"Luddites" is a good term for those who oppose AI because the Luddites weren't against *all* technology, just forms of technology that they knew would pay workers less and turn out a shittier product

April 09, 2026 - 12:02 UTC

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So we have to produce shitty media in order to compete with Asia?
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Luddite thread:
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The ecological footprint of rampant AI-use is too enormous for me to even countenance how it might be useful.
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I am an early adopter for most tech. I refuse to use AI. Even the stuff it does well, it does worse than a min wage fast food employee does their job. In the time it takes someone to write the "perfect" prompt, then filter through the stuff AI spits out to find what fits, you could do it normally
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Critics of some things are sticking heads in the sand, luddites (derog) and championing ignorance over understanding. Other critics of things are voicing genuine concerns. Broadly speaking, the former include racism, sexism, transphobia and AI. The latter include wokism immigrants and climate change
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Something AI and those subjects have in common is people keep saying they need to be studied, while reams of actual studies show that racism is bad, sexism is bad, transphobia is bad, climate change is real and very very bad, and that AI is unfathomably shit in multiple vectors simultaneously.
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To be fair, @segyges.bsky.social did correctly note it wasn’t about “workers” but their specific in-group of workers, but I do think equivalent would be guilds like doctors or lawyers trying to protect selves, which comes with both good and bad
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That guy’s posting is tedious as hell
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Not convinced that programming film festivals here in Montreal with people from Asia who submit their films is the greatest data set to come to such a broad conclusion about an entire continent.
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I sell tech for a living but AI is Skynet.

Yeah, dating myself but all the same.
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Why would it matter to me that Asians have no worries about AI? I'm not Asian.
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I don't trust the reporting in the OP, not that she's lying, but that it's unlikely that she has spoken to more than a few dozen people at the apex of the Asian film industry.
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How to turn it into a compliment, then, instead of an insult?
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Take it back: Proud to be a bad bitch Luddite!
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Butlerian Jihad now!
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All these people who use this phrase, I always wonder - have all of you actually read Erewhon? I always want to talk about that book, but no one ever responds when I try to post about it. Or do the people using it only vaguely know it as a Dune reference without the OG source?
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we need more sabots in the gears of bullshit machines.
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The Luddites didn’t riot to destroy machines. They rioted to destroy concentrations of capital. They knew who was at war with them, and tried to make them lose the will to fight.
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He’s getting tore up in the comments. It’s a thing of beauty, it also becomes very apparent he has no technical knowledge about AI he just thinks it’s cool. Very much ignores all the negatives.
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That guy's profile pic looks like he's got a podcast about the benefits of ball tanning and I'm sorry but I don't need to listen to any more "bro takes" in my one precious human life.
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"For the 500th time, the baby is safe. But we seriously need to throw out this bathwater, now."
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Weaver Ludd was right about everything.
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I'm wondering why according to this person it's the anti-AI people who have to do the "reckoning." And not the other way around?
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Especially since the AI guys all say "figure out for yourself what you need it for, just use it!" all while dismissing the mistakes it makes, and the very real concerns of others. Like the fact is isn't AI at all.
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👍🏽😊
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We need a fictional leader like Ned Ludd and Captain Swing to name the anti-AI movement after
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I agree but swap "mythical" for "fictional."
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Upper-case AI Luddites are concerned with the social, environmental, and economic consequences of AI. Lower-case AI luddites tried ChatGPT once in 2022 and call it a plagiarizing slop machine.
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Asia has never led the world in ethical concerns placed over market ones.
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Thanks so much for this. Luddism is a much misunderstood term. The battle fought by eg Yorkshire croppers was existential - not simply for themselves but for all textile workers threatened by capitalist, exploitative, mechanisation which took decades and myriad Factory Acts even partially to remedy.
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“No General but Ludd
Means the poor any good…”

Great (2017) piece by Clive Thompson on exactly this issue. Luddite fury was sparked not by the machine but by the destination of the money it generated for unscrupulous *masters*.

www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/when-robots-take-jobs-remember-luddites-180961423/
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China also the land of OSS models - if true that AI attitudes are different, maybe this is a reason it feels less unfair and exploitive.
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From the ever-reliable Wikipedia - maybe opponents of AI should call themselves Byronites? "Lord Byron (became).. one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites after the treatment of the defendants at the York trials..."
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Dude is a clown. He may become self aware before AI. Maybe.
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Wow, I've been using this term to describe myself correctly all this time and I never realized
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I just learned that I am proud to be a Luddite. thx
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They just wanted unemployment insurance paid for by a tax on the output of the machines.
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Language evolves.

“Over time, the term has been used to refer to those opposed to the introduction of new technologies.”
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I ask people what they think my stance is based on my title of my former career, as a pioneer of the Virtual Reality industry: Developer of Emerging Technologies.

It’s not the tech that’s a problem: It’s the lack of quality regulations due to conservatism.
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They were against the enclosure of the technology commons.
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And the Luddites, their methods were successful?
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Well almost you still exist so there's that🤣
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Also - the Asian markets sometimes have casual relationships *at best* with the concept of intellectual property rights. They tend to have better social safety nets if AI puts people out of a job, and they aren't as concerned about the ethics of it stealing IP from people who stole it themselves.
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I am very much a Luddite on this and will throw clogs into the machinery with the best of them
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Is movie production in Asia unionised? I am guessing not, because any labour union worth its membership dues will oppose AI in media production as it's _clearly_ not in the interests of its members.
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Justice for true Luddism!
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We stan General Ludd on this site 🫡
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Perfect timing to shout out @bcmerchant.bsky.social I'm reading his book "Blood in the Machine" and it's a great read!
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Came here to say this
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I don't know what I'm supposed to be reckoning with.
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Whenever someone uses "luddite" as criticism or insult it's painfully clear that they've never looked at the actual history of the term
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Yes, but I’d argue that’s true about most terms people commonly use to insult each other.
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An Interesting essay from Thomas Pynchon on the topic. archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html?
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Luddites
"asking not what a technology does, but who it does it *to* and who it does it *for*."
doctorow.medium.com/science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature-e454bf5a5076 href="/search?t=posts&q=:~:text=who%20it%20does%20it%20to%20and%20who%20it%20does%20it%20for.">#:~:text=who%20it%20does%20it%20to%20and%20who%20it%20does%20it%20for.
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I liked Marx's take on the Luddite movement - that focusing on the tech rather than the people behind the tech was a tactical weakness. However this is the very thing that posts like the "LOL AI Luddites" post you were quoting was trying to occlude.
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The problem is not that chatbots exist. It's that the assholes who make them want to destroy the climate to crush workers.
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(George C. Scott voice) We CANNOT have an ENSHITTIFICATION GAP
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<chews gum furiously>
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“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the data center!”
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Making this point here since they are a coward with locked replies but just because something is normal in another culture DOESN’T MAKE IT GOOD.

Like, just because there are some places where FGM is normalized doesn’t make it “good”, let alone something I want to import to my culture.
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Early pioneers of the Anti-enshittificationist movement bsky.app/profile/moleymole.bsky.social/post/3mhe6yb3bgs26
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Ethicsl concerns about free speech is also nonsexistent in that part of the world, should that be emulated? /S
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I, personally, am a proud luddite4life
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i would argue the luddites weren't against any technology at all, they wanted a seat at the table to determine how it was used and to not become obselete as workers. they're best understood as a foundational part of the labor movement, imo
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This!

This this this!

One of my local pubs was a regular meeting place for them, they wanted worker control of factories and not to be beholden to the capitalist class
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Aka they were rational and smart. How dare they...
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I’ve started referring to myself as a Luddite—it raises eyebrows, and then I get to explain.

I like to think I’m multiplying the Luddites.
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Rather be a Luddite than a dipshit...
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But it's such an excellent way to dismiss counter arguments without engaging, too.
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once had a guy argue with me about this post a screenshot of his asking chatgpt about the luddites which provided the wrong popular historical inaccuracies about who they were. could've been art if it didn't make me angry as fuck lmao
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everyone hates My invention just because it runs on live puppies as fuel And yes it is spraying clouds of poison into the air but it is an invention and I made it.

Clearly people just hate inventors and dont want me to invent ANYTHING
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I have a student in my class this year who’s doing a PhD in Law. Thesis topic: issues with AI usage in film in Asia.
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Not an LLM? What exactly is a PhD in law?
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… can you send me that when it’s done?
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Paging @adamjschmidt.bsky.social - to add to your confusion...

(For @legalminimum.bsky.social's benefit - earlier today we were sorting out the difference between a doctorate and a PhD.)
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Also helps me immediately identify who to block.
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No one is saying you can't use AI to make shit it's just no one is going to pay for it.

You can't prosecute anyone for "pirating" AI media because no one owns it because no one made it.
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I blogged about this exact term recently. In fact, many Luddites were at the leading edge of the technology. It was really about working conditions…. bsky.app/profile/richardg42.bsky.social/post/3mar7hucpws2i
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bro is in the comments calling anti-AI "anti intellactualism" which is probably the biggest bong cloud of copium i have ever witnessed
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I had to look up "copium," because I thought it was an actual word.

I dislike this term. This sounds like an insult one throws at someone they'd like to be wrong, but have no argument against. Like calling a victim "hysterical," or crying "Fake news!" When shown proof of a contrary POV.
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AI is anti intellectualism
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"Fanatical"

Ok

F that
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Typical capitalism, take a very useful (and more so in the future) tool and instead of using like a tool that will give the worker better results, easier job and possibly more free time and instead try to replace the worker. Fucking idiots.
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On one hand, I don't hate the idea that AI is a bigger threat to people who are forced to live under capitalism, although it makes the assumption that the technology is capable of doing the work, which, eh.

On the other hand, the AI companies are absolutely not run by benevolent socialists.
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We need not be anti AI, nor should we give it too much credit bsky.app/profile/domspurling.bsky.social/post/3mchnlb7m5c2e
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I think it's important to recognize that all AI isn't LLM and evil. It's being used in the sciences to do great things sorting through the huge amounts of data that things CERN and the sky surveys create. The man hours to do this manually would be enormous and impossible.
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I oppose technology that does that, and also that steals our creative work, and screws the environment.
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these clowns are always, “we gotta beat china!” unless it’s renewable energy or high speed rail or universal healthcare
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well, they want to beat China specifically to prove that our (inefficient) system is better and that renewable energy and high speed rail and universal healthcare slow them down.

Because they really don't want the people knowing a better system exists.
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Every day, I discover new chuds to block, so thanks for this
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I’m suspicious of that original post; I follow a bunch of Japanese artists and they seem to have the same attitude towards AI as westerners I follow. Usual caveats about anecdotal experience apply of course, but I’d bet the POV isn’t as different as they want us to think.
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They’re probably talking with studio heads and that type. If they were only exposed to those people in America they’d probably come away thinking the same thing
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Funny how a writer who writes for the right-wing National Post (which supported the Nazi Unite the Right Rally) and posts on the Nazi microblogging site, would have criticisms of people here.

All conservatives lie. She is a conservative.
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I was going to say the same thing! The creative class all around the world is mostly united against AI but it's like they hope we don't know that.
This is as much bullshit as the "it's inevitable" argument.
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As someone who can read Japanese and lurks on Japanese socmed, I do feel that the common sense that AI is bad isn't as prominent there (AI posts aren't as ratio'd as they are in English-speaking spaces) among non-artists but I do admit, my ENG socmed experience is more heavily curated.
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I like how both the image and the OPs second post show that neither is sure if this is desirable, but if you're against it you're a fanatic. The only proper feelings are uncertainty or excitement
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I'm less concerned about AI than I am about human intellectual laziness, frankly.
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Yep, I'm all for renewable energy tech, climate change tech, medical science advances, etc. I just don't see why we're supposed to embrace a product that doesn't work, even for coding, requires constant review, steals works & resources & has to be forced on employees & students. It's not useful.
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“Luddite” is a good term for *some*, who specifically fear how the effects of AI will impact workers, and is a terrible term for others, who are dogmatically opposed to *any form of* AI because of a reactionary ideological response they have to it. it’s a simplistic “ew AI bad” rather than why.
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Luddites had rational reasons for their hatred of corporate machinery. anti-AI dogmatists are just reactionaries. they’re having an emotional reaction to something they see and jumping on a social bandwagon. nothing more.
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This past week, I was in a hipster paper store on Clark St in Chicago, where you have to stand in line to get in. The young clerk told an older couple to check out the Luddite journals. She said she never used them, but they might like them. I was insulted for them. Turns out it’s a brand name.
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I'm not even sure that the original statement is accurate. I was following the case of Johnny Somali, who was charged with a crime in South Korea for posting deep fake videos of himself making out with Korean streamers. It was charged as something like sexual assault.
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That guy is a criminal pest of multiple sorts, apparently.
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AI has empowered the incompetent.
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not even sure how I'm supposed to reckon with this, lots of countries don't have the same ethical issues around labor rights that I have, that's been like a whole serious thing for a long time.
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"At some point the Bluesky freaks are going to have to reckon with the fact that China doesn't care about intellectual property rights or fair labor conditions"

bruh
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Really wish some people could learn to enjoy their bandwagon in silence.

I don't give a shit if the people there think it's the greatest thing since electricity. That's not something I factor in when I decide whether I like something or not and it's fucking weird to do otherwise.
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My Chinese family were all in with all new tech until they were in the Shanghai airport and they discovered gigantic "mirrors" that projected all their personal info into a public area.

Things they didn't know themselves.

Then the older ones went back to blissfully using the tech.
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The kids were freaked out and have been actively breaking their tech that is spying on them.
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This person still finds AI harmful btw. The quote will have users come away thinking that person is pro- rather than anti-. Also if luddites are a good term then I guess AI truly does own the future, with opponents sequestered in communities dotted around the map. That’s probably fine.
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Brother he is asking you to have a reckoning for not being pro slop. They might say they are anti ai but that's the most obvious lie this side of donnie
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This isn't true - Luddites weren't against machines at all. They were explicitly against capital owners getting all of the before from technological advances when labor was just as important to the factory owners ability to buy machines.

1/
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They smashed machines because they couldn't get notified any other way -- not because they were against the machines.

This makes complete sense if you stop and think about how terrible hand weaving etc. was as a job. No one was against machines doing it.
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I see Ludd mentioned, I spam my favorite Cool People episode 🥰

www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-cool-people-who-did-cool-96003360/episode/czm-rewind-part-one-all-hail-king-ludd-how-the-luddites-almost-saved-us-310110626/
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Exactly! I'm fucking happy to be an anti-ai Luddite lol.

Like...."go around smashing shit cuz I know that technology is gonna hurt everyone who doesn't already have money" is both helping the community *and* smashing shit!
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Very well said. I'll be happy to throw my sabot into the AI server farm, but leave the cloud computing server farm alone.
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“ a whole bunch of people in Asia like it so obviously you’re a fanatic”

The majority of the world believe in God that hasn’t made him stand on my doorstep yet this argument is dumb
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This French-Candian woman invoking what she thinks is a broad ethnic stance by naming the largest & most culturally diverse continent in the world is pretty appalling too.

Like oh, you say the Asians in film like AI? Like... all of Russia, India, Japan, China, Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia, etc? Really?
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I prefer butlerian jihadist as that is specifically about AI…
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AI is just another tool to transfer even more wealth to the rich. Less people to pay means more money for them.
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totally agree

luddites were not against progress, they were against losing their jobs and income

which is what the AI advocates never seem to be able to say. the big savings - *IF* AI actually works - are in replacing people

without something like UBI, AI will lead to a huge underclass
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Once again I'm begging people to stop using AI when they mean the LLMs foisted on us by silicon valley. I don't think people here are against all AI. Hell most have no idea of the scope of things that covers. Also, the LLMs suck and I don't really care if people elsewhere use them
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stephendevoy.substack.com/p/are-you-willing-to-face-extinction
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Great take on this thought.
@bcmerchant.bsky.social
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and of course the waste of resources limits the replies
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I figure that anything that provides consistently wrong answers to questions about my heavily regulated and well documented field can’t be useful for much at all.
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i feel like we should be asking ourselves every day whether a labor-saving device is beneficial to humanity or not, because it isn't always. total costs, etc.
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about to get an up-close look at this; working on a film where there's an AI component to the shoot schedule. 🧐
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