📜 About
The past two plus millennia have had their fair share of technology-driven panics, from warnings about the dangers of writing and printing, to the advent of bicycles, the car, radio, video games and — more recently — generative AI.
Most of these “techlash” responses look irrational with hindsight — knee-jerk social responses that place fear of the unknown, maintaining the status quo, and holding on to identity-defining ideas, ahead of rational thought. And yet, below the surface, there’s often more to them. Rather than being a simplistic rejection of a new technology, they are often responses to something that’s perceived as a threat to something of worth or value — identity, dignity, jobs, security, beliefs, the ability to find meaning in life, and more.