Autonomous Trucks Still Down the Road

摘要

Ned Ludd never drove a truck. They didn't exist in 1779 when, folklore says, he smashed a weaving machine in a "fit of passion." This the young Englishman did after being beaten by his boss for idleness, or simply being told by his father, also a weaver, to "square his needles"-the accounts of the long-ago event vary. Indeed, Ludd the man may never have existed, but in the next century, textile workers who protested the introduction of job-killing machinery, sabotaging a lot of it, did so in his name. These angry people came to be called Luddites, and the term today describes folks opposed to technological progress, especially the type that threatens human employment and dignity.