6 ms·

This is a part of it, but I also feel like a Luddite (the historical meaning, not the derogatory slang). I do use these tools, clearly see their potential, and

This is a part of it, but I also feel like a Luddite (the historical meaning, not the derogatory slang). I do use these tools, clearly see their potential, and know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor. My skills will become worthless. Maybe GP is right that at first only skilled developers can wield them to full effect, but it's obviously not going to stop there. If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible. For now I'm forced to use them to stay relevant, and simply hope I can hold on to some kind of employment long enough to retire (or switch careers).

Der_Einzige 8mo ago
[flagged]
- mbgerring 8mo ago
  You can reject the ideas in the aggregate. Regardless, for the individual, your skills are being devalued, and what used to be a reliable livelihood tied to a real craft is going to disappear within a decade or so. Best of luck
- takklob 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Der_Einzige 8mo ago
    Either you're thinking of the "room temperature semi-conductor" thing out of Korea, or you're some boomer who forgot that cold fusion was in the 80s.
    - selcuka 8mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer
- goatlover 8mo ago
  For a different perspective: "Except the Luddites didn’t hate machines either—they were gifted artisans resisting a capitalist takeover of the production process that would irreparably harm their communities, weaken their collective bargaining power, and reduce skilled workers to replaceable drones as mechanized as the machines themselves." https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-were-right https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-wer...
- oblio 8mo ago
  > The historical luddites are literally the human death drive externalized. Reject them and all of their garbage ideas with extreme prejudice. Yes, because fighting for the rights of laborers is obviously what most people hate.
jonas21 8mo ago
> If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible. Certainly, you must realize how much worse life would be for all of us had the Luddites succeeded.
- toprerules 8mo ago
  If the human race is wiped out by global warming I'm not so sure I would agree with this statement. Technology rarely fails to have downsides that are only discovered in hindsight IMO.
- goatlover 8mo ago
  Or perhaps they would have advanced the cause of labor and prevented some of the exploitation from the ownership class. Depends on which side of the story you want to tell. The slur Luddite is a form of historical propaganda. Putting it in today's terms, if the goal of AI is to significantly reduce the labor force so that shareholders can make more money and tech CEOs can become trillionaires, it's understandable why some developers would want to stop it. The idea that the wealth will just trickle down to all the laid off work is economically dubious.
  - reactordev 8mo ago
    Reaganomics has never worked
    - bayarearefugee 8mo ago
      > Reaganomics has never worked Depends how you look at it. Trickle down economics has never worked in the way it was advertised to the masses, but it worked fantastically well for the people who pushed (and continue to push) for it.
      - reactordev 8mo ago
        Sure, because it all trickles into their pockets.
visarga 8mo ago
> know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor But now you too can access AI labor. You can use it for yourself directly.
- UtopiaPunk 8mo ago
  Kind of. But the outcomes likely do not benefit the masses. People "accessing AI labor" is just a race to the bottom. Maybe some new tools get made or small businesses get off the ground, but ultimately this "AI labor" is a machine that is owned by capitalists. They dictate its use, and they will give or deny people access to the machine as it benefits them. Maybe they get the masses dependent on AI tools that are currently either free or underpriced, as alternatives to AI wither away unable to compete on cost, then the prices are raised or the product enshittified. Or maybe AI will be massively useful to the surveillance state and data brokers. Maybe AI will simply replace a large percentage of human labor in large corporations, leading to mass unemployment. I don't fault anyone for trying to find opportunities to provide for themselves and loved ones in this moment by using AI to make a thing. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the AI labor is yours. The capitalists own it, not us.
  - rubenflamshep 8mo ago
    As someone who has leaned fully into AI tooling this resonates. The current environment is an oligopoly so I'm learning how to leverage someone else's tool. However, in this way, I don't think LLMs are a radical departure from any proprietary other tool (e.g. Photoshop).
    - bitwize 8mo ago
      Indeed. Do you know how many small consultancies are out there which are "Microsoft shops"? An individual could become a millionaire by founding their own and delivering value for a few high-roller clients.
      - r_lee 8mo ago
        what makes you think that's actually possible? maybe if you really had the connections and sales experience etc... but also, if that were possible, then why wouldn't prices go down? why would the value of such labor stay so high if the same thing can be done by other individuals?
clickety_clack 8mo ago
> it’s obviously not going to stop there. I don’t think it is obvious actually that you won’t have to have some expert experience/knowledge/skills to get the most out of these tools.
- reactordev 8mo ago
  Today. Ask again in 6 months. A year.
  - akdev1l 8mo ago
    People have been saying this for multiple years in a row now.
    - _aavaa_ 8mo ago
      And it has been getting more true for years in a row.
      - akdev1l 8mo ago
        Disagree entirely. If you state “in 6 months AI will not require that much knowledge to be effective” every year and it hasn’t happened yet then every time it has been stated has been false up to this point. In 6 months we can come back to this thread and determine the truth value for the premise. I would guess it will be false as it has been historically so far.
        _aavaa_ 8mo ago
        > If you state “in 6 months AI will not require that much knowledge to be effective” every year and it hasn’t happened yet then every time it has been stated has been false up to this point I think that this has been true, though maybe not quiet a strongly as strongly worded as your quote says it. The original statement was "Maybe GP is right that at first only skilled developers can wield them to full effect, but it's obviously not going to stop there." "full effect" is a pretty squishy term. My more concrete claim (and similar to "Ask again in 6 months. A year.") is the following. With every new frontier model released [0]: 1. the level of technical expertise required to achieve a given task decreases, or 2. the difficulty/complexity/size of a task that a inexperienced user can accomplish increases. I think either of these two versions is objectively true looking back and will continue being true going forward. And, the amount that it increases by is not trivial. [0] or every X months to account for tweaks, new tooling (Claude Code is not even a year old yet!), and new approaches.
orangecat 8mo ago
If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so Would travel agents have been justified in destroying the Internet so that people couldn't use Expedia?
- plagiarist 8mo ago
  Society was been better without the internet. We have lost all our privacy, our third spaces, the concept of doing hobbies for fun instead of as content, and much more.
  - Our_Benefactors 8mo ago
    > Society was been better without the internet I don't even follow the reasoning of arguing this counterpoint, you are literally only able to make this argument because the internet even exists.
    - plagiarist 8mo ago
      That's a "yet you participate in society" argument. It's not at all contradictory to use this communication medium to describe my perception of its negative impacts.
marcosdumay 8mo ago
> capital is devaluing labor I guess the right word here is "disenfranchising". Valuation is a relative thing based mostly of availability. Adding capital makes labor more valuable, not less. This is not the process happening here, and it's not clear what direction the valuation is going. ... even if we take for granted that any of this is really happening.

Der_Einzige 8mo ago

[flagged]

mbgerring 8mo ago
You can reject the ideas in the aggregate. Regardless, for the individual, your skills are being devalued, and what used to be a reliable livelihood tied to a real craft is going to disappear within a decade or so. Best of luck
takklob 8mo ago
[flagged]
- Der_Einzige 8mo ago
  Either you're thinking of the "room temperature semi-conductor" thing out of Korea, or you're some boomer who forgot that cold fusion was in the 80s.
  - selcuka 8mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer
goatlover 8mo ago
For a different perspective: "Except the Luddites didn’t hate machines either—they were gifted artisans resisting a capitalist takeover of the production process that would irreparably harm their communities, weaken their collective bargaining power, and reduce skilled workers to replaceable drones as mechanized as the machines themselves." https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-were-right https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-wer...
oblio 8mo ago
> The historical luddites are literally the human death drive externalized. Reject them and all of their garbage ideas with extreme prejudice. Yes, because fighting for the rights of laborers is obviously what most people hate.

jonas21 8mo ago

> If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible. Certainly, you must realize how much worse life would be for all of us had the Luddites succeeded.

toprerules 8mo ago
If the human race is wiped out by global warming I'm not so sure I would agree with this statement. Technology rarely fails to have downsides that are only discovered in hindsight IMO.
goatlover 8mo ago
Or perhaps they would have advanced the cause of labor and prevented some of the exploitation from the ownership class. Depends on which side of the story you want to tell. The slur Luddite is a form of historical propaganda. Putting it in today's terms, if the goal of AI is to significantly reduce the labor force so that shareholders can make more money and tech CEOs can become trillionaires, it's understandable why some developers would want to stop it. The idea that the wealth will just trickle down to all the laid off work is economically dubious.
- reactordev 8mo ago
  Reaganomics has never worked
  - bayarearefugee 8mo ago
    > Reaganomics has never worked Depends how you look at it. Trickle down economics has never worked in the way it was advertised to the masses, but it worked fantastically well for the people who pushed (and continue to push) for it.
    - reactordev 8mo ago
      Sure, because it all trickles into their pockets.

visarga 8mo ago

> know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor But now you too can access AI labor. You can use it for yourself directly.

UtopiaPunk 8mo ago
Kind of. But the outcomes likely do not benefit the masses. People "accessing AI labor" is just a race to the bottom. Maybe some new tools get made or small businesses get off the ground, but ultimately this "AI labor" is a machine that is owned by capitalists. They dictate its use, and they will give or deny people access to the machine as it benefits them. Maybe they get the masses dependent on AI tools that are currently either free or underpriced, as alternatives to AI wither away unable to compete on cost, then the prices are raised or the product enshittified. Or maybe AI will be massively useful to the surveillance state and data brokers. Maybe AI will simply replace a large percentage of human labor in large corporations, leading to mass unemployment. I don't fault anyone for trying to find opportunities to provide for themselves and loved ones in this moment by using AI to make a thing. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the AI labor is yours. The capitalists own it, not us.
- rubenflamshep 8mo ago
  As someone who has leaned fully into AI tooling this resonates. The current environment is an oligopoly so I'm learning how to leverage someone else's tool. However, in this way, I don't think LLMs are a radical departure from any proprietary other tool (e.g. Photoshop).
  - bitwize 8mo ago
    Indeed. Do you know how many small consultancies are out there which are "Microsoft shops"? An individual could become a millionaire by founding their own and delivering value for a few high-roller clients.
    - r_lee 8mo ago
      what makes you think that's actually possible? maybe if you really had the connections and sales experience etc... but also, if that were possible, then why wouldn't prices go down? why would the value of such labor stay so high if the same thing can be done by other individuals?

clickety_clack 8mo ago

> it’s obviously not going to stop there. I don’t think it is obvious actually that you won’t have to have some expert experience/knowledge/skills to get the most out of these tools.

reactordev 8mo ago
Today. Ask again in 6 months. A year.
- akdev1l 8mo ago
  People have been saying this for multiple years in a row now.
  - _aavaa_ 8mo ago
    And it has been getting more true for years in a row.
    - akdev1l 8mo ago
      Disagree entirely. If you state “in 6 months AI will not require that much knowledge to be effective” every year and it hasn’t happened yet then every time it has been stated has been false up to this point. In 6 months we can come back to this thread and determine the truth value for the premise. I would guess it will be false as it has been historically so far.
      - _aavaa_ 8mo ago
        > If you state “in 6 months AI will not require that much knowledge to be effective” every year and it hasn’t happened yet then every time it has been stated has been false up to this point I think that this has been true, though maybe not quiet a strongly as strongly worded as your quote says it. The original statement was "Maybe GP is right that at first only skilled developers can wield them to full effect, but it's obviously not going to stop there." "full effect" is a pretty squishy term. My more concrete claim (and similar to "Ask again in 6 months. A year.") is the following. With every new frontier model released [0]: 1. the level of technical expertise required to achieve a given task decreases, or 2. the difficulty/complexity/size of a task that a inexperienced user can accomplish increases. I think either of these two versions is objectively true looking back and will continue being true going forward. And, the amount that it increases by is not trivial. [0] or every X months to account for tweaks, new tooling (Claude Code is not even a year old yet!), and new approaches.

orangecat 8mo ago

If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so Would travel agents have been justified in destroying the Internet so that people couldn't use Expedia?

plagiarist 8mo ago
Society was been better without the internet. We have lost all our privacy, our third spaces, the concept of doing hobbies for fun instead of as content, and much more.
- Our_Benefactors 8mo ago
  > Society was been better without the internet I don't even follow the reasoning of arguing this counterpoint, you are literally only able to make this argument because the internet even exists.
  - plagiarist 8mo ago
    That's a "yet you participate in society" argument. It's not at all contradictory to use this communication medium to describe my perception of its negative impacts.

marcosdumay 8mo ago

> capital is devaluing labor I guess the right word here is "disenfranchising". Valuation is a relative thing based mostly of availability. Adding capital makes labor more valuable, not less. This is not the process happening here, and it's not clear what direction the valuation is going. ... even if we take for granted that any of this is really happening.