Am I a modern Luddite?

I was at a meeting the other day when, after a bit of small talk, the conversation shifted to AI. It seems that everything shifts to AI these days. It floods our LinkedIn feeds with AI slop, blocks our use of every piece of software we encounter with it’s pop-ups and sidebars, and prevents us from actually accomplishing our goals inside that software through ongoing enshittification. It replaces real music, film/video, art, and writing with machine generated “word salad,” pieces that are ever shorter, faster, brighter, flashier and clips that serve to shorten our attention spans, distract us from the real world and at the same time actually say less and less.

I read Fahrenheit 451 recently and I wondered — is AI our new “family”?

Back at the meeting, we eagerly compared notes on their vibe-coded software products, discussed which GPT or LLM provides the best results, and shared the new and “exciting” ways their coworkers are experimenting with these new tools. One member had to pack up and leave our meeting so they could log on to ANOTHER meeting about using AI.

I sat back and observed for a bit. Because they say if you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at all. All I could think about was how the handful of tech bros who run these companies has managed to get their hooks into even the most intelligent and reasonable among us.

When the conversation slowed and I felt a need to contribute, I joked that I’m gradually becoming a “Luddite,” someone who eschews technology, maybe even destroys it, in an attempt to honor the dignity of the workers who are being exploited to bring it to fruition.

Most of us know very little about the Luddites. Like most who draw attention to uncomfortable truths, they were misunderstood, mostly thanks to a campaign designed to quiet and discredit them.

It turns out that the Luddites weren’t really opposed to technology. In fact many of them embraced it in their day-to-day work. What they were opposed to was the exploitation of workers, the use of technology as a tool to pressure humans into doing things that weren’t in their best interest, that benefitted the richest among us while marginalizing the rest. Perhaps even more interesting, they did it with a sly wit and a perspective that was really ahead of it’s time.

I’ve happily cracked jokes about Luddites over the years, poking fun at myself and others, but I’m starting to rethink that approach. Because maybe the Luddites had it right all along. Maybe they foretold the future we’re now reaping, one where everything we do is tied up in technology, where we have less and less control over our own destiny, where real, meaningful work is more and more scarce and distraction and noise is ever present.

I’m not sure where the right balance is in terms of how much and what types of technology are worthwhile, but I am pretty sure the current state is not good for any of us. When we’ve lost the will and skill to have a genuine conversation with our friends and neighbors, when we’d rather stare at a constantly shifting set of pixels than connect meaningfully with other humans, when we can’t turn it off even when we want to we’ve probably crossed some sort of line. It’s going to take hard work to walk this back, partially because our brains have been hijacked and partially because there is a powerful set of billionaires working to prevent it from happening.

But what’s the future look like for us if we don’t? Where does this all end? That thought is enough for me to start to think about ways to untangle my life from technology. I’ve not yet deleted my social media accounts, but I did take the apps off of my phone. And I am spending less time in those apps (and more time with people in real life). Maybe it’s a small step, but it’s a start.

What are you doing to separate yourself from the technology that’s designed to control you? How’s it going? What should I try next?

Further Reading: