novaBBS - comp.misc - Re: Luddites in the age of AI

From the «stop calling it that» department:
Feed: Tech – TIME
Title: What the Luddites Can Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence
Author: Billy Perrigo
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 10:25:09 -0400
Link: https://time.com/6317437/luddites-ai-blood-in-the-machine-merchant/

[image 1]

The Luddites have a bad reputation.

These days, the word is most commonly used as an insult—shorthand for somebody
who doesn’t understand new technology, is skeptical of progress, and wants to
remain stuck in the ways of the past.

That perception couldn’t be more wrong, according to Brian Merchant. In his new
book, Blood in the Machine, Merchant argues that understanding the true history
of the Luddites is vital for workers today grappling with the rise of artificial
intelligence (AI) and automation in the workplace.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“At least in my lifetime, the Luddites have never been more relevant,” Merchant,
39, tells TIME. “We are confronting a series of cases where technology is being
used by tech companies and executives in different industries as a means of
trying to drive down wages and worsen conditions so that the entrepreneurial
class can make more money.”

Who were the Luddites?

If you know anything about the Luddites, you probably know that they were
English textile workers who, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, resisted
the introduction of new machinery. They would sneak into factories in the dead
of night and destroy the power-looms they believed were threatening their jobs.

That much is true. But, as Merchant’s book outlines in detail, it is an
incomplete picture. The Luddites were not anti-machinery; many of them were
machine experts and welcomed the introduction of new equipment that made their
work easier. What they opposed was a choice—presented as an inevitability—made
by a class of factory owners in the early 19th century. Instead of seeing
machines as a way to support their expert workers, they introduced industrial
machinery that could make large quantities of textiles faster and more cheaply
than clothworkers working by hand. These simple new machines meant factory
owners began employing more lower-skilled and therefore lower-waged
workers—often child laborers—instead of skilled clothworkers with years of
training. The cloth these machines produced was lower quality, but it was so
cheap to churn out, and there was so much of it, that the factory owners still
turned a profit.

The Luddites correctly recognized that this shift was not only debasing their
art and depressing their wages, but also changing the very nature of what it
meant to work. In the place of a “cottage industry” where clothworkers, often
working from home, could work as many or as few hours in the day as suited them,
a new institution was arising: the factory. Inside the factory, workers would
work long hours at dangerous machinery, be fed meager meals, and submit to the
punitive authority of the foreman. The Luddites saw that the winners from this
technological “progress” would not be workers—neither the expert textile makers
losing their jobs, nor the exploited children replacing them. The winners were
the factory owners who, having found a new way to disempower their workers, were
able to amass a greater share of the profits those workers generated.

Labor organizing at the time was illegal, so workers had few legal means of
protest. The Luddites decided, instead of going after factory owners, to destroy
the machines. But not any machines. They would target only the factories whose
owners they believed were using new machinery as a pretense to erode their
livelihoods. They would warn them in advance, giving them a chance to change
their practices; some owners took it. Eventually, however, industrialists and
the state came together, and British troops were sent to violently crush the
Luddite movement.

How are the Luddites relevant today?

Merchant is far from the first to argue the Luddites are deserving of a
historical reappraisal. The social historian E.P. Thompson documented their
movement in the 1960s and argued it was the first time industrial workers began
to conceive of themselves being members of a single political group: the working
class. But where Blood in the Machine is unique is in the parallels it draws
with the 21st century economy.
[image 2]

Those parallels, Merchant says, are visible across industries: from the art
world—where AI-generated imagery is depressing illustrators’ wages—to transit,
where ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have turned taxi-driving into an
unprofitable and insecure profession. And in the entertainment industry,
Merchant notes, writers and actors have been striking[3] to protest attempts by
studios to use AI to degrade their pay and job stability.

“If you look at the writers and the actors who are on strike today, they’re not
worried that AI is going to write the next Martin Scorsese movie,” Merchant told
TIME on Sept. 13. “They’re worried that it’s going to churn out something deemed
good enough by the studios, who will then send it to the writers for a rewrite
fee, and not give them full ownership of the script, and the writers will make
less money. That technology is being used deliberately as leverage against the
workers. And that pattern is eerily similar to what was happening in the Luddite
day: the way that technology doesn’t really replace workers, because it can’t,
but it is used to degrade their livelihoods, to cut down their wages, and to
break their power.”

Read more: 4 Charts That Show Why AI Progress Is Unlikely to Slow Down[4]

The Luddites, of course, failed. Automated machinery of the kind they were
resisting kicked off the industrial revolution—and while many millions of people
were immiserated in factories as a result, there is no denying that this process
made goods cheaper and more accessible, driving up the average standard of
living. But in the process, Merchant argues, the ruling classes popularized the
pejorative definition of Luddism that exists to this day, not only to discourage
workers from coming together and threatening their property, but also to dilute
their wider political message. That message? That if new technologies erode
wages and increase wealth inequality, it’s a result of a political choice by the
owners of that technology, not a result of the inevitable and unstoppable march
of progress. And that therefore, a more equitable way forward is
possible—keeping the benefits of technology, but sharing its proceeds more
widely. As Merchant puts it: “we can absolutely decide how we want technology to
be used.”

It’s that political message, not the machine-smashing, that Blood in the Machine
attempts to rehabilitate. (Not that destroying AI or other forms of automation
would even be possible in most cases, Merchant notes, given that taking a hammer
to globally-distributed software corporations is pretty difficult.) The book
casts Luddites not as backward technophobes, but as a prescient movement from
whom a new generation of worker activists can learn plenty. “We should be
Luddites,” Merchant says. “The Luddites were making a powerful complaint. If we
reclaim what they were actually trying to say, we can apply the lessons of their
story to today, and prevent a lot of misery.”

Links:
[1]: https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/GettyImages-1185854652.jpg (image)
[2]: https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BrianMerchant_web-19.jpg?w=560 (image)
[3]: https://time.com/6317199/wga-strike-tentative-agreement/ (link)
[4]: https://time.com/6300942/ai-progress-charts/ (link)

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Social media is for when too few idiots surround you in real life

Subject	Author
Luddites in the age of AI	Retrograde
Re: Luddites in the age of AI	Geeknix
Re: Luddites in the age of AI	Dave Yeo

Many alligators will be slain, but the swamp will remain.

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