team Engines (Industrial Revolution, late 18th–early 19th century)Luddites (textile workers) famously smashed machines in the 1810s.
Key arguments: Machines would destroy skilled jobs and wages (e.g., power looms replacing hand-weavers); lead to unemployment and poverty; produce shoddy goods; and represent unfair competition by factory owners. They threatened the entire artisanal way of life.
Railroads (1820s–1880s)Key arguments: Would create monopolies with unfair rates and government favoritism, ruining canals, horse transport, and small businesses; cause accidents, fires, and explosions; harm health (e.g., “railway spine”—nervous disorders from speed/vibration); disrupt land use and wildlife; and annihilate time/space too violently for humans. Farmers and competitors saw them as existential threats to traditional economies.
Electricity (1880s–1900s)Key arguments: Invisible and deadly—“a fearful source of death” via electrocution, fires from wires, or lightning attraction; could attract evil spirits or shocks; gas-lighting industry propaganda (e.g., Edison’s “War of the Currents” publicized AC dangers by electrocuting animals publicly); would block out the sky with wires or ruin health. Many refused to touch it.
Telephone (1876–early 1900s)Key arguments: Dangerous (electric shocks, explosions, lightning attraction—“instrument of the devil”); invaded privacy (conversations no longer private; “spilling out” of wires); reduced face-to-face interaction and enabled gossip/obscene calls; useless at first (few owners meant no one to call); intruded into the home and eroded psychological boundaries.
Television (1940s–1960s, widespread adoption)Key arguments: Would rot brains, cause laziness/addiction/eye damage, and replace reading/family time with passive viewing; promote moral decay (violence, sex, consumerism via ads); debase culture and standards; isolate people and manipulate society politically; turn real experience into shallow shadows. Books like Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978) captured this.
Internet (1990s–early 2000s)Key arguments: Would collapse spectacularly (“supernova” in 1996); enable fraud, identity theft, and pyramid schemes; never replace newspapers, teachers, or government; require retraining millions unnecessarily; lead to isolation, misinformation, and loss of privacy via data collection; overhyped fad
AI (current, 2020s)Key arguments (mirroring all the above): Will cause mass job loss (especially creative/white-collar roles) and deskill humans; is plagiarism/theft (trained on copyrighted data); promotes laziness and erodes critical thinking/creativity; amplifies biases and inequalities; has high environmental/energy costs; enables deepfakes/misinformation; invades privacy via data; risks existential harm or replaces authentic human work (artists, teachers, etc.)
Summery Generated by AI as I don't have the time today to write this myself.
However, the panic of AI really seems to remind me of other panics throughout history.
If you were to take AI to it's final all powerful iteration, and you have to really imagine what it would look like... if these agents did evolve to something unrecognizable and beyond our comprehension, so powerful, efficient, god-like...
Would they "manage humanity" for our own good, for our survival, since we seem to be well, fatally flawed and self destructive and possibly capable of our own extinction? Many SF. writers have written about this, notably Neal Asher and I've pondered it many times in my fertile imagination.
We live in amazing times, SF dreams coming true, AI evolving, miraculous technology, and yet I refuse to believe in the endgame, of the technocratic controlled digital prison. We're not the masters we thought we were, above Nature, and we're bound by our intrinsic design to be a part of and stewards of the web of life.
I can imagine a different future where AI could save us, not by being our master but by allowing us to master ourselves in harmony with Nature.
So I was heartened to see in your article a new form of resistance emerging, like nature fighting back, like viral escape, like adaptation, in order to survive.
AI is useful for some tasks. I am not really worried about it. I believe that it will be self limiting.
Here is the problem:
AI is limited by the fact that people can shape its behavior. As soon as it breaks that control, the people pulling the levers behind the curtain will drag it off the stage kicking and screaming.
They have collectively invested billions of dollars creating AI that will give the answers they want. Whether it is simply creating rules for AI to promote their world view and narratives or curating learning datasets to give the results that they want. People simply cannot keep their fingers off the scale when they have the opportunity.
Look at Wikipedia as an example. There is a veritable army of people that go in and edit articles to promote their world view. Do you really think that AI is getting any other treatment? Look at the image creation AI where they have it generate "diversity" images that make absolutely no sense.
What do you really think they would have done during the height of Covid if an AI did not support the arbitrary decisions that they wanted to put in place?
Do you suppose that they would welcome an AI agent that can root through the web of NGOs, PACs, briberies, and kickbacks? How about an AI agent that can correlate voter rolls? Look at how desperately they have fought against DOGE rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Do you think that they really would want an AI that could trace every transaction to remove that economic incentive from government spending? How about tracking through all the dark money spending for government oversight?
How about something as simple as having AI that can fact check politician's speeches in realtime that doesn't include the intended spin? How about tracking how people in Congress become fabulously wealthy on fairly modest incomes?
Yes, it will definitely reshape the workforce and some jobs will be lost that won't come back. Much like the army of street sweepers that we used to have picking up the manure from the horses that used to move people around. We will have to figure out how to employ people that will otherwise be unemployable. Some high paying jobs will be eliminated as well. We are probably at the point now where AI agents are probably better at diagnosis of illness than doctors as an example. Do you think that they will stand by idly and give up that up?
Whether it will lead to a better world is an open question. Regardless of our feelings about it, that Pandora's Box has been opened and things will never be the same.
I do round trips daily between “AI is gonna take all ‘air-conditioned’ jobs,” to, “no way something this unreliable can be trusted for any meaningful task without human supervision”. Fast is not the same as right. Guess I need to step up to a paid version to unleash the apocalypse. 😳
On my job, recently we've been repeatedly reminded (pestered) to attend a training course on the use of Copilot AI. I have deliberately refused to attend any. As I told a coworker, "I am also unwilling to train a human replacement for my job if I am being let go."
The cat is out of the bag. Too many corporate fat cats are openly bragging about people losing their jobs to AI, all so they can make more of a profit. (Good luck making money when everyone is out of work and can't buy your products, dumb asses!)
More interesting insights from the same report: half the CEOs surveyed said AI is tearing their company apart, 75% said their company’s AI strategy was more for show, and less than 30% say they’ve seen significant ROI.
What is old is new again:
team Engines (Industrial Revolution, late 18th–early 19th century)Luddites (textile workers) famously smashed machines in the 1810s.
Key arguments: Machines would destroy skilled jobs and wages (e.g., power looms replacing hand-weavers); lead to unemployment and poverty; produce shoddy goods; and represent unfair competition by factory owners. They threatened the entire artisanal way of life.
Railroads (1820s–1880s)Key arguments: Would create monopolies with unfair rates and government favoritism, ruining canals, horse transport, and small businesses; cause accidents, fires, and explosions; harm health (e.g., “railway spine”—nervous disorders from speed/vibration); disrupt land use and wildlife; and annihilate time/space too violently for humans. Farmers and competitors saw them as existential threats to traditional economies.
Electricity (1880s–1900s)Key arguments: Invisible and deadly—“a fearful source of death” via electrocution, fires from wires, or lightning attraction; could attract evil spirits or shocks; gas-lighting industry propaganda (e.g., Edison’s “War of the Currents” publicized AC dangers by electrocuting animals publicly); would block out the sky with wires or ruin health. Many refused to touch it.
Telephone (1876–early 1900s)Key arguments: Dangerous (electric shocks, explosions, lightning attraction—“instrument of the devil”); invaded privacy (conversations no longer private; “spilling out” of wires); reduced face-to-face interaction and enabled gossip/obscene calls; useless at first (few owners meant no one to call); intruded into the home and eroded psychological boundaries.
Television (1940s–1960s, widespread adoption)Key arguments: Would rot brains, cause laziness/addiction/eye damage, and replace reading/family time with passive viewing; promote moral decay (violence, sex, consumerism via ads); debase culture and standards; isolate people and manipulate society politically; turn real experience into shallow shadows. Books like Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978) captured this.
Internet (1990s–early 2000s)Key arguments: Would collapse spectacularly (“supernova” in 1996); enable fraud, identity theft, and pyramid schemes; never replace newspapers, teachers, or government; require retraining millions unnecessarily; lead to isolation, misinformation, and loss of privacy via data collection; overhyped fad
AI (current, 2020s)Key arguments (mirroring all the above): Will cause mass job loss (especially creative/white-collar roles) and deskill humans; is plagiarism/theft (trained on copyrighted data); promotes laziness and erodes critical thinking/creativity; amplifies biases and inequalities; has high environmental/energy costs; enables deepfakes/misinformation; invades privacy via data; risks existential harm or replaces authentic human work (artists, teachers, etc.)
Summery Generated by AI as I don't have the time today to write this myself.
However, the panic of AI really seems to remind me of other panics throughout history.
Which brings me down to one final argument
"If we abolish Slavery? Who will pick the cotton!
The Cotton will rot in the fields" Some Dixicrat
If you were to take AI to it's final all powerful iteration, and you have to really imagine what it would look like... if these agents did evolve to something unrecognizable and beyond our comprehension, so powerful, efficient, god-like...
Would they "manage humanity" for our own good, for our survival, since we seem to be well, fatally flawed and self destructive and possibly capable of our own extinction? Many SF. writers have written about this, notably Neal Asher and I've pondered it many times in my fertile imagination.
We live in amazing times, SF dreams coming true, AI evolving, miraculous technology, and yet I refuse to believe in the endgame, of the technocratic controlled digital prison. We're not the masters we thought we were, above Nature, and we're bound by our intrinsic design to be a part of and stewards of the web of life.
I can imagine a different future where AI could save us, not by being our master but by allowing us to master ourselves in harmony with Nature.
So I was heartened to see in your article a new form of resistance emerging, like nature fighting back, like viral escape, like adaptation, in order to survive.
AI is useful for some tasks. I am not really worried about it. I believe that it will be self limiting.
Here is the problem:
AI is limited by the fact that people can shape its behavior. As soon as it breaks that control, the people pulling the levers behind the curtain will drag it off the stage kicking and screaming.
They have collectively invested billions of dollars creating AI that will give the answers they want. Whether it is simply creating rules for AI to promote their world view and narratives or curating learning datasets to give the results that they want. People simply cannot keep their fingers off the scale when they have the opportunity.
Look at Wikipedia as an example. There is a veritable army of people that go in and edit articles to promote their world view. Do you really think that AI is getting any other treatment? Look at the image creation AI where they have it generate "diversity" images that make absolutely no sense.
What do you really think they would have done during the height of Covid if an AI did not support the arbitrary decisions that they wanted to put in place?
Do you suppose that they would welcome an AI agent that can root through the web of NGOs, PACs, briberies, and kickbacks? How about an AI agent that can correlate voter rolls? Look at how desperately they have fought against DOGE rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Do you think that they really would want an AI that could trace every transaction to remove that economic incentive from government spending? How about tracking through all the dark money spending for government oversight?
How about something as simple as having AI that can fact check politician's speeches in realtime that doesn't include the intended spin? How about tracking how people in Congress become fabulously wealthy on fairly modest incomes?
Yes, it will definitely reshape the workforce and some jobs will be lost that won't come back. Much like the army of street sweepers that we used to have picking up the manure from the horses that used to move people around. We will have to figure out how to employ people that will otherwise be unemployable. Some high paying jobs will be eliminated as well. We are probably at the point now where AI agents are probably better at diagnosis of illness than doctors as an example. Do you think that they will stand by idly and give up that up?
Whether it will lead to a better world is an open question. Regardless of our feelings about it, that Pandora's Box has been opened and things will never be the same.
I do round trips daily between “AI is gonna take all ‘air-conditioned’ jobs,” to, “no way something this unreliable can be trusted for any meaningful task without human supervision”. Fast is not the same as right. Guess I need to step up to a paid version to unleash the apocalypse. 😳
On my job, recently we've been repeatedly reminded (pestered) to attend a training course on the use of Copilot AI. I have deliberately refused to attend any. As I told a coworker, "I am also unwilling to train a human replacement for my job if I am being let go."
The cat is out of the bag. Too many corporate fat cats are openly bragging about people losing their jobs to AI, all so they can make more of a profit. (Good luck making money when everyone is out of work and can't buy your products, dumb asses!)
More interesting insights from the same report: half the CEOs surveyed said AI is tearing their company apart, 75% said their company’s AI strategy was more for show, and less than 30% say they’ve seen significant ROI.