this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
66 points (93.4% liked)
Fuck AI
1514 readers
7 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Women workers in Britain attacked the Spinning Jenny because it speeded up the spinning process, and consequently, reduced labour demand. This caused a valid fear of unemployment among women working in the woollen industry. Till date, they had survived on hand spinning, but this was placed in peril by the new machine.
Who wants to go back to spinning wool by hand now?
Uhhh, the actual fear wasn't unemployment, it was taking skill and care out of the equation. A lot of the women (and men) that attacked the emerging British textile factories were worried LESS about losing their own livelihoods to industry than they were about the absolutely brutal conditions people were placed under in these factories. Their counterargument was large-scale shops doing hand spinning or machine-aided spinning LED BY THOSE WOMEN instead of some posh asshole who hasn't ever spun wool - still producing things slower, but with theoretically zero children getting mangled by a wool carder.
The Luddites (of whom the spinning jenny protests were a part) didn't fear progress because it might make them obsolete, they argued that rapacious pursuit of more efficient methods by people who didn't understand that industry, who hadn't worked in that industry, was going to make those industries worse, and also get people harmed in some cases.
They were right, by the way.
Just like the Spinning Jenny back then, AI is as bad as it's ever going to be today. It's only going to get better and jobs will be made redundant, I'll put my money on that. It's a real fear that many people have, whether they'll admit it or not.
You can absolutely argue that the human touch is irreplaceable and just as there is a niche market for hand spun cotton now, I'm sure that there will be cases where humans are still employed for jobs that could arguably be filled by AI in the future.
How many of the clothes that you own use hand spun threads? I'll bet on zero.
It's also as good as its ever going to be today (or the near future).
Degenerative AI has already dropped off in usage to the point that major stakeholders in it are terrified. It's going to go into the same winter that every previous "no really this time we've got it right" AI crazes went.
Imagine looking at biplanes in the twenties, only pointing out the flaws, unable to imagine the huge improvements in flight technology that are to come over the next few decades.
There's absolutely no reason to think that AI won't improve in the same way almost any other new technology has over time.
Will there be peaks and dips along the way? Sure, but progress is almost inevitable.