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National Geographic

Before AI skeptics, Luddites raged against the machine...literally

Ned Ludd, the fictitious leader of the Luddites, depicted in an 1812 hand-colored etching. The Luddites named their movement after Ned Ludd due to his rebellious spirit. Photograph by Niday Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo When a band of raiders broke into knitting manufacturer's shop in Arnold, England, in March 1811 their goal wasn't to steal goods or money—it was to smash knitting frames, an early form of textile machinery. These saboteurs were known as Luddites, and those broken frames were just the beginning. Often misunderstood as anti-technology cranks, the Luddites were skilled workers who saw the potential harm that new technology could bring. Now, more than 200 years later, their rebellion feels newly relevant. As artificial intelligence continues to transform the world, age-old questions about labor and technology have reemerged. What did the Luddites fight for—and how does their struggle shed light on movements to rein in AI? Who were the Luddites? In the midst of tremendous change in early 19th-century Great Britain, discontent was brewing among weavers, stocking-makers, and saddlemakers determined to protect their livelihoods. For generations, their craftsmanship had helped make English textiles one of the nation's signature goods. 'The Luddites, as skilled craftspeople, took pride in their work, and criticized the low quality of the goods produced with new technologies,' says Gavin Mueller, assistant professor of new media and digital culture at the University of Amsterdam and author of Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job. Limited Time: Bonus Issue Offer Subscribe now and gift up to 4 bonus issues—starting at $34/year. They took their name from the apprentice stocking-maker and folk hero Ned Ludd, whom scholar Steven E. Jones called 'a collective popular invention.' According to the apocryphal story, when his master scolded Ludd for his poor work, the apprentice protested by smashing a stocking-frame frame to bits. Ludd's act of protest became a rallying cry. Workers dubbed themselves 'Luddites' in honor of the man they called 'General Ludd' and 'King Ludd.' To them, he was nothing less than a Robin Hood figure who represented defiance. And as Robin Hood had Sherwood Forest, the Luddites had central and northern England, the hotbed of their industries—and a region undergoing a significant transformation powered by the Industrial Revolution. This illustration by Frank Peel depicts Rawfords Mill near Huddersfield, Yorkshire in approximately 1810. The textile mill was the first of its kind to introduce mechanization and was attacked by members of the Luddite movement in protest in 1811. Photograph byWhat were the Luddites protesting? The Industrial Revolution was fueled by a simple, marketable promise: Machines could produce goods faster and cheaper than skilled artisans. Gig mills, knitting machines, the powered loom, the spinning mule—which used 1,000 spindles at once to efficiently spin cotton into yarn—and other new textile machinery didn't need skilled workers to man them. To cut costs, factories often hired children for below minimum wage rather than working-class adults. At one factory in Cromford, children accounted for two-thirds of the 2,000-person-strong workforce. They labored under wretched working conditions, including long hours, poor food, and corporeal punishment. At the time, there were few regulations or laws to protect them. (How a tragedy transformed protections for American workers.) The rise of factory systems were rapidly reshaping the textile industry, and they knew many factory owners weren't on their side. If machines could churn out goods more cheaply and efficiently, how could traditional craftsmen compete? 'The Luddites were protesting the way that factory owners and early entrepreneurs were using technology to degrade their working conditions, erode their wages, and usher in a new kind of working—factory work—that would tear up their autonomy and leave them subservient to bosses,' says Brian Merchant, journalist and author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech. The Napoleonic Wars only made the situation worse. The series of wars against Napoleon Bonaparte that lasted from 1793 to 1815 caused food shortages and higher taxes that darkened the nation's mood. Unemployment spiked in central and northern England—the very same places where skilled textile workers were already fearing for their jobs. An engraving from 1813 depicts Luddite textile workers protesting against the introduction of mechanized looms and other technological advancements of the industrial revolution. This new machinery threatened the Luddite's livelihoods, replacing textile craftsmen with automation. Illustration by Hablot Knight Browne, Bridgeman Images What did the Luddites do? Beginning in March 1811, bands of Luddites took matters into their own hands. In a wave of coordinated nighttime raids across Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, they broke into factories and targeted frames that directly threatened the work of skilled artisans. In this way, Luddites weren't strictly anti-technology—they protested a system that was displacing them. Manufacturers condemned the Luddites' activities, since their property was on the line. In the first year alone, Luddites destroyed up to £10,000 worth of frames. Damaging property wasn't their only MO. Workers attempted to negotiate with manufacturers, wrote threatening letters to factory owners, and explained their goals in public declarations. Factory employers found an ally in the British government, which deployed an estimated 12,000 troops to the Luddites' operating regions to brutally crush the movement. Thousands of informers in an extensive spy network were activated to gather whatever intel they could to further weaken the Luddites. Machine breaking became a capital offense, with anyone convicted possibly being sentenced to death. In January 1813, for example, a commission in York sentenced 17 Luddites to death by hanging and transported others to Australia. Despite their efforts, the Luddites were ultimately unable to stop the tide of industrialization. The number of British handloom weavers collapsed from 250,000 around 1800 to just 7,000 only 60 years later. The crackdown on the movement also helped the word 'Luddite' take on a new meaning. 'The state actively sought to cast them in a negative light to make them look foolish—and, because they lost, and because the state had influence over many of the nation's newspapers, the derogatory meaning stuck,' Merchant explains. 'Even today, 200 years later, we think of a 'luddite' as someone who dislikes technology—not someone who wages a tactical rebellion against the way elites are using it to ruin people's lives,' he says. Who are the new tech skeptics? AI is creating a new industrial revolution. And once again, creative workers find themselves on the defensive—this time against algorithms that promise efficiency at the expense of human jobs. Mueller points out, 'I think about [the Luddites] often when I see text and images generated by AI—they often strike me as inferior to work produced by even moderately skilled human beings.' (Your biggest AI questions, answered.) Concerns over AI have given rise to new organizations and movements that rage against the machine. PauseAI has picked up the Luddite mantle, protesting what it believes to be significant harms unleashed by AI. The group says that artificial intelligence will cause an erosion of democratic values, economic impacts, and an elevated risk of human extinction. The Algorithmic Justice League is another organization calling for greater accountability with AI and devotes its energy to highlighting the inequalities that the technology perpetuates. (Explore humanity's complicated relationship with robots.) Concerns over the use of AI in Hollywood was also a feature of the 2023 Writer's Guild Strike, which Mueller calls 'a classic Luddite struggle.' Though tech-skeptic groups have their own mission, Mueller sees similarities between them: 'Behind AI skepticism is a larger question. What kind of future do we want to have?' He notes that these organizations have something in common with the Luddite movement, 'a recognition that the only way to counter the power of technology is through collective action.'