The Rebellion against the Empire of AI. Named after a British labor movement from 1811-1816 that—with style and swagger—disrupted textile factories. Not opposed to machines per se, they wanted a say in how technology was used to preserve their livelihood, their craft, their community. (The government eventually suppressed the Luddites, requiring 14,000 troops.) The Luddites of today ask who actually gains from AI and why we would want to substitute creativity and excellence with exploitation and slop. The new Luddites are out there, capturing crawler bots, putting traffic cones on robotaxis, building the resistance. Take it from Nemik, a fictional character in the series “Andor”: “The Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.”

Merchant, Brian (2023): Blood in the Machine