George Lucas compares AI skeptics to Luddites

Film director George Lucas has compared critics of artificial intelligence to the Luddites, suggesting that opposition to the technology is akin to clinging to "horses and carriages" rather than embracing more efficient tools. In an interview with A Rabbit’s Foot, Lucas argued that AI will make the filmmaking process significantly easier.

However, historians are providing context to the term "Luddite." Brian Lewis, a history professor at McGill University, notes that the original 19th-century Luddite movement in Great Britain was not merely a reaction against progress, but a response by workers to economic hardship and the loss of livelihoods due to new machinery. The movement served as a way for workers, who lacked political representation and unions at the time, to demand attention for their grievances.