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Highly recommend people learn the history of the Industrial Revolution. I recently discovered the Industrial Revolutions Podcast[1] and have been enjoying it. W

Highly recommend people learn the history of the Industrial Revolution. I recently discovered the Industrial Revolutions Podcast[1] and have been enjoying it. What's happening today isn't unprecedented. The pace of change that's happening IS similar to periods of the industrial revolution. For example, the flying jenny, overnight, basically put an entire craft industry of weaving into question. Probably more dramatically than anything Claude Code ever did. It took A LOT and several world wars for brief periods of normalcy post WW2 - probably the exception, not the rule. 1 - https://industrialrevolutionspod.com/ https://industrialrevolutionspod.com/

towledev 6mo ago
The circumstances are similar, but the people are different. Look outside: this is WALL-E.
energy123 6mo ago
The jobless French artisans who couldn't compete with English industrial imports was one of the causes of the French Revolution.
satvikpendem 6mo ago
Thomas Picketty does indeed argue in Capital in the 21st Century that the post World War 2 period is indeed an exception in terms of inequality being lower while historically it is not, and it is reverting back to the mean of there being more inequality these days, yet people bemoan the idea of not being able to live off a single job when in reality that was never guaranteed.
- EMIRELADERO 6mo ago
  Still, that's no reason to accept a return to that state of affairs. Progress happens slowly and imperceptibly, but on a grand scale it does happen.
  - satvikpendem 6mo ago
    Much as we'd like that to be true ideally, does it happen (in terms of inequality reducing)? I see no evidence of that, it ebbs and flows in various time periods and civilizations. One can try to resist that reversion to the mean but they'd historically be proven wrong.
    - jojomodding 6mo ago
      For a start by not tearing down the systems that kept inequality in check in the past. Like union membership or banking regulation etc. just to name some examples.
      - alanbernstein 6mo ago
        The tearing down of those institutions IS the ebb.
    - tmpz22 6mo ago
      [flagged]
    - wise0wl 6mo ago
      That's like accepting burnt coffee is the average, so why try to make a good tasting cup. Nonsense.
dd8601fn 6mo ago
At the start I think everyone thought the industrial revolution could be a useful historical reference. But what AI is selling is the obliteration of human knowledge work. It just isn’t informative for that.
- softwaredoug 6mo ago
  A guild craftsmen weaving / making firearms pre Industrial Revolution would see their work as much about “knowledge” as manual labor. Much of that got obliterated by automation. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes
- jonahx 6mo ago
  This is the key point. It threatens nearly everything in the limit, not one particular industry. There will be no "leveling up" into higher-order jobs, because the machines will be better at those too.
  - softwaredoug 6mo ago
    They thought that too in the industrial revolution. You can look back and see the jobs that came out of it. But at the time, it wasn't obvious to the people effected that there would be jobs again. We may have hindsight bias in evaluating something that happened, but to the people that it happened to it was terrifying.
    - mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
      MIT's motto is mens et manus: mind and hand. These are, basically, the two primary attributes of human labor. They're the reason almost anyone gets hired to do anything. Our brains and our opposable thumbs are what set us ahead of the animal kingdom. The industrial revolution first attempted to replace our hands. But the labor that was displaced had places to go: into smaller-scale manual work, where mass-production machinery was too expensive, and into knowledge work. Now the AI is coming for knowledge work, and robots are getting better at small-scale work. We're not at that point yet, but looking down the road I'm not sure there will really be anything competitive left flesh-and-blood humans can offer to an employer. The only exceptions I can think of are, maybe, athletics, live music performances, and escort services. But with only a few wealthy people as customers, I don't think there will be many job opportunities even in those fields. And I'm not sure that robots won't come for those too.

towledev 6mo ago

The circumstances are similar, but the people are different. Look outside: this is WALL-E.

energy123 6mo ago

The jobless French artisans who couldn't compete with English industrial imports was one of the causes of the French Revolution.

satvikpendem 6mo ago

Thomas Picketty does indeed argue in Capital in the 21st Century that the post World War 2 period is indeed an exception in terms of inequality being lower while historically it is not, and it is reverting back to the mean of there being more inequality these days, yet people bemoan the idea of not being able to live off a single job when in reality that was never guaranteed.

EMIRELADERO 6mo ago
Still, that's no reason to accept a return to that state of affairs. Progress happens slowly and imperceptibly, but on a grand scale it does happen.
- satvikpendem 6mo ago
  Much as we'd like that to be true ideally, does it happen (in terms of inequality reducing)? I see no evidence of that, it ebbs and flows in various time periods and civilizations. One can try to resist that reversion to the mean but they'd historically be proven wrong.
  - jojomodding 6mo ago
    For a start by not tearing down the systems that kept inequality in check in the past. Like union membership or banking regulation etc. just to name some examples.
    - alanbernstein 6mo ago
      The tearing down of those institutions IS the ebb.
  - tmpz22 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  - wise0wl 6mo ago
    That's like accepting burnt coffee is the average, so why try to make a good tasting cup. Nonsense.

dd8601fn 6mo ago

At the start I think everyone thought the industrial revolution could be a useful historical reference. But what AI is selling is the obliteration of human knowledge work. It just isn’t informative for that.

softwaredoug 6mo ago
A guild craftsmen weaving / making firearms pre Industrial Revolution would see their work as much about “knowledge” as manual labor. Much of that got obliterated by automation. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes
jonahx 6mo ago
This is the key point. It threatens nearly everything in the limit, not one particular industry. There will be no "leveling up" into higher-order jobs, because the machines will be better at those too.
- softwaredoug 6mo ago
  They thought that too in the industrial revolution. You can look back and see the jobs that came out of it. But at the time, it wasn't obvious to the people effected that there would be jobs again. We may have hindsight bias in evaluating something that happened, but to the people that it happened to it was terrifying.
  - mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
    MIT's motto is mens et manus: mind and hand. These are, basically, the two primary attributes of human labor. They're the reason almost anyone gets hired to do anything. Our brains and our opposable thumbs are what set us ahead of the animal kingdom. The industrial revolution first attempted to replace our hands. But the labor that was displaced had places to go: into smaller-scale manual work, where mass-production machinery was too expensive, and into knowledge work. Now the AI is coming for knowledge work, and robots are getting better at small-scale work. We're not at that point yet, but looking down the road I'm not sure there will really be anything competitive left flesh-and-blood humans can offer to an employer. The only exceptions I can think of are, maybe, athletics, live music performances, and escort services. But with only a few wealthy people as customers, I don't think there will be many job opportunities even in those fields. And I'm not sure that robots won't come for those too.