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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#461

Post by andsoitis »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #296
cm2012 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Halting technological process is way way more costly for humanity than the alternative.

This is an assertion made, necessarily, without evidence. It's also value laden in terms of what is considered "costly", and who should make the judgement.

Maybe if we look at the opposite assertion, that technological regress would improve humanity, we can arbitrate which is likely more directionally correct.

There’s also a third assertion which can help our thinking, and that is that we have just about the right amount and type of technology, so we should halt now (vs regress or progress).

So the question then is: which of these three assertions are likely correct?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#462

Post by shanusmagnus »

sunday_serif wrote: post #145
mullingitover wrote: post #138

Counterpoint to fears of losing the drudgery we're entitled to: once the value of labor has evaporated, and we still have the masses controlling the ballot box, we may finally achieve Fully Automated Luxury Communism[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Communi...

We have already introduced so many automations into our lives in the past century. People from 100 years ago would assume that, with the tools we have today, we already would have reached “fully automated luxury communism”. But instead, we fall short of that utopia. The growth in consumption seems to always ever so slightly outpace innovation. A result of this relationship between consumption and innovation seems to…

I think there's a lot of truth to this. I also suspect that, if you translated the median person from the US to the alternate-reality world of FALC they might look around in wonder; while the people native to the FALC reality would be as disaffected as many are today.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#463

Post by nemo44x »

hnfong wrote: post #284
firen777 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Having to do manual labour to make ends meet while the robots paint and write poetry was not the future I had in mind" Thank you for this quote! This speaks out the reason for my innate disgust toward the current "creative" AI which I couldn't quite articulate before.

And this kind of highlights the kind of hypocrisy implied by the original comment. "Having to do manual labour to make ends meet while the _______ paint and write poetry was not the future I had in mind" For the less fortunate people struggling to make ends meet, it may not matter that much whether it's robots or the aristocracy, or the upper middle class doing the poetry writing. Until the last couple decades, 99% o…

I think it’s because of supply and demand in addition to value. A manual laborer, even a very skilled one, is limited by their own output on how much value they can create. A software engineer creates outputs that can generate many multiples of their compensation for doing so.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#464

Post by ralfd »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #371
creer wrote: post #264

The luddite example is one of suddenness: The owners see the massive advantage of mechanization and move in fast. The workers are blindsided - they don't have the time and spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war. The regions are somewhat mono-industry which completes in making a giant mess. All in all the exact quandary not to get caught in. Now that they have demonstrated it, long ago, do we really have t…

I remember the mantra of some in the tech field of "no problem - just learn to code" when blue collar jobs in the manufacturing in the US was on the wane as production moved to cheaper locations overseas.

Hu? The "learn to code" was not coming from the tech field itself (programmers know that coding is hard and FAANG are not hiring coal miners), but used as a dig against out-of-touch journalists who wrote articles like that:

https://imgur.com/TKX47O3

… and, well, infamously Joe Biden in his 2019 campaign:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/47...

> Biden said, “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well… Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” According to Weigel, the comment was met with silence from the audience.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#465

Post by devilbunny »

topaz0 wrote: post #421
makeitdouble wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. To note, luddites' issues were not just losing their job. Let's remember that the earlier machines were very crude, safety was absolutely not in their design, and a worker life's also didn't have much weight. So, the early days of machine assisted production were in inhumane conditions, people losing limbs, kids getting killed in them (less skills needed also meant kid labour was a viable option) etc. So ye…

To add to your note: iirc the Luddites were also concerned because the quality of the cloth produced by the machines was worse than the handmade stuff, beyond all of the labor abuses and job losses. Another parallel to the AI age.

> quality of the cloth produced by the machines was worse than the handmade stuff

Yes, it was, but it was far cheaper. You can still get extraordinarily good fabrics today, extremely well-made hand-sewn leather goods. But a standard size carry-on suitcase made of high-quality leather in the US will run you around $1000-1500. You can buy a crappy mass-produced plastic one of the same size for around $100, or a well-made nylon one from Asia for around $300.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#466

Post by nojvek »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #34
Animats wrote: post #17

They came for the manual laborers, and I was not a manual laborer, so I did nothing. Then they came for the skilled craftsmen, and I was not a skilled craftsman, so I did nothing. Then they came for the clerks and bookeepers, and I was not a clerk or a bookkeeper, so I did nothing. Now they've come for the chattering classes, and there is no one left to speak for me.

Sort of backwards. First they came for the writers and illustrators, and I did nothing because I'm not a writer or an illustrator. Then they came for the musicians, and I did nothing because I only listen to music. Then they came for the text-dependent professional classes, and I did nothing because I'm not one of those people. They they came for the programmers, and the plumbers sat around laughing saying "and you t…

If AI can truly reason and build complex applications - I.e it has mastered composition and causality, then AI would have a full mental map of how commercial and residential buildings work.

How every pipe fitting links to each other. In that case plumbers aren’t needed for small things since a user could state their problem to a smartphone and AI could guide them to the correct fix as it debugs the users house.

Same with construction or doctors or teachers.

If AI can truly learn and reason the physical world, then it doesn’t mean much to be human.

What is being a human in terms of labor? A 100 watt 80kg biological agent with general intelligence that can learn and follow steps. With eyes and ears they sense, with legs they move and and with hands they apply fine motor skills to move other objects.

The whole point of AI is to build cheaper labor that follows instructions, never sleeps, never forgets, replaceable if broken.

The rich and powerful will 100% get more rich and powerful, the question is how well that prosperity will be shared with the rest.

It could be that some powerful nations say let’s go kill entire other continents and take their land with our robot and drone army.

Globally 35 billion barrels of oil / yr are consumed. Thats 1700 kWh/barell * 35B = 59.5TWh/year = 6.8 TW. This means if someone could make human equivalent robots that take gasoline as energy, they’d have an army of 68 billion human-like robots.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#467

Post by carlosjobim »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #379
kdmccormick wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is a good point to bring up, but it is orthogonal. Production moving overseas is not the same as technological advancement. One can be against outsourcing but in favor of domestic technological progress.

We all want our cheap TV's at Walmart but sadly people in general don't think of the bigger consequences of wanting low bargain basement prices for consumer good or paying low to little tax. Yet they complain about joblessness and how the education system and their neighborhood/towns are going to the balls.

Taxes is also a big part of why manufacturing is expensive in some places. If they were removed, the savings could be passed on to the customers.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#468

Post by shanusmagnus »

nemo44x wrote: post #456
myth_drannon wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know we are not in feudal system right now? Propaganda machine is telling us we are in a democracy, but all I see is oligarchy controlling the system.

It’s called the iron law of oligarchy.[1] All democratic organizations decay into oligarchies - a minority group of elites that are in control. So the question becomes who gets to join that elite and how do people get cycled out of it. When there isn’t a sufficient cycling (people who shouldn’t be a part any longer remain - nepotism etc; people that don’t deserve to be a part are invited - diversity for diversities s…

I'd never heard of this, and it's already proved a fascinating rabbit hole. Thanks!

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#469

Post by carlosjobim »

mongol wrote: post #378
davidgoudet wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a strike, damaging machines and planting bombs.

The Luddites of today throw paint on art and glue themselves to it, or to roads stopping traffic, to make some kind of point about wetlands.

I like these kind of different takes that makes me think, but this one left me a bit confused. Isn't salvation through new technology a main doctrine of the climate doomsday believers?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#470

Post by livrem »

jampekka wrote: post #451
livrem wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably one of the reasons why there is finally talk in some countries of moving on to a four-day week.

At least in nordic countries there was a systematic (and even somewhat successful) political agenda to reduce working hours in the 1980s (when social democracy was the leading ideology). This has appeared sporadically in discussions as well but in practice during the neoliberal era the push has been to longer hours. IMHO having to work more when productivity and automation increases is quite a clear sign of a fundame…

Thanks! That is like a sad follow-up to Bertrand Russell's In Praise of Idleness (1932). That essay ended "there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever"... but so far there are not many signs of things improving.

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

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