[JeremyNT]

This is a part of it, but I also feel like a Luddite (the historical meaning, not the derogatory slang).

I do use these tools, clearly see their potential, and know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor. My skills will become worthless. Maybe GP is right that at first only skilled developers can wield them to full effect, but it's obviously not going to stop there.

If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible.

For now I'm forced to use them to stay relevant, and simply hope I can hold on to some kind of employment long enough to retire (or switch careers).

[visarga]

> know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor

But now you too can access AI labor. You can use it for yourself directly.

[UtopiaPunk]

Kind of. But the outcomes likely do not benefit the masses. People "accessing AI labor" is just a race to the bottom. Maybe some new tools get made or small businesses get off the ground, but ultimately this "AI labor" is a machine that is owned by capitalists. They dictate its use, and they will give or deny people access to the machine as it benefits them. Maybe they get the masses dependent on AI tools that are currently either free or underpriced, as alternatives to AI wither away unable to compete on cost, then the prices are raised or the product enshittified. Or maybe AI will be massively useful to the surveillance state and data brokers. Maybe AI will simply replace a large percentage of human labor in large corporations, leading to mass unemployment.

I don't fault anyone for trying to find opportunities to provide for themselves and loved ones in this moment by using AI to make a thing. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the AI labor is yours. The capitalists own it, not us.

[plagiarist]

That is a fiction. None of us can waste tens of thousands of dollars whipping out a C compiler or web browser on a whim to test things.

If these tools improve to the point of being able to write real code, the financial move for the agent runners is to charge far more than they are now but far less than the developers being replaced.

[clickety_clack]

> it’s obviously not going to stop there.

I don’t think it is obvious actually that you won’t have to have some expert experience/knowledge/skills to get the most out of these tools.

[iso1631]

Originally spinners and weavers were quite happy. One spun, the other weaved, and the cloth was made.

Then along game the flying shuttle and the weavers were even happier - producing twice as much cloth and needing half as many spinners.

The the spinning jenny came along and spinners (typically the wife of the weaver) were basically unemployed, so much so that the workers took to breaking into the factories to destroy the jennys.

But the weavers were on the same track. They no longer owned their own equipment in their own home, they were centralised in factories using equipment owned by the industrialists.

Over the entire period first spinners, then weavers, lost their jobs, even with the massive explosion in output.

Meanwhile lower skilled jobs (typically with barely paid children) abounded (with no safety requirements)

Fortunately in the 1800s English industrialists had some amount of virtue, and the workers organised into unions, so economic damage wasn't as widespread as it could have been.

This power imbalance between the owners and workers was only really arrested after the world wars - first with ww1 where many owner's sent their children to battle and lost their heirs, then later with strong government reacting to the public post ww2.

[Jare]

I think the keyword here is "some".

It already seemed like we were approaching the limit of what it makes sense to develop, with 15 frameworks for the same thing and a new one coming out next week, lots of services offering the same things, and even in games, the glut of games on offer was deafening and crushing game projects of all sizes all over the place.

Now it seems like we're sitting on a tree branch and sawing it off on both sides.

[reactordev]

Today. Ask again in 6 months. A year.

[orangecat]

If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so

Would travel agents have been justified in destroying the Internet so that people couldn't use Expedia?

[plagiarist]

Society was been better without the internet. We have lost all our privacy, our third spaces, the concept of doing hobbies for fun instead of as content, and much more.

[marcosdumay]

> capital is devaluing labor

I guess the right word here is "disenfranchising".

Valuation is a relative thing based mostly of availability. Adding capital makes labor more valuable, not less. This is not the process happening here, and it's not clear what direction the valuation is going.

... even if we take for granted that any of this is really happening.

[jonas21]

> If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible.

Certainly, you must realize how much worse life would be for all of us had the Luddites succeeded.

[goatlover]

Or perhaps they would have advanced the cause of labor and prevented some of the exploitation from the ownership class. Depends on which side of the story you want to tell. The slur Luddite is a form of historical propaganda.

Putting it in today's terms, if the goal of AI is to significantly reduce the labor force so that shareholders can make more money and tech CEOs can become trillionaires, it's understandable why some developers would want to stop it. The idea that the wealth will just trickle down to all the laid off work is economically dubious.

[toprerules]

If the human race is wiped out by global warming I'm not so sure I would agree with this statement. Technology rarely fails to have downsides that are only discovered in hindsight IMO.

[imtringued]

If you knew a little bit about history then you would know that the "Anti-Luddite" position is literally "shoot the unemployed if they strike".

Equivocating Luddites with backwards thinking is a way to cover up government violence. You're literally trying to misrepresent the Luddite position by implying that they had some sort of global plot to force the world to be worse and that they were rightfully stopped by the government when in reality they had some personal grievances about how they were treated and they took revenge against the owners of capital by vandalizing their capital.

You're trying to twist this into Luddites hating capital and machinery itself, which is factually wrong.

[harimau777]

Sure, but would it have been better or worse for the Luddites?

[iso1631]

For those who survived sure. For those at the time, I'm sure they would disagree

[mbgerring]

You can reject the ideas in the aggregate. Regardless, for the individual, your skills are being devalued, and what used to be a reliable livelihood tied to a real craft is going to disappear within a decade or so. Best of luck

[oblio]

> The historical luddites are literally the human death drive externalized. Reject them and all of their garbage ideas with extreme prejudice.

Yes, because fighting for the rights of laborers is obviously what most people hate.

[goatlover]

For a different perspective:

"Except the Luddites didn’t hate machines either—they were gifted artisans resisting a capitalist takeover of the production process that would irreparably harm their communities, weaken their collective bargaining power, and reduce skilled workers to replaceable drones as mechanized as the machines themselves."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/06/the-luddites-wer...