Australians Embrace Inner Luddites to Navigate AI's Promise and Perils

If I hear another well-intentioned person justifying their support for the regulation of AI with the qualifier 'I’m no luddite, but…', I’m going to start breaking my own machine. From ministers to union leaders to progressives, there is growing recognition that untrammelled development of this technology carries significant risks.

But there is also a reticence to be seen as being anti-technology, lest we be perceived as standing in the way of the productivity boom and the consequent bounty of abundance that the boosters of these tools promise is just around the corner. After all, we aren’t luddites.

The problem with being forced into this defensive mindset is that we misread the challenge at hand, which is not so much about the nature of the technology but the power dynamics driving this change. This is where the luddites and their misunderstood resistances to the last big technological revolution, chronicled in Brian Merchant’s 'Blood in the Machine,' may help us think through our current challenges.

In early 19th-century northern England, textile workers bucked up against a new technology that automated their work and replaced well-paid skilled jobs with machines. When factory owners rejected demands that the benefits of the new technology be shared, they gravitated around the avatar of young 'Ned Ludd' and began breaking the new machines and burning down said factories. The resistance raged for five years until the British government deployed troops and criminalised their association, leading many of the rebels to be executed or transported down under. Having been crushed by state power, the luddites became a punchline for anyone who can’t find the right wires for their laptop.

Maybe it’s the residual bloodlines of some of those transported luddites, but according to research by Melbourne Business School and KPMG of 47 nations, Australians are in the bottom cohort when it comes to trusting AI systems. This is a trend picked up by the Guardian Essential report. What’s interesting is that as more people have begun using large language models including ChatGPT and Google Gemini, their concern about the risks of the technology has actually increased.

The Digital Rights Watch founder, Lizzie O’Shea, refers to this dataset as a valuable national resource; it puts the onus on those proposing change to show that the risks have been mitigated. These risks take two distinct forms. The first is the existential risks of a sentient mind controlling the world, fighting wars, and playing god. The makers of AI like to keep the focus here because it (a) proves how powerful their machines are; and (b) it pushes the discussion of harms over the time horizon.

But the second set of risks is more immediate: that the tools (which are built on stolen information) are being shaped by the same big tech companies that have wreaked their destruction through social media with so little regard for the end user. Only this time it’s not the consumers but workers they have in their sights. Over the past few weeks, we have seen the bold prediction from Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, that half of all white-collar entry-level jobs are for the chopping block, while a study from MIT has found that the use of ChatGPT can harm critical thinking abilities.

Yet our business leaders are sharpening their pencils, claiming that the technology offers such a productivity bonanza that the only thing we have to fear about AI is fear itself; while the ascendant tech industry is using every tool in their arsenal to avoid the 'constraint' of regulation. This is where the treasurer’s newfound focus on productivity as a driver of national prosperity could have perverse consequences, particularly if it gets hijacked by tech and business interests that conflate head-cutting with working smarter.

Again, the majority of Australians are sceptical about the productivity mantra. When they hear that word, they see cost-cutting rather than shared benefit. These results show that if the government, business, and the tech industry want us to embrace their future, they need to treat us like the luddites we are.

It starts by tapping the thinking of the Nobel prize in economics winners Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, and recognising that productivity comes from giving workers new tools, connections, and markets. While the stocking frame and spinning jenny of the Industrial Revolution were crudely extractive, other innovations including the steam engine opened up opportunity and possibility that drove prosperity and innovation for the next 200 years.

They also should recognise that where the holders of new technology overreach, resistance will be ongoing. While the luddites may have been defeated, their movement gave way to the first worker guilds that successfully fought for the laws that civilised industrial capital. Finally, they must accept that when power is genuinely shared, the benefits accrue in ways that sometimes are not even imagined at the point of connection.

The last great productivity surge in Australia was the product of the accord struck between the Hawke-Keating governments and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which helped to globalise the Australian economy while locking in social wage advances including Medicare and universal superannuation. Likewise, in this wave of change, the feedback loops between the makers and users of technology will ultimately create the value, so it only stands to reason that those loops will be strongest when trust is high and benefits are shared.

Placing Australian workers at the centre of the AI revolution, with a right to guide the way it is used, the capacity to develop and enforce redlines and guardrails on an ongoing basis is not some gratuitous nod to union power; it is the hard-headed path to national prosperity. Proudly embracing our inner luddite and demanding a seat at the table is the surest way of ensuring that this wave of technology delivers on its hype.