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From the Luddites to AI: Why Humans Keep Fearing Technology
This article summarizes what the featured video claims. It does not present those claims as established fact. Read the Japanese version.
Whenever a new machine appears, people have seen not only convenience but also a shadow that could take away their work or freedom. Beginning with a philosophy that rejects technological progress itself, the video asks whether today’s wariness of AI is the same as earlier anti-technology movements.
Artisans who smashed machines with hammers
The video says that in 19th-century England, artisans whose jobs had been displaced by automated machinery attacked factories and broke the machines. This was the Luddite movement, explained here as fear of a technology that threatened people’s livelihoods turning into violent resistance. It also says that in Paris in 1830, revolutionaries viewed gas lighting as a symbol of state surveillance and destroyed thousands of street lamps. The light illuminating the streets at night could also look like an eye watching them.
Rejecting the transformation of people into data
The story then moves to France in 1980. An anti-computer group allegedly broke into offices, bombed related facilities, and called digital records something that would ‘lock humanity in a cage.’ The video also offers the interpretation that technology was seen as a threat to human beauty and superiority in ancient Greece, and even introduces the medieval tale that Pope Sylvester II had the devil make him a ‘talking head.’ The eras and tools differ, but the outline of the urban legend—that technology steals the human soul—looks strangely familiar.
Is AI a tool, or the user?
This is where the argument shifts. Steam engines, electricity, and computers were all tools operated by people; AI, by contrast, imitates thought, makes judgments, and has begun to guide human behavior. That is the video’s central proposition. With social media algorithms moving emotions, AI creating text and images, and automated systems supporting decisions, it says human thought is beginning to depend on outside technologies.
Could even the option of refusal disappear?
The video does not fear only a future in which AI takes jobs. It suggests that the more people depend on convenience, delegate judgment, and externalize thought, the more the option of rejecting the technology itself may fade. Earlier anti-technology movements lost, but this time, it says, AI could change human thought and begin to ‘use’ people. The main segment ends with that question.
Viewer reactions
“A month before Mr. Abe died, a hairdresser I know said, ‘Who is that person on the news being presented as Mr. Abe? We can tell—the difference shows at the hairline.’ So that really was the case after all.”
162 likes
“You have to be able to think with your own mind. It is important to reflect on yourself and establish a sense of self. — Miwa”
100 likes
“Analog really is best, after all.”
73 likes
“‘Man is a thinking reed.’ — French philosopher Pascal”
69 likes
“That’s why, if humanity relies on AI for absolutely everything, people will deteriorate and end up ruled by AI.”
56 likes
Following the theory
Artisans smashing machines, gas lamps that looked like the eyes of surveillance, and computers feared for trapping people inside data. When AI is placed at the end of that line, the video is not simply repeating that people always fear new technology. It stands at the increasingly hard-to-see boundary between the hand that operates a tool and the mind that may be guided by one.
Watch the video
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Key moments
- ▶ 0:17
The video introduces the rejection of technology and connects it to the Luddite movement, in which artisans in 19th-century England destroyed automated machinery.
- ▶ 1:18
It places the destruction of gas lamps in 1830 Paris alongside anti-computer attacks in France in 1980 as expressions of fear of surveillance and datafication.
- ▶ 1:55
The account ranges from opposition to technology in ancient Greece to a medieval tale that Pope Sylvester II had the devil make a talking head.
- ▶ 2:37
The video argues that while steam engines and electricity were tools operated by people, AI imitates thought and could move into the position of using people.
- ▶ 3:26
It suggests that outsourcing judgment and thought to social media and AI could eventually erase the option of rejecting the technology itself.
- ▶ 4:57
The video then recounts hearsay that psychics advise politicians and corporate executives, including a story that one urged stronger security before Prime Minister Abe’s death.
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