Luddites

In 1811, under the cover of darkness, a few men snuck into a textile mill.

They smashed and broke a few knitting machines. These machines were new and expensive.

They ran out before anybody could catch them.

The Luddite movement had begun.

The following night, many other men broke into textile mills, smashed and shattered machines, and ran out.

Ludd commanded them to do so. Ludd’s followers were called Luddites.



Textile mill owners were fed up. The UK government had brought in rules to catch these vandals. But it was not working.

Why were they doing this? What was their main goal?

Textile Industry in the UK: A Family Occupation

The UK’s textile industry was an economic powerhouse.

The UK exported textiles all over the world. At first, they started with wool and flax. But with time, as the British Empire grew across the world, they started sourcing cotton from other parts of the world.

Back then, textile manufacturing was an industry that worked out of people’s homes.

Textile manufacturers would source wool, flax, and cotton and supply them to different homes. The families would work together and make the textiles using their hands and tools.

Making textiles was a high-skilled job. New makers would first seek an apprenticeship. After mastering the skill under the watchful eyes of a mentor, they would move out to set up their own practice.

Even back then, the UK was one of the biggest exporters of textiles in the world.

It formed a portion of their economy, and they took the industry very seriously.

Industrial Revolution

Towards the end of the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution was setting in.

The steam engine had been invented and made more efficient. This efficiency improvement had led to incredible inventions such as the railway system, various kinds of factories, new tools, and much more.

It was a chain reaction — one invention led to efficiency improvements, more ideas, more inventions, more productivity, and on and on.

It also affected the textile industry.

New innovations meant that textile-making became easier and more automated. New machines were able to make much more textile in less time, and at a lower cost.

Highly-skilled textile workers were slowly losing their jobs to factory workers who operated textile machines.

These roles were more centered around the maintenance and upkeep of the machines.

As machines became better, more textile manufacturers switched to using machines inside textile mills.

This meant that a large section of skilled textile workers were left without a source of income.

It was around this time that Ludd became famous.

Ludd

The odd thing is, nobody truly knows who Ludd was.

There are some reports to indicate that Ludd was not really involved in this movement. It was an organic movement that caught on because many workers were without a job.

It was a movement that lacked leadership, but they all just assumed a man named Ludd was leading it since everybody else was also talking about him.

In 1811, the first machine was smashed.

The smashings spread, and skilled workers across the country broke into textile mills and smashed machines.

For the next few years, the movement grew and became more violent.

The workers killed a textile mill owner in anger. Soldiers trying to control the crowds killed a few workers. Rioting took place.

The UK government passed a few laws to criminalise the smashing and breaking of textile machines.

Textiles were an extremely important product that the UK government could not afford to compromise.

5 years later, the movement died down.

The textile machines continued to produce textiles, making cloth cheaper and more abundant.

The Luddites came to be known as the people who worked against technological progress.



Many argue that this was a false characterisation. These skilled workers were not against technology as such. They were protesting against their sudden unemployment and lack of income.

But the label stuck.

The word ‘Luddite’ became associated with being against technological progress.

Accustations

While the movement died, the word ‘Luddite’ never died.

In 2015, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking won an award.

2015 Luddite Award.

This was not something they were particularly happy about.

The award was mocking them. It was a sarcasm.

People who are against technological progress and innovation are labeled Luddites.

Despite 200 years since the Luddite movement, the word refuses to die.

When the computer was born and became popular, some critics warned against it. They were called Luddites.

Likewise, something similar was observed when cars were invented and became popular. The critics back then were also called Luddites.

Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking had been warning the world against artificial intelligence and the danger it posed to human society.

Of course, 10 years later, this question is being asked by a lot more people.

AI Luddites

So, what does the Luddite movement teach us about the modern AI wave?

Well, there are lessons.

The textile industry moved on from skilled home-workers to factory wage earners.

The invention of these machines did kill many jobs. The cheaper textiles meant a lot more demand. The higher demand led to more textile factories, which eventually led to more workers being employed at factories.

But the nature of these workers was different. They were skilled in different skills – maintenance, running machines, etc.

They weren’t the same skilled as the folks working in homes had.

This argument is used by many – that technology creates more jobs than it kills (net-net).

Cars took away the jobs of many horse-cart operators. But the number of truck, bus, and cab drivers today is much higher than the number of horse-cart operators in the past.

So, what does this say about AI and the automation it brings?

That is where it gets tricky.

We don’t know.

AI Luddites argue that AI is so good, it will not create more jobs. It will only destroy.

AI optimists counter that with examples of new jobs created during the computer revolution – and how computers created more jobs (net).

AI is very early in our world. So far, it’s hard to say what will happen.

There have been many tech layoffs that have been labelled as AI-caused. We don’t know yet. Many of them are cost-based layoffs that are being labelled as AI-caused.

Sometimes, the companies end up rehiring lots of people after firing them.

The fact of the matter is, we will know only in the long run. Not in the short run.

So far, most technology has proven to be good for society as a whole.

Being called a Luddite has been an insult so far – for nearly 200 years.

How will things turn out this time?