unrelated topics. I think that makes me a New Luddite.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/02/new-luddites-ai-protest/677327/

“I consider myself a Luddite not because I want to halt progress or reject technology itself. But I believe, as the original Luddites argued in a particularly influential letter threatening the industrialists, that we must consider whether a technology is ‘hurtful to commonality’ — whether it causes many to suffer for the benefit of a few — and oppose it when necessary.”