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• @ajroach42@retro.social 2026-09-17 15:49

  One of the things I've seen people bring up in this thread a couple of times is the Luddite movement, and their pushback against automated looms and sewing machines. This was raised, I think, as a way to say that these were technologies that were also being forced on people, and that they were not good. There's nuance to this discussion that I'm probably not correctly equipped to capture, but I'll do my best. The Luddites weren't against the adoption of tech in general, they were against that technology being used to push people out of work, to make worse products, and to create a less safe work environment. It is my understanding that, by and large, they were in favor of sewing machines and automated looms when those things were owned and controlled by workers, and used to make good things faster or better things. They were against these technologies when they were used to make worse things, or when they were used to displace workers, or when they were used to create an unsafe working environment. Many people make the argument that this directly parallels LLMs and GenAI. That if this technology was in the hands of individuals and being deployed to make good things better, or to make good things faster, or something to that effect, that it would all be okay. This is bullshit. If no one forced factories to use automated looms and sewing machines, they probably would have adopted them anyway because they enabled new ways of making things, but many people would self select out of that group, continuing to do things by hand. (and, in fact, many people do.) If no one forces workers to use AI, the workers who do not want to use AI will continue to not use AI and the workers who choose to use AI will get rugpulled when the full cost of the machine bears down upon them or when the bubble pops.

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