To decarbonize we must decomputerize: why we need a Luddite revolution

Big tech claims AI and digitization will bring a better future. But putting computers everywhere is bad for people and the planet

Our built environment is becoming one big computer. "Smartness" is coming to saturate our stores, workplaces, homes, cities. As we go about our daily lives, data is made, stored, analyzed and used to make algorithmic inferences about us that in turn structure our experience of the world. Computation encircles us as a layer, dense and interconnected. If our parents and our grandparents lived with computers, we live inside them.

A growing chorus of activists, journalists and scholars are calling attention to the dangers of digital enclosure. Employers are using algorithmic tools to surveil and control workers. Cops are using algorithmic tools to surveil and control communities of color. And there is no shortage of dystopian possibilities on the horizon: landlords evicting tenants with "smart locks", health insurers charging higher premiums because your Fitbit says you don't exercise enough.