It’s an insult, no doubt. Oxford Languages defines Luddite as “a person opposed to new technology or ways of working,” offering this example in context: "a small-minded Luddite resisting progress." (They add, redundantly, that this use is “derogatory.”)
To be called a Luddite is to be called a dinosaur: someone who is incapable of realising the amazing opportunities afforded by technology — and who doesn’t want anyone else to realise them, either.
But these insults are a wholly inaccurate representation of actual Luddites. When technology first came for weavers, cotton-spinners and croppers, writes Clive Thompson, “[t]he workers tried bargaining. They weren’t opposed to machinery, they said, if the profits from increased productivity were shared. The croppers suggested taxing cloth to make a fund for those unemployed by machines. Others argued that industrialists should introduce machinery more gradually, to allow workers more time to adapt to new trades.”
As their concerns grew, and continued to be ignored, they upped the ante— but not indiscriminately, as Richard Conniff explains. “They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called ‘a fraudulent and deceitful manner’ to get around standard labour practices. ‘They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,’ says [Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection “Writings of the Luddites”], ‘and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.’”
In other words, they weren’t opposed to technology or new ways of working. They were opposed to being taken advantage of. Aren’t we all? They didn’t care about the machines. They cared about fairness. They cared about the value of what they had to offer, the need to be appreciated, the ability to produce a quality product and take pride in their work, the right to a decent standard of living. Don’t we all?
A couple weeks ago, Azeem Azhar described the writers’ strike as “a case of labour against, not so much technology, as capital. Streaming, and chatbots, change the balance of power between workers and firms.”
C. Robert Cargill, who wrote the movie “Doctor Strange,” tweeted that “The immediate fear of AI isn’t that us writers will have our work replaced by artificially generated content. It’s that we will be underpaid to rewrite that trash into something we could have done better from the start.”
John August, who wrote the 2000 film version of “Charlie’s Angels” along with “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” said, “The studios would love to treat writers as gig workers. They want to be able to hire us for a day at a time, one draft at a time, and get rid of us as quickly as possible. I think they see AI as another way to do that.”
These writers are opposed to being taken advantage of. Aren’t we all?
They care about fairness. They care about the value of what they have to offer, the need to be appreciated, the ability to produce a quality product and take pride in their work, the right to a decent standard of living. Don’t we all?
These issues are not about technology. They’re about who we are and who we want to be, about what kind of society we want to build, about how we honour each other’s contributions. That’s what the Luddites cared about, that’s what the writers care about, and that’s what I care about.
I hope you care about it, too.
