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October 16, 2023: Brian Merchant, author, "Blood in the Machine" – about the Luddites

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Today: Brian Merchant, author, "Blood in the Machine" – about the Luddites

The Luddites were right. Brian Merchant’s new book “Blood in the Machine” tells the story of the Luddites, textile workers in early 19th century England who destroyed factory machines of automation. In our interview, Merchant describes the striking similarities between the Luddites’ time and our current Big Tech-dominated economy.

• Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, by Brian Merchant. Published Sep 26, 2023 by Little Brown and Company.

• Brian Merchant is the technology columnist at the L.A. Times.

• I’ve always loved tech. Now, I’m a Luddite. You should be one, too. (by Brian Merchant in the Washington Post, Sep 18, 2023): “The Luddites’ plight is as relevant as ever. The parallels to the modern day are everywhere.” Merchant also writes:

The original Luddites did not hate technology. Most were skilled machine operators. In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, what they objected to were the specific ways that tech was being used to undermine their status, upend their communities and destroy their livelihoods. So they took sledgehammers to the mechanized looms used to exploit them.

It is that spirit that I’ve come to appreciate in the age of tech monopolies and generative artificial intelligence. The kind of visionaries we need now are those who see precisely how certain technologies are causing harm and who resist them when necessary.