AI-ters.
  • Daggity@lemmy.zipEnglish
    351·
    13 hours ago

    Really appropriate example, actually.

    As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”

    • ILoveUnions@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      12 hours ago

      Me and the boys being worried for our jobs as automation stretches onwards and just wanting some level of guarantee that good paying jobs will still be available 😭

    • MudMan@fedia.io
      412·
      10 hours ago

      For the record, the word as a general noun is widely recognized to mean what everybody thinks it means:

      Luddite noun Ludd·​ite ˈlə-ˌdīt : one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change

      One of the weirder annoyances of the AI moral panic is how often you see this spiral of pedantry about the historical luddites whenever someone brings up the word as a pejorative.

      I mean, fair rhetorical play, I suppose, in that it creates a very good incentive to not bring it up at all. If the goal was to avoid being called a luddite as an insult or as shorthand for dismissing AI criticism as outright technophobia I suppose that is mission accomplished, disingenuous as it is.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
          1·
          3 hours ago

          That is correct.

          It is also correct that someone disagreeing with me can be doing so because of a moral panic. Our agreement is entirely disconnected to whether there is a moral panic at play or not.

          For the record, I think “AI” is profoundly problematic in multiple ways.

          This is also unrelated to whether there is a moral panic about it. Which there absolutely is.

          • abbotsbury@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            3 hours ago

            long winded way to say your objections are logical and sound while everyone else is just having a panic, you little moralizer you.

            • MudMan@fedia.io
              1·
              2 hours ago

              Well, no, it’s a concise way to say some objections are logical and sound and some are stemming from a moral panic.

              Whether I agree with the objections on each camp is, again, irrelevant.

              I disagree with some of the non-moral panic objections, too, and I’m happy to have that conversation.

              Four possible types of objections in this scenario, if you want to be “logical” about it:

              • Objections that aren’t moral panic that I agree with.
              • Objections that aren’t moral panic that I disagree with.
              • Objections that are moral panic that I disagree with.
              • Objections that are moral panic that I agree with.

              I think there aren’t any in that last group, but there are certainly at least some objections in all other three.