In the early 19th century, just as the Industrial Revolution began to spin up, textile workers and artisans in England rose in protest against mechanization. They formed gangs and perpetrated nighttime raids, during which they broke into factories, smashed and destroyed equipment, and even burned down mills. They called themselves Luddites, after a folk hero, Ned Ludd, who had smashed up knitting frames.
Eventually, of course, the rebellion was put down, and progress marched on, improving the standard of living for people all around the globe. The name "Luddite" now means someone who reflexively opposes progress and tries to keep advances from happening.
Maybe you’re still recovering from the Great Societal Collapse of Y2K. Perhaps you're still digging out from the rubble of the Cold War nuclear global apocalypse, or you're busy smothering in the ozone-pollution-acid rain-cold-heat-weather-climate-greenhouse disaster. As for me, I’m just about done with all the panic and handwringing about the technological breakthroughs washing over us at an ever-increasing cadence.
Bring it on, I say.
Let's take a look at the top three technological bogeymen and whether the fear and loathing is justifiable.
First up is the Flock camera. People who rail against Flock cameras are actually trying to warn against a surveillance state aided and abetted by any camera. Flock is the name of a company that manufactures advanced law-enforcement cameras that also collect and store data and sometimes process it. The canny organizers behind much of the anti-camera protests, such as DeFlock.org, have isolated and frozen their target — Flock Safety, headquartered in Atlanta — and raised their armies to attack it. Unfortunately, they've had much success in ginning up outrage across the political spectrum.
People on both the left and the right have reasons to fear surveillance. However, Republicans have real reasons. We will never forget the excesses of the Biden administration after Jan. 6, 2021, when officials freely jacked cellphone data to geofence anyone who happened to be in the vicinity of the Capitol that day. And since the Obama days (at least), the left has also used every digital tool on hand to spy on its Republican competition. But they have been doing this long before Flock cameras were a thing and will continue to do it for the foreseeable future, too.
Democrats, on the other hand, object from a stance of projection and paranoia. Projection, because they know exactly what they would do with any enhanced surveillance tools. And paranoia, because they are a majority-women party — and not just any women, but the kind who think The Handmaid's Tale is an election cycle away from happening. Never mind that Republicans currently run all three branches of government, and no such thing has come to be. Just look at this scary pro-abortion ad (which doesn't happen even in the reddest state) and think about how much worse it will be with Flock cameras!
But the truth is that only one party is pro-criminal, and that's the Democrats. It's only natural that they continue their attack on law enforcement in any way they can, including by denying officers useful tools. Meanwhile, they will never prosecute any of their own who abuse data and illegally surveil their political enemies.
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Then there's AI. Artificial intelligence can learn to do all kinds of privacy-invading things, and, like cameras and data, it's also dangerous in the hands of bad actors. Put it into a robot, and it could become a scary physical threat, as we've seen in many a sci-fi movie.
And like the Luddites, many workers today fear the new technology will make their skill set obsolete. (Of course, the university set is most worried about it, since their useless careers are the ones most likely to get AI'd.) This is a semi-valid fear, as the precise work some people do may indeed change or go away. But new, often related, professions will be created. I am not trying to pull a "Learn to code" on people worried about their livelihoods. I am just saying, keep your eyes open for what's next.
Fight it or embrace it, but the future is coming either way. Instead of fearing it, watch for your opening to get on board — and prosper!
Which brings us to power centers — for data or otherwise, although the rise of AI and its need for data processing have brought the subject to the foreground again.
When it comes to power generation, Democrats have always lived by the slogan, “If it works, we’re against it.” This was true during their "green energy" gravy train era of government, when they used climate-terror tactics to beat us into submission. It's true now, too, as they fight to suppress the burgeoning AI industry by attacking its power supply. "Data centers use up too many resources," they aver. That is true in some cases, while in others, the centers reuse the same water and actually contribute to building and stabilizing the local grid, even lowering prices sometimes. Forward-looking data companies are eschewing the grid and building their own power plants altogether.
As a result, these data centers are some of our most potent energy laboratories, driven by the greatest incentives and staffed with the most brilliant minds, which will produce the next civilization-changing breakthroughs in power generation. Fuel cells, microreactors, shale, next-gen geothermal — it's all on the table now. The stakes are through the roof, and the competition is as intense as it can get.
In this election year, sadly, both teams are politicizing the fear and loathing of data centers. "A June Echelon Insights poll found AI data centers are uniquely toxic," reports Axios. "Just 27% of voters say they would support building one in their community, dead last among the projects tested — including a nuclear power plant." Whatever. If that fearless 27% fights hard enough and gets data centers in their communities — with their novel energy production capabilities, new tax base, and benefits for the whole community — they're going to be sitting pretty in a decade. Meanwhile, all the quaking neo-Luddites will be wondering how their once-prosperous boroughs turned into Detroit circa 1980.
The potential for humanity-changing breakthroughs at this moment in our technological history is off the charts. We’ve got a goldrush-level race for more power and more AI, with the promise of untold riches on the level of a 19th-century railway developer or 20th-century oil baron. It's also a global race, which means our nation’s security and very survival may depend on winning. And for the first time, the search for answers will be giga-boosted by AI assisting in solving the problems.
I, for one, can't wait to see what comes of it.
Being fearful and demanding the government "do something" isn't the attitude that leads to breakthroughs. And no plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy, anyway. Let the technology run free, and deal with problems as they arise.
This moment will give birth to the future. If you think China, Russia, or any other geoglobal competitor of ours is panicking and wringing its hands rather than doing everything in its power to race to the finish line, you’re not thinking clearly.
Fear won’t stop the breakthroughs from happening; it will just stop them from happening here.
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