Description
Book Synopsis'The most important book to read about the AI boom' (Wired): The 'gripping' (New Yorker) true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today
Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, Wired, and the Financial Times • A Next Big Idea Book Club 'Must-Read'
The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods.
The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought ninetee
