HelloThere

It’s almost like low quality mechanisation is something that should be resisted. I wonder where I’ve heard that before…

It’s an old, bad, joke on the two definitions of revolting.

And they smell bad too!

I’m not moving the goal posts, I have consistently been talking about workers resisting the capture of their income by businesses mass producing items at lower qualities.

Your previous comment characterising individuals as only consumers is what I was continuing to challenge within the above context.

Either way, have a good weekend.

I think we’re talking past each other. You seem to be addressing a point I have not made.

A piece of technology is not something that exists outside of a political context. As an example, your repeated use of consumer, as a term for individuals, is interesting to note.

Why do you view these people as consumers, rather than producers? Where is the power in that relationship? How does that implication shape the rest of your point?

AI is a tool that should be kept open to everyone

I agree with this principle, however the reality is that given the massive computational power needed to run many (but not all) models, the control of AI is in the hands of the mega corps.

Just look at what the FAANGs are doing right now, and compare to what the mill owners were doing in the 1800s.

The best use of LLMs, right now, is for boilerplating initial drafts of documents. Those drafts then need to be reviewed, and tweaked, by skilled workers, ahead of publication. This can be a significant efficiency saving, but does not remove the need for the skilled worker if you want to maintain quality.

But what we are already seeing is CEOs, etc, deciding to take “a decision based on risk” to gut entire departments and replace them with a chat bot, which then invents hallucinates the details of a particular company policy, leading to a lower quality service, but significantly increased profits, because you’re no longer paying for ensured quality.

The issue is not the method of production, it is who controls it.

So, I didn’t downvote you because that’s not how I operate.

The Luddites were not protesting against technology in and of itself, they were protesting against the capture of their livelihoods by proto-capitalists who purposefully produced inferior quality goods at massive volume to drive down the price and put the skilled workers out of business.

They were protesting market capture, and the destruction of their livelihood by the rich.

This sort of monopolistic practice is these days considered to be a classic example of monopolistic market failure.

There is a massive overlap between the philosophy of the Luddites, and the cooperative movement.

The modern usage of the term is to disparage the working class as stupid, feckless, and scared. This has never been true.

You clearly have no idea what the luddites actually stood for.