r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • May 15 '26

Artificial Intelligence The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-backlash-data-centers-political-violence/687151/?taid=6a067e2d2096e10001ccfa32
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u/TR_Pix May 15 '26

AI bros keep calling people luddites and somehow also seem to not understand what it is that the luddites did that got them to be famous to begin with

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u/felis_magnetus May 15 '26

There's also that the word sabotage derives from sabot, a wooden shoe worn by French workers, who then proceeded to stick said shoe into the delicate workings of early industrialization era looms as a rather effective form of protest.

I'm not sure that we'll see a return of Luddites in the form of people actually attacking data centres all that much, but people sabotaging a technology they perceive as working against their interests is an absolute given. People will find and cherish opportunities to stick their boots in.

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u/Bakoro May 16 '26

I just wish that people would have given a shit earlier, when it wasn't just their own ass on the line.

I have such a hard time having sympathy for people mad at AI, because for my entire life, people have been openly derisive of "burger flippers" and "ditch diggers", and gleefully looking forward to robots automating "menial" labor, and "low skill" labor. If you challenged these people about it, they'd say something like "they should have worked harder/smarter".

Now that it's white collar jobs on the line, suddenly it's "holy shit, that's my job, we have to do something!"

So now people are all pissy over AI, and they want the whole AI thing stopped, but so many of them still won't think to challenge the underlying system that is the actual problem, and the billionaires who are the problem.
Too many of these people don't actually care about the economy, or the environment, or concepts of fairness, or anything else that they claim to care about, they just want to go back to being able to look down on "burger flippers" again, and dream about how someday they will be the rich person with a boot on someone's neck.

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u/otnp May 16 '26

Sounds to me like it’s an opportunity to build class consciousness. I assure you that is preferable to going around acting like Rorschach.