I am very concerned about AI alignment. But putting that aside... change is typically considered unique and bad this time:
1. Socrates (5th century BCE)
Yep, the Socrates. He warned that writing would destroy our memory and our ability to think deeply.
He said people would “seem to know much, while actually knowing nothing.”
Basically: “Kids these days with their papyrus scrolls…”
2. Plato (sort of continuing Socrates)
He argued that written language would lead to shallow understanding vs. living dialogue.
Plato feared technology would degrade the soul’s relationship to truth.
Ironically… we know this because Plato wrote it down.
3. The Medieval Church (15th century) — Against the Printing Press
Leaders feared mass printing would:
• spread heresy
• destabilize authority
• create too many opinions
• encourage the “uneducated” to think for themselves
They were… not wrong.
4. The 18th & 19th Century Romantic Poets (Wordsworth, Blake, etc.)
They feared industrial machines would:
• crush nature
• destroy the human spirit
• turn people into cogs
Blake literally wrote about “dark Satanic mills.”
5. The Luddites (1811–1816)
Actual textile workers who smashed early industrial factory machines.
Not anti-technology per se — they feared technology owned by capital replacing skilled labor and dignity.
This one was more “class-war alarm” than “the robots will eat our souls.”
6. Henry David Thoreau (mid-19th century)
Railroads, telegraphs, and industrial society:
His view: “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”
Translation: technology changes us more than we change it.
7. Leo Tolstoy (late 19th century)
Hated industrial modernity.
Saw it as a betrayal of spiritual life in favor of materialism.
Wanted simplicity, manual labor, and spiritual clarity.
8. Friedrich Nietzsche (late 19th century)
Distrust of mechanization and bureaucratic modernity.
Feared mass culture would crush individual greatness.
Would have loathed Twitter.
9. Martin Heidegger (1950s)
One of the most influential modern critics of technology.
Feared that technology makes us view everything (including humans) as resources to be optimized.
That one… hits hard today.
10. Jacques Ellul (1954) — The Technological Society
Argued that once a technology exists, society becomes shaped around it, not the other way around.
Efficiency becomes the god.
Influenced basically every thoughtful critic afterward.
11. Neil Postman (1980s–1990s)
Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Television and mass media, he said, would turn politics and knowledge into entertainment.
He predicted the rise of spectacle-based politics with terrifying accuracy.
12. Jaron Lanier (2000s–present)
Early VR pioneer turned tech-skeptic.
Critic of digital platforms, attention extraction, and “flattened identity.”
More “gentle warning” than doom.
13. And yes… Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) (deeply problematic but relevant)
His manifesto argued industrial technological expansion would eliminate human autonomy.