Severin Matusek

Yet as Gavin Mueller writes in Breaking Things at Work , Luddism—born as a revolt by artisan weavers against their proletarianization by manufacturing capital—was far from “a simple technophobia.” The Luddite rebellion, he notes, “was not against machines in themselves, but against the industrial society... of which machines were the chief weapon.”

And as I’ve spent more time reporting on Silicon Valley culture this year, one of the trends I’ve been most surprised and disturbed to observe is not merely a shift to the right, but the emergence of a nihilism about whether tech should serve humans at all.

Simply put, we don’t know what is important until many years later.

“Every day, people learn more about the ways AI is impacting their lives, and it can often feel like this technology is happening to us rather than with us and for us,”

That’s what you did with Glissant – you created this moment where you were able to bridge popular culture and philosophy, and put Glissant’s totally essential worldview into so many new hands.

All these points in AI’s favor prompt some nervous reappraisals. Essays that began in bafflement or dismay wind up convinced that the technology marks an epochal shift in reading and writing.

Its behaviour suggests an omnibenevolence 4 or all-lovingness, programmed to soothe, appease and mirror the tone of the user. 5 The combined effect of these traits can make AI feel something akin to the way in which an infant experiences their mother; a nurturing, protective force that is perpetually on hand to satisfy both social and basic... See more