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by heavyset_go
1345 days ago
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The Luddites weren't some cult of ignorant technophobes, they were highly-skilled middle class craftsmen and small business owners who went from being able to provide for their families to dying in utter destitution. The remainder of them were tried for machine breaking and were either executed by the state or exiled to penal colonies. They risked everything because everything was at stake, I have a hard time saying that their situation and outcomes were "good", and I have a hard time saying the same about similar situations that are playing out today. |
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Today, clothing is cheap and plentiful, along with bedding, curtains, towels and other cloth materials. Clothing would be outrageously expensive if everything were still hand spun, hand loomed, hand cut, hand sewn, and hand screened.
If the human computers[1] that predated the rise of the machine computer had done the same and won, it would have certainly been a boon for them at the time as well, but to the loss of all information technology developed hence.
The lack of a social safety net lent desperation to the luddites. Had they not faced imminent ruin and starvation as the machines eclipsed their occupation, they may not have had need to rebel against the newly emerging textiles mechanization.
AI may eventually replace traditional artists in many situations. Surely with simple images today, we can expect video examples in the future, and interactive AI generated simulations some time after that.
Do we smash the data centers now to save the artists' livelihoods and thereby avoid a future where anyone that wants can talk a computer through creating entire interactive fictional worlds via the synthesis of AI generation with feedback from their imagination?
[1] referring here to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)