The New Luddites: Why People Are Destroying Surveillance and AI Infrastructure
May 4, 2026
11,302
801
209
8.94%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
404 Media Episodes Around May 4, 2026
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
51:55Now PlayingThe New Luddites: Why People Are Destroying Surveillance and AI Infrastructure
Chapters
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelThis week, we talk to Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, about a rash of people physically destroying AI and surveillance infrastructure. Brian puts this wave of attacks in the historical context of the Luddites, who are notoriously misunderstood and fought for worker protections against automation during the Industrial Revolution. Over the last few months, we have seen people in San Francisco and Los Angeles torch Waymos, bash delivery robots with baseball bats, destroy Flock cameras, and threaten AI data centers and the politicians championing them. This type of political violence doesn’t and cannot occur in a vacuum, it happens because people feel they are being taken advantage of and that their representatives aren’t listening to them. Given the current state of things, we can likely expect more of these sorts of attacks to occur.
Blood In The Machine
This is a production of 404 Media, a journalist-owned tech website. Learn more and subscribe at: htttps://404media.co
Listen to our weekly podcasts:
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Become a paid subscriber for access to bonus content
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.