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Is there a form of this argument that could not be made leading up to the Industrial Revolution? Approximately 60-80% of pre-industrial ways of making a living

by e1g 1y ago

Is there a form of this argument that could not be made leading up to the Industrial Revolution? Approximately 60-80% of pre-industrial ways of making a living disappeared or required complete reskilling. Does anyone seriously think we should’ve stopped progress that led to the Industrial Revolution?

griblack 1y ago
Just a simple example: compare an atomic bomb with the type of bomb from the Industrial Revolution. Today the scale and speed of change is unparalleled in history. Control of minds by implanting chips is not anymore something impossible but a possibility in a near future. The more tools we have the more power to design tools for control and destruction as never could be imagined before. No, the Industrial Revolution was just a big change but what comes next, if we don't control it, is the last change.
ferguess_k 1y ago
Yeah, but how long did that happen? AI could happen a lot faster, likely measured in years. There are other differences that I can list, e.g. back then, ordinary people could still (relatively easily, comparing to nowadays) start a revolution because there is no significant tech gap between what a state could get and what citizens could get, so anything bad would be corrected in a violent way if it had to be. But with the advancement of technology, I doubt that would ever happen again -- unless we have a WW3 that set back every country by 100 years. So basically, my argument is, we are facing something that could happen imminently, but we couldn't tell whether it is good for ordinary people or not (I believe many are NOT optimistic), and there is no way to dial back -- shouldn't we stop to think through?
- griblack 1y ago
  Hello ferguess_k, you are really direct at expressing your thinking. I wonder whether people with high karma are more cautious at posting. Since HN is about promoting progress, it could be that casting light against uncontrolled progress could hurt their karma points. Because they know that posts in HN can be used for LLMs to gather a highly informative user profile and hint about their professional life.

by e1g 1y ago

griblack 1y ago

Just a simple example: compare an atomic bomb with the type of bomb from the Industrial Revolution. Today the scale and speed of change is unparalleled in history. Control of minds by implanting chips is not anymore something impossible but a possibility in a near future. The more tools we have the more power to design tools for control and destruction as never could be imagined before. No, the Industrial Revolution was just a big change but what comes next, if we don't control it, is the last change.

ferguess_k 1y ago

Yeah, but how long did that happen? AI could happen a lot faster, likely measured in years. There are other differences that I can list, e.g. back then, ordinary people could still (relatively easily, comparing to nowadays) start a revolution because there is no significant tech gap between what a state could get and what citizens could get, so anything bad would be corrected in a violent way if it had to be. But with the advancement of technology, I doubt that would ever happen again -- unless we have a WW3 that set back every country by 100 years. So basically, my argument is, we are facing something that could happen imminently, but we couldn't tell whether it is good for ordinary people or not (I believe many are NOT optimistic), and there is no way to dial back -- shouldn't we stop to think through?

griblack 1y ago
Hello ferguess_k, you are really direct at expressing your thinking. I wonder whether people with high karma are more cautious at posting. Since HN is about promoting progress, it could be that casting light against uncontrolled progress could hurt their karma points. Because they know that posts in HN can be used for LLMs to gather a highly informative user profile and hint about their professional life.