Sign in

The Luddite

@theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy
2 followers 1 following 7 posts

Once, long ago, we were miserable. We lived in cold, dark caves, until someone figured out fire, which lead directly to the iPhone. Most of that happened very slowly […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ assemblag.es/@theluddite, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

PostsRepliesMedia
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026
RE: assemblag.es/@theluddite/1169695155… I'll be at 4s to talk about this project. Message me if you're also going to be there and want to meet up!
assemblag.es
001
Reposted by The Luddite
vincentholst.bsky.social @vincentholst.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
As promised, we now share some details why it took 32 months to get this Matters Arising published, and, since many asked, share some comments on the reply to our critique. All details can be found in this small FAQ vincentholst.github.io/the_curious_.... Below is a summary 🧵
vincentholst.github.io
The Curious Case of the Declining Disruption’s Disappearance
48348
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026
@olivia Also, good lord that quote from Abdaljawad Omar is sharp. Stashed away for future reference! (3/3)
101
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026
@olivia To add to your point on ceding academic institutions, I come to my PhD in my late 30s, after 15+ years of organizing. I've had the immense privilege of seeing victorious labor actions by exploited, wildly underprivileged workers. By contrast, academic institutions give workers so much […]
assemblag.es
Original post on assemblag.es
102
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026
@olivia Read, and I feel similar anxiety. The first night of the conference, I slept very poorly, instead thinking over many of the intellectual train wrecks I had just experienced. I would ask simple questions about conceptualizations (e.g., doesn't your definition of "harmful content" include […]
assemblag.es
Original post on assemblag.es
111
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026
@olivia Thank you so so so much 🫡 I was just at IC2S2 and I saw it used in several talks. I do think that its use is declining but only because people are just asking an LLM to divine bias from the text now as opposed to reading it from Dave!
100
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026
@olivia I'm a simple man. I see my favorite Marx quote and I boost. I invoked this very quote just recently in response to this comically stupid peer review comment: assemblag.es/@theluddite/1169695428… So much for the ruthless criticism of all things 🫠
assemblag.es
The Luddite (@theluddite@assemblag.es)
One of the peer reviewers who rejected this paper put it best, so we will give them the last word on this thread: >The authors' comments about the MBFC scores reflecting the "common idea of the liberal media" miss the Okkam's [sic] Razor solution that this is in fact the distribution of bias of media outlets.
111
Reposted by The Luddite
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2026
> I have a core take away I must repeat: just because somebody claims to be anti AI does not mean they are not doing entryism. Sadly, that is (in isolation) entirely consistent with entryism. Yes, these people lie about their beliefs. I repeat this quote from […] [Original post on scholar.social]
What can we do?

I have a core take away I must repeat: just because somebody claims to be anti AI does not mean they are not doing entryism. Sadly, that is (in isolation) entirely consistent with entryism. Yes, these people lie about their beliefs.

I repeat this quote from Marx that I put right at the top of our work critiquing this correlationist logic from 2023:

    "[A]ll science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided. (Marx, 1894, p. 592)" 

This is the logic of AI, of fascism, of sexism, of racism. That is, because things look a certain way, that therefore they are a certain way. Internal properties are wrongly derived from their superficial appearance. "I see that somebody has long hair, therefore I can conclude they are a woman." Or worse still: "I see the external features consistent with (what I think is) woman, and I conclude she must be stupid" — a fractal wrongness that starts with assuming that what you (naively, unquestioningly, think you) see is what you get when it comes to complex organisms. Further down in the same paper, we warn:

    "Just because a model correlates with neural and behavioral data, it is not sufficient for us to infer that the model is performing cognition: correlation does not imply cognition."

Again, the core logics of AI are the same as racism and sexism, which is why these issues pop up again and again in these systems: it involves taking the simple shallow features of things we see, like skin colour, or hair length, or whatever other superficial property, and moving to very flawed conclusions. There is something addictive to this form of sheer intellectual laziness — as well as structurally beneficial to those select few within capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy — to this simplistic logic. It's easy to just point at people and call them names, I guess.
204
The Luddite @theluddite.assemblag.es.ap.brid.gy · 30/06/2026
I will probably be pretty quiet here again for a while because it is election season, and I am very involved in DSA's electoral work in Vermont. If you're in the US and excited about DSA's recent wins, JOIN US! These wins are not coming out of nowhere. They're not some natural pendulum swing […]
assemblag.es
Original post on assemblag.es
001