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

There is this act, this kind of breaking frames act, which meant that being caught in machine breaking, you would receive a death penalty, basically. Is technological progress even good? There's this story that we tell ourselves about technology, where it's like someone invents a thing. It's better than the thing that came before it. There might be holdouts to using this new thing, but eventually everyone comes around, everyone's life gets better, and the world comes around. Holdouts to technological progress are usually pitied and laughed at, or seen as out of touch. But Thomas DeKaiser is an academic in the UK who's pushing back on that idea. In his new book, Techno Negative, A Long History of Refusing the Machine, he talks about people resisting technology and why those movements were really important. But that doesn't always mean that they were good. Today, he's joining me to talk about the history of resistance to technology, why this resistance can be a good or bad thing, how the technology that we use and adopt today shapes power, work, and our everyday life, and what ways of resisting technology are useful and which do an enormous amount of harm. Thomas, welcome to Free Speech Friday. Thank you. Great to be here. So to start off, can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to write this book? Yeah, so my book, Techno Negative, very much came from an encounter with a particular group, a historical group that were very much anti-technology. They're a group called Clodo, which in English stands for Committee for Liquidation or Subversion of Computers. And I came across this group kind of by accident and started reading about them. There was this group that were active between 1980, 1983, and they quite literally went and bombed computer companies. And I found it so outrageous and interesting at the same time. And so I became very interested in what other groups, what other movements, what other individuals might exist historically that might shed some light on contemporary questions around how people resist or might resist technology. So it very much came from that kind of historical archival encounter, I guess. Why were they bombing the computer companies? So they were anarchists. You have to understand, at that time in France, in the south of France, there was kind of an emergence of a lot of anarchist groups, and they were very pranksterish. So they sent out these press releases, and they were actually very hard to understand, and there were like jokes in them. And so it's actually, it takes a little bit of engagement, takes a little spending time with those texts to understand what they're actually about. This is the early 1980s, before personal computers, really, before those were sort of commercialized. And so computers were mainly used by the state, by very big corporations, by the police, by the military. And so they saw computers as this tightening connection between violence in terms of like the police and the military and computation. And they saw computation as this emergent technology that would end up being a violent technology. And so they saw that particularly with regards to how computers were being used, for example, in order to guide ballistics in military and warfare, basically. But they also had a sort of wider critique, I would say. They were also more generally sort of suspicious of what computation might do to society more generally. So they were suspicious of very statistical ways of trying to understand people, for example, and the role that computation plays in that. But also they were kind of afraid that computers would render us kind of very easily controllable, I guess. So both in terms of like how it would be used by the police and the military, but also just sort of people more generally. So they were interesting because it was the early 1980s, which is pretty much a decade before you get all the sort of utopian narratives around how computers are going to lead us into this kind of decentered society where the state isn't the only one that has power and we can circumvent issues around copyright and so on. But so they were like 10 years before then, they were already saying, no, that's not going to happen. That is just not how it's going to work out. What's so kind of funny, because I feel like a lot of those concerns ended up being very prescient, I guess. Your book goes back quite far before, I think, what a lot of people would consider even modern technology, even back into antiquity. What did the earliest resistance to technology look like? So kind of a very simple kind of reason for kind of going back earlier is that it just kind of emerges from the curiosity that I had, which was a lot of people know about the Luddites. You know, these people, these workers who worked with kind of looms in the early 19th century, breaking machines, threatening factory kind of directors and so on. Because machines were coming, they were going to automate the labor process and that meant people were going to go unemployed. It also meant a loss of craft and so on. Anyway, so this is kind of quite a familiar story. There's been lots of books about this. Brian Merchant has written his book. Gavin Miller. Lots of other people have written about the Luddites. And they're really interesting to me. But I always felt like there was something missing in that. Technology in various forms, including very automated forms, has existed for centuries before then. So on a very basic level, I was just interested in kind of exploring what else might exist. and therefore what other lessons could we draw from history maybe for contemporary resistance to technology if that's what we're interested in so it's on a very basic level sort of kind of interested in seeing what was out there and just because i also feel like that might tell us a little bit more of a diverse story in terms of the reasons that people might resist technology because if we talk about the luddites we have to be careful and understand that as specifically workers resisting the automation of labor. But that is not the only story of resistance to technology we might tell. And so this is another reason why I was like, I want to look at other groups who might have resisted technology and why they might have done so. So who was the first group that you found that was really meaningfully resisting technology back in history? Who did you ultimately choose to start with? So I start in ancient Greece and I start with Archimedes, which for those of you who know about this figure. He was actually known as a very famous inventor of his time. Louis Mumford, the kind of famous critic of technology from 20th century, he wrote about this. And so he actually showed that Archimedes, although he was a famous inventor, he was also what I would call the first machine breaker. And that he would always ask the machines that he builds to be destroyed afterwards. Before they were kind of used, he would actually ask them to be destroyed because he was like, they might be put to like bad uses. So we should actually destroy them. That's on quite an individual sort of level. And then I also look at much later groups in medieval Europe, mainly religious groups who were sort of resisting various kinds of technologies because they felt like technology, you know, might replace God in the sense that they might allow people to kind of change the world around them as if the world and the cosmos isn't already produced perfectly by God. It's interesting to kind of hear that discussion about religion, especially when the Pope today has been such an outspoken critic of artificial intelligence technology. And I feel like, you know, religion is intersecting with technology more and more as people believe that AI is potentially some sort of God. How were they resisting technology and what kind of technology were they resisting even back then? So, of course, a very long time ago, so technology meant something very different to now. They weren't talking about NAI with potential super intelligence. They were talking about quite simple tools often. So tools used both in the arts. So like they were sometimes very suspicious of like the use of particular tools and like creating statues and so on. They were also suspicious, at least some groups, some movements were also suspicious of tools used in kind of agricultural labor. and so the many the groups of that era that i focus on were groups who were like specific monasteries so like the cistercian order is like one example that i focus on and they were very they were very critical of you know how technology might distract people from their religious belief and they might make them a little bit vain like it might mean that they end up becoming a little bit self-absorbed in the sense that oh humanity is the most important thing and look at us we can do all these things. Whereas for those movements, actually, the way to live life was in praise of God and was in, you know, it was the opposite of pride, right? It was supposed to be a modest lifestyle. And they saw technology as threatening that in a way. But what I think is worth emphasizing both about that kind of the religious groups of that time, but also the ancient Greeks is that resistance to technology wasn't some kind of revolutionary practice in the way that maybe it was for the Luddites. It was very much a way for them to hold on to the power that they had. And I'm not sure if we can say the same for our contemporary moments with the Pope being sort of visibly anti-tech. But I think there's something interesting about resistance to technologies often also, at least historically, often being used as a way of actually holding on to religious power, for example, and religious influence. So it isn't, you know, being against particular kinds of technologies doesn't necessarily mean that you have the well-being of the general population sort of, you know, in your spotlight. So I think it's worth kind of keeping in mind. Yeah, I know. It's interesting to kind of consider those movements compared to the current technological movements. And also just like, as you said, it's not like the church back then was interested in the liberation of the masses in any sort of way Moving from sort of like medieval times through the Luddites and all the sort of movements you studied which do you think had the closest sort of like corollaries to today and which stood out to you as like you know when you doing a research of like elements that were similar to kind of maybe today resistance to technology or elements of past technological landscapes or innovations that draw like parallels to kind of what we experiencing today So the group Claude that I ended with is closest in terms of the kinds of technological forms and infrastructures that they're resisting. They were attacking computers and obviously computers back then, like I already mentioned, were very different to what computers are now. But so in terms of the technological landscape, it's not too dissimilar from what we have. And, you know, they were attacking computers in early 1980, which is almost 30 years after AI was invented, you know, as a term. So it's like, in some sense, they were operating and they were resisting technology in a context that's not too dissimilar to our own. Obviously, a lot of things have changed. While the technological landscape is obviously very, you know, it's not too dissimilar of our own. There is very much a, the way they attacked is obviously very, very dissimilar to what we have now. There's very few people engaging and acting and actually conducting things like sabotage, right? You know, you might have someone throw a malt of cocktail at Sam Altman's house, but that's not, there isn't that kind of strategic sabotage, at least not on that scale compared to what you had back then, not just by groups like Clodo, but other groups around Europe were sort of very, you had a lot of groups, very radical groups in the 1970s, 80s, often armed groups that were also attacking similar kinds of infrastructures. But in terms of other movements that are maybe similar to our own, I do think the Luddites stand as a good example, just because so much of the conversation around AI and more generally big tech today is around what it's going to do to labor. So the Luddites, they were workers in the textile industries in the early 19th century, and they saw that their labor was under threat by automated looms. So basically the automation of work, right? And so as they saw these tools, automated tools, these automated loops coming in, they realized that they might lose their jobs, but also that their crafts, the skills that they had developed over so many years and literally over centuries, you know, might just vanish, right? And so they were pushing back against the automation of labor. And that took quite a few years. They ended up attacking factories. They ended up breaking machines, quite literally. They ended up threatening the people who had the kind of factory directors that had introduced these tools. So, yeah, they were very, they were quite violent at times. But the response was even more violent. You had the military being brought in and going after them with guns. Lots of people ended up on the scaffolding. They were hung. There was this Breaking Frames Act, which meant that being caught in machine breaking meant you would receive a death penalty, basically. What is interesting about the Luddites is at least two things. First is I think that they saw the value of collective organization. It wasn't just an individual who went out and sort of expressed discontent with what the technology of the time might do to the workplace. They realized that they needed to get together, act together. and you know they were such a threat that in the end the army was sent in and to repress them and lots of people died. If you're watching this video and you like my work please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter at usermag.co that's usermag.co. I don't have any long-term brand partnerships and a lot of my content is effectively demonetized. I've lost major brand deals for speaking out on certain issues and for challenging power. As you can imagine, advertisers are not exactly eager to work with somebody who covers a lot of the topics that I cover and talks about the things that I talk about. These videos I make are entirely funded by you and I can't continue to make them without your support. So if you get any value out of the videos that I create and you want me to be able to create more, please support me on Patreon or Substack via the links below. On Patreon, I do bonus episodes, monthly Q&A live streams and post frequent updates about my work. My sub stack newsletter gives you a biweekly roundup of everything that I'm seeing and reading and paying attention to online. You can also get my newsletter on Patreon. Once again, the links to everything are below in the description. Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. I'm curious, kind of like looking back at all this resistance to technology, like there's this idea, especially today that like people that resist technology, like you're standing in the way of progress. And when you look historically, I mean, even the Luddites, although obviously they were correct in their labor movement, like they were being displaced, what happened to them was horrible, but also automated looms are more productive and allowed us to like, you know, distribute lots of textiles. And like, I don't know, it seems like technological progress has been good. I think in your book, I read somewhere that you talked about people like smashing lanterns. Like, it seems like a lot of the technology that they were trying to destroy in the past ultimately ended up kind of benefiting humanity. And so I'm curious, kind of when you look back on that, and especially thinking to today, like, are we naive? Like, is this technology ultimately going to benefit humanity? It feels like it's not, but I don't know, like, you know, looking at history also, I'm like, well, all of those inventions turned out to be pretty useful. Yeah, I think I would broadly agree with that. I think we have to look at very specific moments, right? I don't think we can have a sort of general statement around technological progress as necessarily benefiting people. The question I would always ask of each particular moment and each particular act of resistance is who's benefiting at a particular time from the introduction of a particular kind of technology. So when the looms are being introduced, they weren't introduced for the benefit of humanity. They were introduced because they would increase productivity rates, which in turn would increase capital, which would in turn benefit those, you know, the factory directors. And we could say something similar about our contemporary AI moment. Even if there is, if it might eventually be beneficial for certain people, the political economy around it. So basically who's benefiting from it towards which ends is the ultimate question. And I actually think that our current AI moment is quite unique in that it often, particularly if you believe the narrative put forward by AI firms and big tech CEOs, they're actually very blatant about what this is about. like they're very clear that this is going to lead many people into unemployment. And there's something sort of very like brazen about that, that I think is, it's even if historically, maybe there was a sort of claim that maybe there, it might be beneficial for humanity at some point. There is now, it just feels like quite far removed from even that kind of positive intent. And I think that in part explains why people are responding to it often so kind of aggressively, because it feels like, you know, the kind of claims around it don't feel like it's going to serve the many, at least not anytime soon. People might lose their jobs. The local environments around data centers might be heavily extracted and might lead to also problems for people in local communities and so on. It feels like it's very, yeah, that kind of brazenness, I think, is quite unique. Yeah, I feel like they do just constantly say it out loud. I was talking to somebody at one of these big AI companies recently who, of course, feels like they're unfairly maligned. And they were saying that, like, actually, throughout history, people haven't been as open. And some of these people, you know, they've promised too much. They've said, oh, it's going to be this amazing thing. They haven't been clear about the downsides. Now that some of these AI companies, although they seem pretty giddy about the downsides, but they've been very clear about the downsides. They're saying, like, well, look, we're trying to warn people. We're trying to let people know we want to be open about the sort of transformation of power of this technology. so I guess like people shouldn't be I don't know as worried I I'm curious kind of like are there certain things that you noticed about when new technologies are introduced that provokes backlash or doesn't provoke backlash and do you think it is just like the CEOs being evil at certain times because I think at these if you ask these AI people they're like well we shouldn't be getting the backlash because at least we're honest all these other people from history were lying to you I mean, I think just on that kind of discourse that exists around the pro AI crowd, including sort of the, you know, the CEOs, like the story they like to tell is one in which they are very honest, right? They're transparent around both the good and the bad. And I think this is very strategic. Like, I don't read this as some kind of as if they feel like they have some kind of moral obligation. And this is sort of like a moral statement that in which they're just, you know, they're better people than those in the past where in the past they were lying. and now they're being honest. I think this works really well for them in the sense that I think it helps squash any kind of critique. It ends up presenting critique as this sort of irrational view that isn't in line with reality because, you know, the reality is the one we put out, which is there's good and there's bad. But actually when you start pushing, you actually realize like, yeah, they might say that there's negative sides to it, but what are they actually doing about preventing those negative sides, those negative impacts from generalizing? Like what are they doing up in terms of protecting workers rights like very little they might say like yeah we might need to change how industries operate and we might need to move towards something else but you know that might be the thing they say in the morning right before going to work and then they go to work and they just keep pushing these technologies down our throats right so i think this we have to take what they're saying with a pinch of salt and we have to understand that that kind of ethical narrative that they like to bring is one that that suits them well it doesn mean that there can be any truths to it whatsoever but I think we have to be very careful in terms of what their intentions are when billions are at stake, right? In terms of the kind of investment that comes of it, it suits them really well to just be like, I'm being very honest. Yes, there's bad sides to it. And then it can kind of go, okay, we've said it and now we can just keep going. Yeah, right. Because they argue that it's the government's job to fix those things. They're like, we did our part. We said all the bad things. are going to happen. So if, you know, the bad things happen, it's not on us, it's on the government. Why didn't they react? Why didn't they take us seriously when we said it, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly. Yeah. But it's like, if that was their actual interest, if like state regulation was their actual interest, they wouldn't be supporting the political figures they're supporting. Literally. Cause then they turn around and support the government. I mean, it's like when Sam Altman put out that, I think it was opening. I put out that big statement recently about UBI and how we need to like provide for each other in society. and all this stuff and sort of like people were like, wait, this sounds very like socialist. But then if you look at, I mean, I just wrote a story last week on the super PAC that OpenAI is funding and all these other tech execs. They're just funding complete deregulators. They're funding people that want the opposite of all of those policies. So it's very silly. As you said, I don't think they're being quite honest in a lot of that stuff. No. And I think more generally speaking, not all of them, but quite a few of them are very suspicious of democracy and, you know, democratic regulation. And I think that is we need to keep that in mind, you know. So, yeah, they're they're not very simply put. They're not interested in being democratically regulated. They want to maximize whatever it is they can do without state intervention or with, you know, sort of state intervention. They want state intervention maybe to come at some point, but not anytime soon. Yeah, certainly not in a way that affects their profits or growth. I guess, like, what do you say to people that would be like, oh, well, he's just a technology hater who's against progress. And look at all the amazing things. I mean, I love technology. That's why I'm a tech reporter, right? Like, look at all the amazing things that technology has done for our world. And I'm curious, kind of like your response to people that might have that like feeling or sort of initial response to some of the stuff that you're putting forward. I mean, I think first I would ask people to read the book and actually engage with what I'm actually saying. When I say, my book is called Techno Negative, but it's not an argument for necessarily for technonegativity. It's a historical tracing of resistance to technology. And like I already mentioned earlier, there's lots of cases where this technology was actually really problematic. It was an attempt at attaining more power, attaining greater wealth. Like resistive technology isn't inherently emancipatory and technological innovation isn't inherently reactionary. You know, these things can sort of you can have, depending on the particular context, technologies can be absolutely incredible. They can increase the well-being of people. It can be, you know, it might make things that are really dull, much easier to deal with. And, you know, it can have positive sides, obviously. But what I'm interested in is, and this is partially what the book is trying to do, is to try and parse out which forms of resistance to technology are, I'm not going to say legit, but are like, are, I think, in service or aim at changing the world for the better. And those that actually close that opportunity down. So when I mention technical negativity, I'm interested in how we might, you know, when I make a case for technical negativity, it's in those cases where I do feel like technologies end up being particularly violent or they end up particularly serving authoritarian purposes. purposes. So the book isn't a sort of how-to guide on how to resist any technology, because in fact, I don't think it's possible to resist technology as such. I write about this, I try and write about this quite carefully, because I think when we say technology, you know, it can range literally from something like anthropologists have written about this, like speech and writing things down, to, you know, a particular tool like a phone to something like a very complex internet infrastructure. It can be all those things. And I don't, we can't separate, like humanity has never existed without technology. So I don't, you cannot be against technology as such, even if you're, let's say you're against civilization and industrialization, even if you were that, even then you would still be reliant on things outside of ourselves, whatever tool that might be, whatever infrastructure that might be. So for me, it's about tracing what forms of technological innovation make sense and aren't just for kind of authoritarian purposes, surveying purposes and so on, and those that are. So I would push back against any kind of characterization of, I guess what I'm trying to say as just like, oh, a kind of primitivist account where it's like, oh, we have to be against all technology. We have to be against modernity. That's not the path I want to take. And I think actually those paths can be can be quite dangerous you know i think it can be very reactionary and it can be you see it in certain forms of things like eco-fascism where it sort of returned to a supposedly pre-technological era which has never existed by the way but you know that kind of romantic notion of supposedly living in a community without technology is often deeply tied to like particular ideas of who belongs to that land, what the role of women should be as trad wives within that. And I think that's what I'm interested in is like, how do you parse these various forms of resistance out from each other? And then on that basis, like what, you know, what can we learn, right? What might be a useful way of organizing, for example? Yeah, I report a lot on like moral panics and especially like a lot of moral panic around different technology and media, mostly like new forms of media, like comic books or novels or whatever, but also phones and the internet and et cetera. And so often those that like they are leveraging this like very real resistance to technological progress or, you know, new forms of media to push like extreme reactionary movements and are really regressive laws that are ultimately like really bad. I talk about this man, Jonathan Haidt. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but I don't even know how to describe him other than a grifter. He wrote this like bestselling book called The Anxious Generation, but it's all about how, you know, phones are destroying the world. And of course, he just went on a podcast this week and said, actually, everybody, conservative parents had it right. They keep their kids away. They don't let their young women, you know, realize that they might be gay by using the internet or something like that. And so I feel like it kind of scares me. It's like on one sense, I feel like we're getting this AI technology that's exploiting people, that's terrifying. That's like, there's so much bad, there's so many bad actors in the tech space, but also resistance to technology is often just sort of a gateway into these more reactionary movements. So I'm curious, kind of like in all the research you did, like when you look at movements today that are sort of pushing back against harmful technology, where do you see things being productive or going in a good way? Like are there any groups or movements today that are resisting new technologies that you think are doing it well? Yeah. So I would say, I think I am equally like you, I'm suspicious of particular strengths within a sort of AI, anti-AI domain. I think those who are really obsessed with AI as for example, an existential threat to humanity, I think lends itself, can lends itself quite well to conspiratorial thinking that I think can be, you know, can be gateway into all kinds of other politics that can be deeply reactionary. So for me, I think when we're thinking specifically about AI and anti-AI resistance, I think I'm not going to say those who see AI for what it is, but I think AI needs to be understood in terms of a political economy where you have particular companies making a lot of money off particular kinds of narratives. And I think those movements and groups that understand AI as more than just a particular kind of technology, right? It's a political paradigm. It's an economic and it's an investment strategy. It's all those things. So for me, I'm interested in those who actually see that kind of broader picture rather than just falling into the trap of thinking that AI is this entirely revolutionary technology and it's purely a technological thing that's going to then replace us, for example. So I think we need to understand when we're resisting AI, we need to understand it in terms of those, you know, in terms of the political economy. You know, maybe that makes me a little bit of a marcus, but I'm like, these are, you know, what happens to labor? What happens to wealth, capital accumulation? Who benefits from all that? I think those people raising those kinds of questions are, for me at least, the ones that I think have got it right, you know. But also I would say kind of environmentalist movements who are really seeing kind of on the ground what things like data centers are doing and so on are actually, I think they're using kind of anti-AI resistance in really productive ways as a way of kind of building broader movements. And I think that is actually political movements rather than just movements based on like an anxiety that AI is going to, you know, take over and we're just going to be this sort of, you know, slaves of robots. I don't think that's particularly interesting, nor do I think that's going to happen. I think it relies on the misunderstanding of the technology usually. Yeah, those people drive me insane. And I think it also important to note that those people the sort of existential doom people a lot of them while you might believe them to be anti I mean I saw Bernie Sanders even doing something with Eliezer Yudkowsky but they not anti They just want to build, they actually want to build like a super intelligent aligned AI or something that's like aligned with humanity. And I don't know, my former colleague, Natasha Tico has done a lot of reporting on that, but I think some of those fakers are not even as anti-AI as you might believe. They sort of operate in this like religious theoretical world around superintelligence or AI when, as you said, these are corporations at the end of the day and we can regulate corporations and what they're building is not, it's technology and the way that we've built technology for decades, you know, like it's, yeah, they're not, it's not some like magical, mystical new thing. Yeah. I think we need to be wary of those things. I think we need to have tools for like understanding what these movements are doing, but also not just what these movements themselves are doing, but also to the kinds of groups and ideas that might infiltrate that. I think a lot of this stuff is actually really well-meaning and comes from a genuine sort of like feeling of actually this is quite, you know, I'm quite anxious about this situation. But I think that is, that makes people quite kind of vulnerable and means others can sort of tap into that with, you know, try and pull them into a, you know, let's say wider conspiratorial, maybe even like far-right ideology. And I think this is why I think we need to pay attention to these things, not just because of what these people are saying, but also because of how they might then be kind of used, if that's the right term, towards different political ends. And I think this is why for me, you know, the actual politics of things like labor and so on is so important, because it's quite hard to move from that to, at least in my view, to sort of an eco-fascist ideology. That just doesn't, like, that's not easily aligned, whereas conspiratorial thinking of, oh, there's some kind of elite out there that wants to introduce robots that are going to enslave us, that feels like that's very close to existing conspiracy theories. You know, there's kind of this band of elites that exists in order to whatever, to get rid of us. So I think there's a lot of alignments there. There's a lot of potential sort of easy jumps to be made that I think we need to be very careful with when we sort of think about AI, for example. I mean, so much of the way that these products are adopted is sort of like forced on us all. And I mean, I hear from so many people, especially now, it's like they have to use AI for their job or they're sort of like they end up using new tools because the old tools have been so degraded and then shitified and kind of become so bad that they sort of are now relying on this new technology. And I'm curious, like, how would you suggest that people kind of evaluate like which technologies to resist or not resist? And, you know, how can people operate in this world that it feels almost so impossible to fight back against this like wave of what's I don't want to say progress because it's not necessarily progress, but kind of like what's happening? Yes, this is a question I've gotten a few times already. It's sort of like, what do you go and do? And I think I would start by saying, first of all, acknowledge how incredibly hard it is. You know, I've given talks at universities and I've had students come up to me afterwards and feeling just really awful that they don't, that they do remain addicted to these platforms and these devices and they find it really, they really struggle with it. And my sort of initial reaction is like, it's not your fault. You know, these are technologies and devices that are meant to be really hard to resist, whether by design or by the kind of general discourses around it that make them seem inevitable. That's one thing. And secondly, as well, I think any kind of resist technology isn't isn't about what you as an individual just go and do. It's about, I mentioned the Luddites already, but it kind of, it's about collective approaches to understanding these technologies. And it isn't about individually necessarily deciding which particular object do I want to use or not. Also because that doesn't really make much of a change. I think that's a very kind of, yeah, individualist approach to technology and resist technology that I don't think is necessarily that helpful. So I think it's about, you know, If we're thinking about how to resist, I think it's about creating spaces in which we can actually think these things through collectively, whether it's on the workflow, whether it's just whether it's online spaces, whatever really it is. But I think it is about moving beyond a kind of feeling of individual responsibility within all this precisely because these tools are very hard to resist, but also because we don't want to reduce politics to just individual choices. I think we end up in a trap by doing that. I don't think that would be our way of overcoming the current problem. I think we need much kind of bigger structural changes. And I do think that starts for like everyday people that start from actually having conversations with each other and trying to tap maybe into existing movements that already exist, go join a local group, whatever it is. But like thinking anti-technological resistance in terms of the collective, I think is a good place to start. I know it's not a direct answer to your question, but I think in terms of approach, that's how I would go about it or how I personally try and go about it. I think it's so helpful. I think right now people feel so sort of overwhelmed and hopeless. And I do see a lot of the like individual attacks on people online, like, oh, did you use AI? Or that person's like, I didn't use AI or whatever, you know, or like, I think of this a lot. I did a video recently on AI companies targeting women and how many new moms are relying on things like ChatGPT for information or whatever, mostly because Google's been sort of obliterated and being a new mom is really, really lonely. and I think it's predatory that these companies are doing this and sort of trying to get young moms hooked on these technologies that they're going to profit for and then ultimately try to sell them baby formula or whatever through ChagVD. But at the same time, I don't think it's helpful to go to the Instagram comments of some mom and berate her for doing searches on AI at 3 a.m. with her daughter. It's very silly and unproductive, but I think it comes from people feeling helpless almost. I think any kind of politics coming from guilt or pointing the finger tends to not work particularly well. Just even just like purely strategically speaking, you know, you might just end up making that mom feel really crap, but that's not going to convince her. That's not going to necessarily convince anyone else. You end up building a, you know, it's, for me at least, an antithesis of like a collective, like generous space from which to begin to go after the people that we actually need to be going after. It's not the users who've just had these technologies kind of pushed onto them and were actually like, oh, actually some of this is kind of helpful. I'm going to use those are not the enemy, if that's the right term to use. I think it's those shoving it down our throats and profiting from it. And, you know, being very happy, those who seem to be quite happy to destroy local communities and environments as part of that and accelerate climate crisis as part of that. it's those people who are the issues, not the individual users, you know, who often maybe start using these technologies. And you suggested this started using these technologies because maybe they're in a vulnerable place. For example, you know, you've got a lot of teenagers turning to these technologies because they feel like they've not really got other people to like speak to about really difficult things. And so the problem isn't the individual teenager. It's the fact that we've seem to not be capable of creating social structures in which young people feel like they can have those conversations. That is the problem. That is the enemy if there is one. It's not the individual students or whatever teenager turning towards those technologies. Yeah. I also try to explain to people that like, I mean, it's so unhelpful to villainize users as well, especially with these big corporations, because like, for instance, with data centers, the primary use of these products is the sort of B2B. I mean, philanthropic is growing right now because of their B2B use. And that is also what XAI is pursuing and OpenAI is pivoting as well. So like any little, you know, search that you do on chat GPT, you know, a few times a day is absolutely nothing when OpenAI has a contract with the Pentagon or to use that technology or whatever, you know, like the level of use is just so massive. And so we should go after these corporations that are building these partnerships to integrate their software or yeah, the people running, running these things. So. Yeah. I think the analogy is a thing that I sometimes think about is like people who think that we're going to overcome climate, the climate crisis by way of not using plastic straws, you know, like whereby you've got, you know, sure, as an individual, I can decide to use no straws, they use paper straws, that's fine. But someone using a plastic straw there is then not the enemy. It's the corporations who've known for decades and who continue to profit of a fuel based economy that's super profitable for them. That is the problem, right? It's not, we're not going to overcome these problems by convincing people or everyone to use, you know, use less plastic straws. Like, I think we need to always, you know, it's like you need to zoom out, right? And actually understand the wider forces at play here. Otherwise we end up just pointing the finger at people that are just going to feel crap as a result. And that's not actually a good way to build a movement if that's what we want to do. Well, Thomas, thank you so much for joining me and chatting today. No, this was great. Thanks so much for having me. All right. That's it for this week's episode. If you like my work, please, please support me on Patreon via the link below or by a paid subscription to usermag at usermag.co. That's usermag.co. On my sub stack, I send the weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following. It's the best way to support this podcast. You can also support this show via Patreon, again, linked below where I do bonus episodes, a monthly Q and A live stream, and more. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Free Speech Friday. See you then.