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Comment by ACCount36 | Hacker News Reader

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Luddites weren't crushed by progress, they were crushed by an armed militia backed by the government. 12,000 militia and yeomanry units, in fact. Knowing how most of the AI fanatics are like though, doesn't surprise me they're on the side of the boot rather than on the side of the people getting crushed by said boot.

Also, what's the definition and point of "progress" to you? Because the way AI is shaking out to me screams the opposite of what I'd expect progress to look like. Assuming the likes of Altman (an individual who wants to harvest your biometric data for a scam shitcoin, by the way) can be believed and we indeed reach the singularity or AGI or whatever, is everyone except for the C-level (who is somehow magically exempt from the negative effects of this progress and irreplaceable somehow) losing their livelihoods and getting crushed under the boot of the wealthy and powerful "progress", in your eyes?

If you think that the prospect of "job loss" would, or should, stop progress, you're delusional. There are reasons to slow AI progress down, but "think of all the jobs" certainly isn't one.

You didn’t answer his question about what you define progress as.

> you're delusional

Am I? I'm saying this is what's going to happen (if people like Altman are correct), same as how the Luddites knew exactly what was going on. I'm not denying that we're not likely to stop AI development even if everyone loses their jobs, I'm saying that it's not what my vision of progress looks like.

You also conveniently left out the part I mentioned about those jobless people getting crushed by powerful boots and focused solely on what I said about job loss.

And again I'll ask, what exactly does "progress" mean for you? What world are we heading towards that counts as positive progress in your mind? Because from what I can tell you think we're going to be heading towards mass unemployment and... consider it a good thing, for some reason?

> Luddites were idiots. They thought they could stand in the way of progress.

Ummmm. No.

The luddites were not opposed to progress or new machinery. The luddites called for unemployment compensation and retraining for workers *displaced* by the new machinery (machinery they sometimes helped build!). This probably makes them amongst the most progressive people of the 1800's.

So it's a "mistake" to choose be Amish for example?

This is a pretty typical response of people who know the term "Luddite" as it's used today, but don't know much about the actual Luddites.

Progress crushes you whether you are a Luddite or not.

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