"The challenge, then, isn’t just understanding where A.I. is headed—it’s shaping its direction before the choices narrow. As an example of A.I.’s potential to play a socially productive role, Autor pointed to health care, now the largest employment sector in the U.S. If nurse practitioners were supported by well-designed A.I. systems, he said, they could take on a broader range of diagnostic and treatment responsibilities, easing the country’s shortage of M.D.s and lowering health-care costs. Similar opportunities exist in other fields, such as education and law, he argued. “The problem in the economy right now is that much of the most valuable work involves expert decision-making, monopolized by highly educated professionals who aren’t necessarily becoming more productive,” he said. “The result is that everyone pays a lot for education, health care, legal services, and design work. That’s fine for those of us providing these services—we pay high prices, but we also earn high wages. But many people only consume these services. They’re on the losing end.”

If A.I. were designed to augment human expertise rather than replace it, it could promote broader economic gains and reduce inequality by providing opportunities for middle-skill work, Autor said. His great concern, however, is that A.I. is not being developed with this goal in mind. Instead of designing systems that empower human workers in real-world environments—such as urgent-care centers—A.I. developers focus on optimizing performance against narrowly defined data sets."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/21/how-to-survive-the-ai-revolution

people are banging on endlessly about the #luddites but i dont see much emphasis on the mass character of their movement

it was a class-based social movement built from below which used direct action to achieve its goals. they struggled for reforms and defended the use of violence

#luddism is less about individual life choices and more about joining and organising in social movements to create a real social force to transform society

if #luddism is so cool then why is joining your local grassroots workplace/tenant union, solidarity network or neighbourhood mutual aid group so uncommon?

engaging (in whatever way you can) in concrete political practice is crucial if we want the legacy of #luddism to mean more than the romantic idea of hitting something with a large hammer

@AkaSci
If "vitamins" & "natural immunity after allowing yourself to become infected" worked, we wouldn't have needed to develop a #vaccine in the first place.

#NaturalImmunity. Brought to you by the same people who told the state of California that if they just "raked the forest", they wouldn't have these massive #wildfires each year. #TooStupidForPolitics #Luddites

Today in Labor History March 11, 1811: Luddites attacked looms near Nottingham, England, because automation was threatening their jobs. At the time, workers were suffering from high unemployment, declining wages, an “endless” war with France and food scarcity. On March 11, they smashed machines in Nottingham and demonstrated for job security and higher wages. The protests and property destruction spread across a 70-mile area of England, reaching Manchester. The government sent troops to protect the factories and made machine-breaking punishable by death.

Dystopian Society is knocking at the door.

Dont say Ive not been trying to warn you for a long time now. STOP playing along. Ignore that this mentions Blair, bc all politicians, all HE policy (eg the sad JISC), everyone, are behaving like headless cattle about this stuff. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-12/oracle-s-ellison-calls-for-governments-to-unify-data-to-feed-ai

Remember, Ellison is the guy that said “Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on”. https://fortune.com/2024/09/17/oracle-larry-ellison-surveillance-state-police-ai/

Throw away your ring doorbell. Throw away your Alexa, Echo, Siri. Throw any smart tech in the trash right now. Stop using your phone to pay for everything, use a dedicated card. Dont use Google as much as you can. Stop using loyalty cards. Use throwaway email accts.

Im not a conspiracy theorist, Im an ordinary mid level tech person. At least think about this a little bit. There are many highly technically literate ppl who now refer to themselves as Luddites, bc we are against technology that does harm.

Fantastic find in my pile of shame, and very timely! The book wants nothing less than turning Marxists into Luddites and vice versa. Not sure about being a Marxist, but I already like Mueller’s approach of reading into Luddism as a compositional class struggle, an “assemblage of enunciations”.

I have some thoughts on AI and Luddites #AI #Luddites

http://scitechkapsar.co/2024/12/28/ai-and-ludditism/

The Luddites did not indiscriminately destroy machines; if a machine’s owner paid his workers well, they left it alone. The Luddites were not anti-technology; what they wanted was economic justice. They destroyed machinery as a way to get factory owners’ attention. The fact that the word #Luddite is now used as an insult, a way of calling someone irrational and ignorant, is a result of a smear campaign by the forces of capital.”

Ted Chiang in the New Yorker.

2/2

always remember: it's not because capitalism was winning that the system had to smash the luddites. it's precisely the opposite. time to return the 'favour'.
#luddites #luddism #smashTheLooms

Wales Rising has been awarded gold and silver medals in the Readers' Choice awards run by E-connections Magazine. Get them all at mybook.to/WalesRising The men and women who fought for our rights. #Luddites #revolution #historicalfiction

AI workers are almost certainly not yet good enough to replace human workers, so this advertisement for an AI company called “Artisan” is all bluster. They are clearly trying to make a quick buck off of this latest LLM-driven AI investment bubble.

But what is more concerning is the how boldly this “Artisan” AI company declares their intention to help extremely wealthy companies increase profits by eliminating human jobs. The history of the industrial revolution, the sweatshops, the extreme misery of factory workers, the Luddites, the Communists, the Great Depression… all of that history is repeating itself. Will the political leaders of the governments of the world be smart enough to learn from history and respond to this situation, perhaps with some universal basic income plan, and/or regulation of the AI industry?

Or will they continue to let these very large companies essentially rob ordinary people of their livelihood until violence erupts against them on a massive scale? Perhaps our political leaders believe they can keep the peace using invincible police robots, and that somehow this will not lead to the situation depicted in the fictional story of “The Terminator.” And have they considered what might happen when terrorists learn how to hack these killer robots for their own personal use?

If our political leaders aren’t going to learn from history, the recent murder of a US health insurance company CEO is just a drop in the tsunami of violence that is yet to come.

what if the sharks been talking to the orcas and decided to join their #Luddites party and go for what the humans can’t live without these days?

has anybody seen a shark wearing a hand still holding an iPhone as a hat?

https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/113583927261430658

a very much needed secular Sunday sermon, with a shout out to our political ancestors the #Luddites, brought to you by Andrew @ajroach42

https://retro.social/@ajroach42/113578206804231287

fuckit, don’t know if the tag exists so let me tag it and make it the first of many to come.

Serious question Fedifriends:
Do I really want to update to iOS 18?
#iOS #iPhone
#Luddite #Luddites

Wales Rising has been awarded gold and silver medals in the Readers' Choice awards run by E-connections Magazine. Get them all at mybook.to/WalesRising The men and women who fought for our rights. #Luddites #revolution #historicalfiction

your regular reminder to smash the looms.
#luddites #bigTech #freePalestine #fuckAI #blackrockUK #blackrock