Don't forget what Silicon Valley tried to do
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/dont-forget-what-silicon-valley-tried
#ai
#bloodinthemachine

Sangre en la máquina, ludismos del futuro pasado con Proyecto UNA

Click Para descargar el archivo de audio

En este episodio de PAN invitamos a Proyecto UNA, quienes nos acompañan en este viaje sonoro en el que ponemos en contraste la historia del ludismo con las luchas actuales que se resisten a que la tecnología tenga que ser un mecanismo de opresión

Sige en El Salto Diario

En este episodio de PAN hacemos un crossover entre el libro Blood in the Machine de Brian Merchant y La viralidad del mal, de Proyecto UNA, quienes nos acompañan en este viaje sonoro en el que ponemos en contraste la historia del ludismo con las luchas actuales que se resisten a que la tecnología tenga que ser un mecanismo de opresión.

#bloodInTheMachine #brianMerchant #ludismo #SangreEnLaMáquina

We're psyched to be partnering with @404mediaco at SXSW '25.

Starting at 5pm on March 10, 404's @samleecole and @jasonkoebler and Blood in the Machine's @brianmerchant discuss how AI slop is taking over the internet and how humans can fight back. Then it's Indie Media Q&A + party! RSVP here:

https://lu.ma/hffhi9sn

#Flipboard #SXSW #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #404Media #Media #BloodInTheMachine

🧵
> ... flabbergasted by how thoroughly the Luddites were defeated. Like, not only was the movement defeated in its time, but the word itself “Luddite” was taken over by, you know, capitalists and industrialists who mean anti-progress and anti-technology in kind of a blind, ignorant way. Like, that level of defeat–even at the level of a language–is kind of hard to fathom.
#RomanMars on #LudditeMovement while talking about #BloodInTheMachine by #BrianMerchant
@bsmall2@mstdn.jp @bsmall2@writing.exchange

> ... textile work was.. what today we would kind of understand to be good sort of middle-class work. .. the cloth workers would work at home.. some of the first work from home proponents.. They would.. work about 30 hours a week... could take breaks when they wanted... walk in their gardens. A lot of them had little farms.. a little extra subsistence or.. extra value. The children would help spin the yarn. It was a family affair. #BrianMerchant #BloodInTheMachine
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/blood-in-the-machine/transcript/

Sobre la propuesta de cerrar la USAID por parte de Trump/Musk

«»Además, el primer contrato empresarial de OpenAI con el gobierno federal fue con… USAID. Dado que Musk y sus lacayos están destrozando el cableado de cobre de la agencia en este momento, y la naturaleza de la disputa de Musk con Altman [CEO de OpenAI], parece poco probable que el contrato permanezca intacto por mucho tiempo, si no ha sido cancelado ya. También plantea la pregunta de si las aventuras de Musk en la agencia de ayuda exterior comenzaron en serio en primer lugar en parte porque OpenAI, a la que Musk desprecia, estaba haciendo negocios con el departamento. ¡Estas son las cosas que ahora tenemos que considerar! Dada la escala y la naturaleza del poder de Musk sobre el gobierno, su temperamento volátil y sus conocidas tendencias vengativas, etc.»»

Blood In The Machine por Brian Merchant

¿Algún conflicto de intereses?

#altman #bloodInTheMachine #brianMerchant #cierreDeUsaid #ElonMusk #musk #OpenAI #usaid

Telling big techbros they shouldn't have built the Torment Nexus is as redundant as calling out any right-winger on their hypocrisy. Dystopia is the point:

"[Billionaires] sell us cynicism. They can't sell us hope, because realistically hope would look like the unraveling of everything they represent. There is no place for billionaires in a hopeful future."

Billionaires reinforce a dystopian reality instead of preventing it, because they picture themselves WINNING at it, and sell the idea that we can too, like heroes in our own video game.

"We SHOULD view the world as a dystopia-- and with the help of These Products, we can triumph over the rabble and wreckage that stands in our way."

Movement Memos: What Today’s Workers Can Learn From Machine Breaking Luddites
Starting from: 00:38:33

Episode webpage: https://truthout.org/series/movement-memos/

Media file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/TRUO7925979664.mp3?updated=1721247141#t=2313

#Luddite
#TruthOut
#KellyHayes
#BrianMerchant
#BloodInTheMachine

ok, having finished @brianmerchant #BloodInTheMachine, I'm now ready to dive into @pluralistic #TheLostCause. Except the latest #MurderbotDiaries came out the same day.

Decisions, decisions

Just finished Brian Merchant's #BloodInTheMachine. Wonderful, thought-provoking history of the #luddites. A corrective to the fiction that they were anti-technology; they were really the start of the #labour movement, a response to the early capitalist movement to deny workers their agency.

@brianmerchant thanks for ‘Blood in the Machine’. Timely, inspiring, and engaging work. May it be of benefit to other, as it has been to me. ✌🏻
#bloodinthemachine

I'm a fan of the @eff and a member.

Just reread Across the Electronic Frontier by @mkapor Mitchell Kapor and John Perry Barlow in 1990. So much in that piece still rings true today. https://www.eff.org/pages/across-electronic-frontier#main-content

One thing in this piece on the origins of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation that I think deserves a bit more discussion is this assertion:

"...One result of this is a neo-Luddite resentment of digital technology from which little good can come..."

I have been reading an excellent book by @brianmerchant called Blood in the Machine - The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech which provides a much more robust perspective and analysis on the Luddites as a movement.

Luddites were not afraid of new technology they were fighting exploitation and subjugation and trying to preserve craftsmanship and autonomy.

Not all technology is automatically adopted by society, in fact much of the technology developed does not get the funding required to scale. Technologies are not developed in a void outside of existing power dynamics and those at the top often use these new tools to further their own ends as opposed to supporting public goods for their own sake.

New frontiers are generally the tip of the sword of colonization and exploitation. The internet has helped create surveillance capitalism and what @Snowden Snowden described as "turn-key totalitarianism".

Everyone building at the cutting edge of innovation has a responsibility to consider how their tools will be used and by whom. Credible neutrality is important in some contexts but also in a sense "neutrality" is by default support for the status quo of inequity and injustice.

True disruption must fundamentally wrestle with democratization and decentralization of power. Easier said then done given we all need funding for our projects to survive and nobody likes to lose control of their inventions. How we fund new technologies and the embodiment of the values on open source technologies that are interoperable and composable are not simple philosophical decisions, they are critical decisions that will shape the world we live in in significant ways.

The internet is indeed a new frontier but it is also just a new layer on top of the real world that can either liberate us or further subjugate us. Currently it is doing both in varying degrees and the choices we make today have profound implications.

#internet #freedom #eff #rights #responsibilities #democracy #fediverse #surveillancecapitalism #totalitarianism #luddites #bloodinthemachine

I’ve been reading #BloodInTheMachine by @brianmerchant and was inspired to do a little illustration of the fictional figure, Ned Ludd. It’s fascinating to me that this modern mythological character was so recently inspiring an entire worker’s rights movement.

#illustration #luddite

How the original Luddites got their Blood in the Machine and paved the way for the rebellion against Big Tech.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a373b/cyber-the-real-history-of-the-luddites?at_medium=Social%20media&at_campaign=Mastodon
#Tech #Luddite #bloodinthemachine #NedLudd #CYBER

When a book feels so vital to the contemporary moment you're reading it in the pub and you've already dropped 4 tags before even finishing page 3.

Thank you @brianmerchant for #BloodintheMachine the book already feels like essential reading for a PhD student working on techno-cultural issues in 21stC UK