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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#511

Post by guax »

0dayz wrote: post #345
davidgoudet wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pejorative for you if you are a liberal, for me it is pejorative, I see Luddites as people who damage important parts of production systems and threaten people's lives. I understand your point of view if you're from a first-world country and you never experienced the terror of having people interfering with the means of production.

That is not what the prejorative mean, I don't see the point in making this political.

Indeed. Lets leave politics out of a political labour movement.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#512

Post by chromoblob »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #473
nojvek wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The one thing that is clear from your comment is that you've never done much plumbing or electrical work. I don't mean to be rude, but your idea that the problem is to build "a full mental map of how commercial and residential buildings work" is just absurdly far off the mark. I mean, that is an important part of the work, but its just a necessary and utterly insufficient aspect. > The whole point of AI is to build c…

AI will become creative too; then all of humans' services will be exhausted, except for one - existential service - if you want some people to just exist.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#513

Post by galaxyLogic »

esafak wrote: post #293
galaxyLogic wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Adams is wrong. Constitution was made (I believe) to deter immoral people who would like to get rid of the constitution, who would love to establish a dictatorship, who would love to force a specific religion on all of us. Moral people don't really need laws, laws exist to deter crime. Frankly I don't get what John Adams was trying say? Can someone explain?

I take it to mean immoral people can make mincemeat out of the best government.

Yes, unless there are safeguards and Constitution that keep "immoral" people out of the government. But I agree something like that was probably what Adams was trying to say.

As an example in recent news Super Court justices have been accused of taking bribes. It is no surprise because there is now ethical rules the right-wing majority of the Supreme Court says it would have to follow, by law. I'm not sure if that is true but surely there could be such a law.

So we need laws, and we need better laws, which means laws that have fewer loopholes, and which apply to all, even Supreme Court justices and Presidents. Are we there yet? Not yet.

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-un...

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#514

Post by atoav »

WalterBright wrote: post #276
atoav wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? Isn't the Scandinavian model essentially "Socialism" by US standards. Last time I checked they were doing quite well compared to literallly everybody else on the planet (excluding other, similar social democracies). The US went like: socialism is bad, let's go for the polar opposite and make the poor poorer and the rich richer. For many that are poor in the US people "being equally poor under socialism"…

Norway sits on an ocean of oil that they use to prop up their economy. > socialism is bad, let's go for the polar opposite and make the poor poorer and the rich richer The US free market moved scores of millions of dirt poor immigrants into the middle class and beyond.

Yeah. Norway. Famously the only country in Scandinavia.

Seriously, do you think anybody will fall for cherry-picking like that, or was this more to convince yourself?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#515

Post by chromoblob »

tap-snap-or-nap wrote: post #447
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...

"Masses controlling the ballot box" is far more complicated than most people understand.

Please elaborate.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#516

Post by raincole »

fnord123 wrote: post #373
raincole wrote: post #211

Luddites in the age of AI don't exist. Until at least some data centers get burned down to the ground, comparing the current anti-AI movement to Luddites is just ridiculous.

Are you aware that the Writer's Guild of America were striking for 4 months against AI doing their jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Writers_Guild_of_America_... There are also many law suits against AI works: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/books/authors-openai-laws... You really require that they resort to physical violence when they know fully that data in one DC will be backed up elsewhere so it will ha…

> Are you aware that the Writer's Guild of America were striking

Hollywood strikes are something that happens every ~5 years even without AI. [1]

> There are also many law suits against AI works

If they won then maybe that would count. Otherwise I see it as "PETA sued zoos".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hollywood_strikes

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#517

Post by supertimor »

carlosjobim wrote: post #467
tibbydudeza wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really think that the savings will actually be passed onto the consumer rather than the company gobbling up that extra value? Also, if taxes are lowered on businesses, the tax burden will be passed to the working poor/middle class.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#518

Post by birdyrooster »

davidgoudet wrote: post #343
sakex wrote: post #330

> Today, the word “Luddite” is used as an insult to anyone resistant to technological innovation Interesting, I never thought of the term as pejorative. I always thought of the movement as a kind of working-class heroes trying to navigate an uncertain future where rich people made them obsolete.

It's not pejorative for you if you are a liberal, for me it is pejorative, I see Luddites as people who damage important parts of production systems and threaten people's lives. I understand your point of view if you're from a first-world country and you never experienced the terror of having people interfering with the means of production.

[flagged]

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#519

Post by TerrifiedMouse »

jmye wrote: post #400
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is what do we do when everything is automated - that’s the main “threat” of AI. People have always been able to find other work when displaced by automation - unpleasant task though. What happens when there are no more “other work” or there aren’t enough remaining jobs to support the population?

I feel like this comment and the other child comment are missing that we continue to innovate . Automating the printing press, building the cotton gin, widespread use of combines to harvest wheat (or whatever) - none of these led to mass unemployment. They all created change and churn, for sure, but people will always find new things to do. I’m always struck by this discussion - should we continue to operate coal min…

> Automating the printing press, building the cotton gin, widespread use of combines to harvest wheat (or whatever) - none of these led to mass unemployment.

All the automations you have mentioned all automate a very specific task.

AI on the other hand can potentially become the do-it-all automation. A universal automation.

> but people will always find new things to do

That’s no longer true if you have a machine that can do it all - that can match (or even surpass) humans in all (or even the vast majority of) activities.

Every “new thing” it would do too.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#520

Post by toomuchtodo »

creer wrote: post #434
hef19898 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more cynical, small kids were sent into said machines to conduct maintenance while the machine was running !

Yes to this chain. Noticing this absurd lack of machine safety and doing something about it would have helped everyone. And the government reaction to the whole thing was equally absurd.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/27/us-leg...

https://www.wdam.com/2023/07/20/should-not-have-been-hired-m...

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