Stop Feeling Helpless About AI: The Violent History of Resisting Technology

What if everything you've been told about technological progress is a lie?

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AI is changing society faster than ever, but resistance to technology is not new. For this week's Free Speech Friday I spoke with academic Thomas Dekeyser, author of Techno Negative, about the history of anti-technology movements, from the Luddites smashing machines in the Industrial Revolution to anarchist groups bombing computer companies in the 1980s.

We discuss AI, labor automation, surveillance, moral panic, Silicon Valley ideology, tech CEOs, machine breaking, environmental destruction, and why backlash against technology keeps returning throughout history. We also explore whether technological progress actually benefits ordinary people, or mainly serves corporations and power. Sometimes it's not what you think!

Topics include:

• Why anti-AI movements are growing

• Big Tech and labor exploitation

• AI moral panic and conspiracy theories

• Environmental costs of AI

• Surveillance and control

• The politics of technological progress

• Why people resist new technology

• Silicon Valley and deregulation