Raging Against the Machine

On artificial intelligence, the role – and the rights – of artists, and the difference between art and artificial creation.

Though six men planned tonight’s covert mission, only five turn up at the meeting place. None of them blames the absent sixth – tonight’s raid will be dangerous and highly illegal. They meet at the edge of a wood that opens onto dark fields, across which they creep towards their target. Each of the men is armed: hammers for three of them, a heavy sledgehammer for the fourth, and a pistol for the last man. They’d argued over the necessity of the gun, but across the country too many of their informal cohort have been killed for the sort of thing these five men are about to do. Finally, they reach the factory, force their way inside, and the small band of Luddites unleash their fury on the new weaving machine.

For decades prior to that night in 1811 – a year in which Luddite riots swept across the country – textile workers had peacefully protested the use of various weaving technologies. The workers initially sought to ease the transition into the use of new technologies through letter-wr…