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That "refusal" is by design. Using standardisation to improve productivity has been the backbone of the industrial revolution ever since we first standardised

That "refusal" is by design. Using standardisation to improve productivity has been the backbone of the industrial revolution ever since we first standardised screw threads in the 19th century. It's undeniable that we've lost some cultural richness in the process, but if that means I don't have to work a field for 12 hours a day just to get enough food to survive like my ancestors did, then I'll accept the tradeoff.

tmpz22 2y ago
This is poignant in the age of LLMs. What cultural richness are we going to lose as a result? What societal cohesion are we going to lose? What wealth inequality are we going to create?
- Secretmapper 2y ago
  There's actually something interesting here in my opinion, which is that LLMs do not necessarily need to hinder standardization. For example, we have standardized schooling/exams, because that's the proven scalable way we can have for children - essentially a factory spitting out different grade levels/seniority. But LLMs can break this standardization by being able to tailor student needs in a scalable manner. However this takes a huge amount of action, and that's going to be the pain point in the near future as we humans tend towards the easy/greedy paths. Cultural richness - LLMs are also very bad in this regard due to the bias towards majority viewpoints. This reminds me of a recent HN thread [0] discussing how AI is hindering the adoption of new technologies. In some ways, this happens because AI tends to favor mainstream perspectives, making it biased against "new" or "fringe" viewpoints. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047792
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  We will only lose our culture if powerful people exert dominance. That's how cultures were withered throughout history, a dominant violent culture comes and pushes its wicked pursuit. It takes decades or centuries to recover your culture after it happens. Shout out to Native Americans, keep trucking, you'll get it all back (truly sorry about all this). People talk about the glory of Rome, but it was utterly vile. They either enslaved or exterminated whoever they conquered. If they had an LLM, they might keep you alive and brainwash you with it. Maybe. Per gpt: "In the military of ancient Rome, decimation (from Latin decimatio 'removal of a tenth') was a form of military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort." This was done to thwart desertion. This is similar to: - PIP. - Email me what you did last week or your fired. - Blanket 10% layoffs in high profit environments - Blanket 10% cuts in general I'm less scared about AI than the culture of dominance utilizing it. We are not the only people that ever lived on planet fucking earth, everything has been done already in some other form of matter. The wicked animals you see now days in power have lived many times over in past histories, we've seen these exact people many times. We simply get hoodwinked when they seduce us with casual talk about space, science, and the world. Decent people begin to think they are just like us. Nope, they are not like us. Sometimes you just have to connect the dots and accept it. History precedes us and owns us.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
> I don't have to work a field for 12 hours a day just to get enough food to survive like my ancestors did Not disagreeing with your overall point but this isn't correct. Medieval peasants worked about 150 days a year, and while they were obviously very busy during planting and harvesting times, they had lighter workloads at other points in the year.
- derektank 2y ago
  These studies generally don't include the large amounts of domestic labor that had to be done in addition to farming. Lots of food preservation, home repairs, tending to fires, etc that we simply don't have to worry about today in nearly the same way. There was a lot less work in winter, but there was also substantially less food and with less energy for recreational activity, a lot of people's leisure time was occupied with sleeping.
  - mid-kid 2y ago
    God I actually wish I could just focus on sleeping during winter instead of drudging on in the constant dark.
- nthingtohide 2y ago
  I think there was a article here which stated that 1 person had to work for 1 month to get 1 pound of sugar or something. Today it is equivalent to 1 hours of work, something like that. You are narrowing your focus too much. The abundance is really the key here.
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    I bet eggs were cheaper…
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Not even close. Eggs were 6p/dozen in the 14th century. https://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html https://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html Laborer wages were 2p/day in the 14th century. https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/medieval-prices-and-wages/ https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/medieval-prices-a...
computerthings 2y ago
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jayd16 2y ago
Sometimes bespoke subtlety is bad or superfluous and sometimes its innovative. Ideally, you streamline a golden path as best you can but its also important to leave room for new good ideas.
slifin 2y ago
That period was when all the lords had captured the land and forced people to toil on the land, without access to large land ranges the average person cannot live independently Before your ancestors would have kept a large herd of mammals and lived nomadically moving to fresh pastures when the grass and vegetation was eaten It's rare but there are some modern nomadic people who live like this camels and goats in the desert Old diets were primarily carnivore and plants were struggle foods That's why Europeans killed all the buffalo and why the Japanese on average are shorter because they had long periods where meat was restricted for religious reasons Don't compare yourself to a people under exploitation, independence was taken by force
- cameronh90 2y ago
  I have family that still live as subsistence farmers on their own land. Their life is hard and unforgiving. There’s a reason they wanted their kids to get an education and move to the city. I’m not going to try to compare it to pre-neolithic nomadic tribes because nobody knows for sure why the neolithic revolution occurred, but my guess would be that climate shocks were more likely to wipe out small nomadic tribes over the long run.

tmpz22 2y ago

This is poignant in the age of LLMs. What cultural richness are we going to lose as a result? What societal cohesion are we going to lose? What wealth inequality are we going to create?

Secretmapper 2y ago
There's actually something interesting here in my opinion, which is that LLMs do not necessarily need to hinder standardization. For example, we have standardized schooling/exams, because that's the proven scalable way we can have for children - essentially a factory spitting out different grade levels/seniority. But LLMs can break this standardization by being able to tailor student needs in a scalable manner. However this takes a huge amount of action, and that's going to be the pain point in the near future as we humans tend towards the easy/greedy paths. Cultural richness - LLMs are also very bad in this regard due to the bias towards majority viewpoints. This reminds me of a recent HN thread [0] discussing how AI is hindering the adoption of new technologies. In some ways, this happens because AI tends to favor mainstream perspectives, making it biased against "new" or "fringe" viewpoints. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047792
bloomingkales 2y ago
We will only lose our culture if powerful people exert dominance. That's how cultures were withered throughout history, a dominant violent culture comes and pushes its wicked pursuit. It takes decades or centuries to recover your culture after it happens. Shout out to Native Americans, keep trucking, you'll get it all back (truly sorry about all this). People talk about the glory of Rome, but it was utterly vile. They either enslaved or exterminated whoever they conquered. If they had an LLM, they might keep you alive and brainwash you with it. Maybe. Per gpt: "In the military of ancient Rome, decimation (from Latin decimatio 'removal of a tenth') was a form of military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort." This was done to thwart desertion. This is similar to: - PIP. - Email me what you did last week or your fired. - Blanket 10% layoffs in high profit environments - Blanket 10% cuts in general I'm less scared about AI than the culture of dominance utilizing it. We are not the only people that ever lived on planet fucking earth, everything has been done already in some other form of matter. The wicked animals you see now days in power have lived many times over in past histories, we've seen these exact people many times. We simply get hoodwinked when they seduce us with casual talk about space, science, and the world. Decent people begin to think they are just like us. Nope, they are not like us. Sometimes you just have to connect the dots and accept it. History precedes us and owns us.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

> I don't have to work a field for 12 hours a day just to get enough food to survive like my ancestors did Not disagreeing with your overall point but this isn't correct. Medieval peasants worked about 150 days a year, and while they were obviously very busy during planting and harvesting times, they had lighter workloads at other points in the year.

derektank 2y ago
These studies generally don't include the large amounts of domestic labor that had to be done in addition to farming. Lots of food preservation, home repairs, tending to fires, etc that we simply don't have to worry about today in nearly the same way. There was a lot less work in winter, but there was also substantially less food and with less energy for recreational activity, a lot of people's leisure time was occupied with sleeping.
- mid-kid 2y ago
  God I actually wish I could just focus on sleeping during winter instead of drudging on in the constant dark.
nthingtohide 2y ago
I think there was a article here which stated that 1 person had to work for 1 month to get 1 pound of sugar or something. Today it is equivalent to 1 hours of work, something like that. You are narrowing your focus too much. The abundance is really the key here.
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  I bet eggs were cheaper…
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Not even close. Eggs were 6p/dozen in the 14th century. https://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html https://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html Laborer wages were 2p/day in the 14th century. https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/medieval-prices-and-wages/ https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/medieval-prices-a...

computerthings 2y ago

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jayd16 2y ago

Sometimes bespoke subtlety is bad or superfluous and sometimes its innovative. Ideally, you streamline a golden path as best you can but its also important to leave room for new good ideas.

slifin 2y ago

That period was when all the lords had captured the land and forced people to toil on the land, without access to large land ranges the average person cannot live independently Before your ancestors would have kept a large herd of mammals and lived nomadically moving to fresh pastures when the grass and vegetation was eaten It's rare but there are some modern nomadic people who live like this camels and goats in the desert Old diets were primarily carnivore and plants were struggle foods That's why Europeans killed all the buffalo and why the Japanese on average are shorter because they had long periods where meat was restricted for religious reasons Don't compare yourself to a people under exploitation, independence was taken by force

cameronh90 2y ago
I have family that still live as subsistence farmers on their own land. Their life is hard and unforgiving. There’s a reason they wanted their kids to get an education and move to the city. I’m not going to try to compare it to pre-neolithic nomadic tribes because nobody knows for sure why the neolithic revolution occurred, but my guess would be that climate shocks were more likely to wipe out small nomadic tribes over the long run.