5 ms·

For what it's worth, and at the risk of sounding like I'm nitpicking, traditional Luddism is not dismissal of technology as overhyped or smoke-and-mirrors. Quit

For what it's worth, and at the risk of sounding like I'm nitpicking, traditional Luddism is not dismissal of technology as overhyped or smoke-and-mirrors. Quite the opposite; the technology is recognized as very real and very impactful. The question instead becomes, "what happens to us, the ones it replaces?". And at least in the original incarnation, given an insufficiently satisfying answer, you smash some looms up to try and slow the encroachment of automation.

newswasboring 3y ago
Agreed. That makes the AI will kill us all crowd the real luddites for this topic.
- peteradio 3y ago
  No the real luddites would the one who are attempting to kill AI before it hatches.
  - newswasboring 3y ago
    I am guessing people who think AI is such an existential threat will try to kill it. It would be irrational not to
gspencley 3y ago
From a historical standpoint, you're spot on. Neo-Luddism is still opposition to a lot of modern technologies, but for a very disparate set of reasons. For example, many oppose the mass adoption of social media due to perceived mental health and social impacts. Others oppose smart phones and "screen addiction." These things can qualify as "neo-luddism" even though the opposition is not rooted in job displacement. I've often said that I am myself becoming more and more of a "neo-luddite" but it's purely for personal reasons. I don't want to see social media or smart phones disappear as I couldn't care less about what other people do with their lives. I just find that the older I get, the less I want to use modern tech in general. It might just be burnout and boredom. I am now middle aged and I've been coding since I was 10. I used to be extremely enthusiastic about technology but as time progresses I have less and less interest in it. The industry in which I have based my entire career just doesn't excite me anymore. Today I just couldn't care less about ChatGPT / "AI" / LLMs, Bitcoin, smart phones, video games, social media, fintech etc. In my free time I find myself doing more things like reading books, going hiking in the backcountry and pursuing craft-related hobbies like performing stage magic with my wife and partner.
- hosh 3y ago
  I feel the same. I don’t have the same kind of enthusiasm now as I do a kid. I’ll also say, I think LLMs are different than bitcoin. It has its own killer app, and it has tremendous social impact, not necessarily positive. If anything, crypto doesn’t really make sense without AIs. One thing though is that the foundational models are created and controlled by big tech. It’s been compared to silicon fabs and its scales of economy … However, I don’t see a future where foundational models can only be created by large orgs with a lot of resources is something beneficial for society.
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  Totally aside - but is there an excellent resource you can recommend for learning more/getting started with stage magic?
  - gspencley 3y ago
    If I had to pick one "beginner resource" for the absolute newbie then it's hard to beat the book "Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic." From there you can decide what interests you and thus where to go next, since magic is such a broad field. One of the reasons I love it so much is that it is a multi-skill discipline and it's really a type of theatre so it can be kept as simple and narrow or as broad and open ended as you want it to be. https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Wilsons-Complete-Course-Magic/dp/0762414553 https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Wilsons-Complete-Course-Magic/dp...
    - germinalphrase 3y ago
      Thanks!
- ElevenLathe 3y ago
  I thought that this was me ("The industry in which I have based my entire career just doesn't excite me anymore."), but then I realized I actually am mostly just interested in programming the way some people are interested in any other skill or machine. Some people learn guitar because they need to make music and play out. Others just love playing the guitar, even and especially when nobody is watching, for its own pleasure. To me, there is no greater toy than a programming language. ChatGPT is neat, but it isn't a programming language. Same for blockchain or agile or whatever other trend is happening in the industry. Some of the trends literally are new programming languages! Golang is really fun! So is TypeScript! Some trends or technologies make programming even more fun (in my opinion anyway) and I embrace those feverishly: distributed version control, CI/CD, pair programming (sometimes it's even more fun with a friend!), configurable linters like Perl::Critic, Intellisense, JUnit-style testing frameworks. All this stuff helps me feel more in control of the computer (or distributed cluster of computers), which I've discovered is the main thing that gets me off about programming. I'm even still hopeful that LLMs will have some role to play in my having more fun with programming. I've tried CoPilot and so far it hasn't grabbed me, but maybe this will change. In any case, there are clearly other people having fun with it so I guess that's good. Maybe somebody can find joy by debugging GPT-4 prompts the same way I enjoy pouring over stack traces.
hosh 3y ago
I argue that I don’t think those questions about looms have been adequately explored, and we’re still paying for that even as another wave of innovations roll in. It’s broader than simply, that people lose jobs to automation. A much bigger societal impact comes from treating people as automatons, which is how business are incentivized to end up with non-people automations.

newswasboring 3y ago

Agreed. That makes the AI will kill us all crowd the real luddites for this topic.

peteradio 3y ago
No the real luddites would the one who are attempting to kill AI before it hatches.
- newswasboring 3y ago
  I am guessing people who think AI is such an existential threat will try to kill it. It would be irrational not to

gspencley 3y ago

From a historical standpoint, you're spot on. Neo-Luddism is still opposition to a lot of modern technologies, but for a very disparate set of reasons. For example, many oppose the mass adoption of social media due to perceived mental health and social impacts. Others oppose smart phones and "screen addiction." These things can qualify as "neo-luddism" even though the opposition is not rooted in job displacement. I've often said that I am myself becoming more and more of a "neo-luddite" but it's purely for personal reasons. I don't want to see social media or smart phones disappear as I couldn't care less about what other people do with their lives. I just find that the older I get, the less I want to use modern tech in general. It might just be burnout and boredom. I am now middle aged and I've been coding since I was 10. I used to be extremely enthusiastic about technology but as time progresses I have less and less interest in it. The industry in which I have based my entire career just doesn't excite me anymore. Today I just couldn't care less about ChatGPT / "AI" / LLMs, Bitcoin, smart phones, video games, social media, fintech etc. In my free time I find myself doing more things like reading books, going hiking in the backcountry and pursuing craft-related hobbies like performing stage magic with my wife and partner.

hosh 3y ago
I feel the same. I don’t have the same kind of enthusiasm now as I do a kid. I’ll also say, I think LLMs are different than bitcoin. It has its own killer app, and it has tremendous social impact, not necessarily positive. If anything, crypto doesn’t really make sense without AIs. One thing though is that the foundational models are created and controlled by big tech. It’s been compared to silicon fabs and its scales of economy … However, I don’t see a future where foundational models can only be created by large orgs with a lot of resources is something beneficial for society.
germinalphrase 3y ago
Totally aside - but is there an excellent resource you can recommend for learning more/getting started with stage magic?
- gspencley 3y ago
  If I had to pick one "beginner resource" for the absolute newbie then it's hard to beat the book "Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic." From there you can decide what interests you and thus where to go next, since magic is such a broad field. One of the reasons I love it so much is that it is a multi-skill discipline and it's really a type of theatre so it can be kept as simple and narrow or as broad and open ended as you want it to be. https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Wilsons-Complete-Course-Magic/dp/0762414553 https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Wilsons-Complete-Course-Magic/dp...
  - germinalphrase 3y ago
    Thanks!
ElevenLathe 3y ago
I thought that this was me ("The industry in which I have based my entire career just doesn't excite me anymore."), but then I realized I actually am mostly just interested in programming the way some people are interested in any other skill or machine. Some people learn guitar because they need to make music and play out. Others just love playing the guitar, even and especially when nobody is watching, for its own pleasure. To me, there is no greater toy than a programming language. ChatGPT is neat, but it isn't a programming language. Same for blockchain or agile or whatever other trend is happening in the industry. Some of the trends literally are new programming languages! Golang is really fun! So is TypeScript! Some trends or technologies make programming even more fun (in my opinion anyway) and I embrace those feverishly: distributed version control, CI/CD, pair programming (sometimes it's even more fun with a friend!), configurable linters like Perl::Critic, Intellisense, JUnit-style testing frameworks. All this stuff helps me feel more in control of the computer (or distributed cluster of computers), which I've discovered is the main thing that gets me off about programming. I'm even still hopeful that LLMs will have some role to play in my having more fun with programming. I've tried CoPilot and so far it hasn't grabbed me, but maybe this will change. In any case, there are clearly other people having fun with it so I guess that's good. Maybe somebody can find joy by debugging GPT-4 prompts the same way I enjoy pouring over stack traces.

hosh 3y ago

I argue that I don’t think those questions about looms have been adequately explored, and we’re still paying for that even as another wave of innovations roll in. It’s broader than simply, that people lose jobs to automation. A much bigger societal impact comes from treating people as automatons, which is how business are incentivized to end up with non-people automations.