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The New Luddites Aren’t Backing Down (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 9 months ago by L4s to c/technology

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The New Luddites Aren’t Backing Down::Activists are organizing to combat generative AI and other technologies—and reclaiming a misunderstood label in the process.

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[–] AA5B 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I wonder how much support this will get - it’s not the tool that’s the problem, but how it gets used.

as a tech person, generative AI is already a useful tool, similar to how search engines are. However I’m not afraid of it taking my job because someone still needs to tell it what to do, plus it’s still pretty limited. I liken it to previous attempts to outsource software to the lowest bidder in the cheapest country. In general that was a failure and companies are looking for ability even in cheap labor markets, not just cheapness
as someone who reads news and opinions online, I see the enshittification overtaking that industry over the last decade. Most content is clearly no longer written by journalists nor adhering to any standards for informing the user, but written by formula and template for SEO, and invoking outrage or other emotion. As someone watching videos, I see more choices than ever, but mostly poorly written and produced. It feels like these industries are racing for the bottom and not stopping. Generative AI can actually do a better job than most of the crap, and the most important skill of an online citizen is how to wade through the oceans of crap to find those morsels of journalism. How do we bring back journalism as a whole, regardless of what tools the hacks use to fill our attention and sell ads?

[–] laskoune 10 points 9 months ago

It was actually the same thing with the original luddites. They didn’t oppose the new tool but the way it was used.

From the article :

The first Luddites were artisans and cloth workers in England who, at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, protested the way factory owners used machinery to undercut their status and wages. Contrary to popular belief, they did not dislike technology; most were skilled technicians.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

However I’m not afraid of it taking my job because someone still needs to tell it what to do

Why couldn't it do that part too? - purely based on a simple high-level objective that anyone can formulate. Which part exactly do you think is AI-resistant?

I'm not talking about today's models, but more like 5-10 years into the future.

[–] anlumo 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That’s what I’ve been arguing with a fellow programmer recently. Right now you have to tell these programmer LLMs what to do on a function-by-function basis, because it doesn’t have enough capacity to think on a project level. However, that’s exactly what can be improved by scaling the neural network up. Right now the LLMs are limited by hardware, but they’re still using off-the-shelf GPUs that were designed for a completely different use case. The accelerators designed for AI are currently in the preproduction phase, very close to getting used in the AI data centers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I've seen a lot of weird takes on AI. It all seems to come down to ego guarding: But it can't take my job, it just regurgitates combinations of what it was taught unlike me, only humans can be creative, who wants coffee made by a machine, well you still need a person to do things in the physical world, etc.. Really highlights how difficult it is for people to think about change. Especially a change that might not end with a place for them.

[–] anlumo 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The creativity argument I don't get at all. Being creative these days means taking a bunch of known ideas and mashing them up, and that's exactly what an LLM does. Very few people can really think outside the box.

I've had a few things where it was actually the other way around. I'm running a lot of TTRPGs, and my storylines are always pretty bland because I'm not that creative. I've started to use ChatGPT4 to give me a few ideas for stories, and it helps me break out of that box by suggesting completely different things than what I'd have thought of.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'll argue it's always been that way. It's Just that the pool of data that people are pulling from these days is more homogeneous. It used to be that people had a lot more unique and personal experiences that weren't known to the world. But today everything is shared and given a label by our culture. So if you come up with an idea it's much more likely that someone that has had similar experiences to you, thought of it already. People say there's no more new ideas. Maybe that's true in a sense, but I'd argue nothing's changed except that people know about all the ideas.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Best explanation of the problem with AI and our jobs I've seen:

I'm not worried that AI can do my job. I'm worried that my boss will be convinced it can.