Is the age of literacy – the primacy of the written word – ending? Put another way, are we entering a new world where frayed attention spans, technological enshittification and political polarisation drive people away from the intentional act of reading, and towards more instantly gratifying cultural forms? Like podcasts…

To discuss all this, I'm joined by by the cultural critic James Marriott and writer and co-director of Galley Beggar Press, Sam Jordison. The dominance of the iPhone, the insidious control mechanism of short-form video, the destabilising impact of endlessly socialised media; all of these things were conspiring to make us less likely to read books. The question, really, is: does it matter? Is this just a natural evolution, as technology has given us increasingly diverse and accessible entertainment outputs, that shouldn’t be fought? Or does the decline in literacy present us with a real risk – that we will lose the critical skills established over the 600 years since Johannes Gutenberg inverted his printing press?

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast.

It is hosted by Nick Hilton.

The theme music is by Apes of the State.

The cover artwork is by Tom Humberstone.

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Much of how we see the world is governed by a sense of fear. It’s what keeps me driving within the legal limits. Fear of a crash and fear of the reprisals for speeding. Since AI became a big cause celébrè, it has also been the catalyst for fears. There is the fear that AI might cause the extinction of the human species, and the fear that it might render me redundant. What if an AI model launches its own neo-Luddite podcast and puts me out of business?

To discuss these issues, I dialled up Hagen Blix a New York based cognitive scientist and author, with Ingeborg Glimmer, of a new book: Why We Fear AI. As we try and rationalise our new Luddism, it felt like Hagen’s book might provide some instruction on responding, calmly, to the distant promise of disaster. With all that in mind, here’s our conversation.

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast.

It is hosted by Nick Hilton.

PodotPods.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I started this podcast, I was feeling a bit gloomy about the way that technology was heading, but I wasn’t gripped by full-on panic.

Yet here we are, a year or so later, and I feel like I’ve been radicalised. Not a day goes by when there isn’t some announcement from Silicon Valley that would chill the blood of even the more rational of tech consumers. We are heading into the vortex.

This is a world that Ned Ludd predicted to me, when we first started exchanging emails more than a year ago. I haven’t heard from them in a while. I’m vaguely aware of what’s going on in their life and understanding of why they don’t feel the need to bombard me with their thoughts about how to arrest this techno-decline, but still, I feel the battle being lost. I remember something they wrote to me back at the start of this journey. “THE CAR DOESN’T GO INTO REVERSE, BUT IT MIGHT TAKE ANOTHER ROAD.”

It's not an amazing metaphor, not least because most – dare I say, all – cars do, actually, go into reverse. But the necessity for a different road still strikes me. I don’t want to just accept that all the bad things I fear will come to pass will come to pass. Can’t we do something?

The Luddites, who inspired this show, smashed up automated machinery in the 19th century. They didn’t want to lose their jobs, their livelihoods – their purposes – to new fangled automation. They’ve gone down in history as belligerent refuseniks, railing against the inevitable tide of history. But as you’ll hear in today’s discussion, they’ve had a real lasting impact on little things like labour laws and trade unions.

My guest is Mauro Lubrano, author of a new book Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Tech Extremism. Originally hailing from Italy, Mauro is now a lecturer in international relations at the University of Bath, and someone who has thought, and written, about the action that might be taken (for better or worse) against our machine overlords. Have a listen to our conversation now.

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