Ironically, unlike many of the modes of technology the Amish reject, A.I. really does carry the threat of damaging society and ruining lives. (If the Amish went to movies or watched TV, they would know that.) New York Times leftist op-ed writer Michelle Goldberg this week wrote (Gift link!) about how the remarks by guest speakers at college commencements regarding artificial intelligence caused graduates to boo and jeer:
When Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, started talking about artificial intelligence during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona on Friday, the graduates erupted in boos. “A.I. is going to touch everything,” said Schmidt, as his stadium-sized audience roared its disapproval. “Whatever path you choose, A.I. will become part of how work is done.” Maybe he meant this as a promise of opportunity, but the students seemed to hear it as a threat — or a curse…One recent report found that only 18 percent of Gen Z-ers feel hopeful about A.I., and almost half say the risks outweigh the benefits. Politicians with followings among young people — including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the left and James Fishback on the right — are calling for moratoriums on data centers. A.I. is increasingly a pop culture villain.
Of course Goldberg, being Goldberg, wants the government to crack down on A.I. (which, I submit, is impossible, but that is a topic for another day) and extols the European nanny states doing just that as well as totalitarian nations like China who are “managing it.” The point here is that of all developments to embrace as exceptions to the Amish wariness about technology, A.I has to be one of the worst ones imaginable.
Once, I regarded the Amish as misguided but admirable in their adherence to their core values even at the price of being estranged from American culture and society.
Now I realize they are just kooks.
Ethics Alarms 
Perhaps we do not understand what the role of moral restrictions is in tight communities.
Is there a good reasonable basis for why observant Jews keep kosher? Why they do not eat pork, shellfish, why meat and dairy have to separated strictly. What is the reason for the dress code of Orthodox Jews? You may suggest that is because it is in the Torah, but then the question becomes why it is in the Torah. OK another try, Orthodox Jews do not eat pork because eating pork in ancient times could infect people with parasites (trichinosis). Well, why did the neighbors of the Jews eat pork?
Similar questions can be asked about other tight communities. Why do the Jehovah Witnesses refuse blood transfusions? Why do the members of the Church of God Scientist refuse conventional medicine by rely on spiritual healing?
One explanation is that some of these moral restrictions that do not make sense on a rational basis, but exist as a costly signal of commitment to their community. These very rules help to tighten to community by advertising that they are different than the rest of the world. Orthodox Jews tell to everyone by their dress code that they belong to a community as Orthodox Jews, including their own community. For Amish it works the same way.
A key text in the Holiness Code of Leviticus is Leviticus 19:2 “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy”. Holy here means set apart, and that implies that the people of Israel had to be different than the people around them. That includes denouncement of (aspects of) the secular culture. This text is also quoted in the New Testament in 1 Peter 1:16. Romans 12: 1-2 also urges Christians to live differently than the secular world:
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The trouble is that many communities inherit a legacy of moral rules that they poorly understand due to a lack of reflection. Practices are being followed simply out of tradition, as this is the way everybody in their community does things. And if you do things differently, and reject authority of the parents or the elders, that basically results in you leaving that community.
Here we may invoke Nietzsche’s ideas about master morality and slave morality: are you following certain morals because you inherited them and follow scripts handed to you without reflection or out of laziness (slave morality), or do you make your own decisions and chart your own path through life (master morality)? OK I will not further open the can of worms presented by Nietzsche’s philosophy in this comment.
Are the Amish unethical? I think they are simply faced with challenges that they are not thinking through as they are stuck in traditionalism which may preclude rational ethical thinking.