[timoth3y]

I think that is the core truth of the matter. Technology itself does not make life better.

I recently published an article about the Luddites. If you look at their actual demands, they were not anti-tech. They were labor activists. Life got much, much worse for most people in the industrial revolution until the laws they advocated were finally implemented.

https://www.disruptingjapan.com/the-real-luddites-would-have...

[pitched]

The Luddites were against the systems that were shifting work away from skilled workers (them) to unskilled workers (commonly children). I have no doubt serious injury and death happened at those machines but find it hard to believe that was the cause of the Luddites. All signs point to them being more worried about themselves.

There’s no way they would have been pro-AI. It would take a very skilled VC to warp the world enough to make that sound true.

[timoth3y]

If you look at what their actual demands, the pattern is clear. They lobbied for support for unemployed, the right to vote, improved safely and labor conditions across all industries, and enforcing the labor laws that were already on the books. Banning machines was not part of their demands.

The Luddites were part of a larger labor movement that spanned multiple industries.

[pitched]

I can’t find any primary documents online that back up your claim directly but this gets pretty close: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/why-...

That is still a lot closer to collective bargaining than “save the children”.

What you’re saying is plausible enough to be easy to get an LLM to hallucinate, is the larger concern here. If this opinion does come from one, try asking it to verify using external sources. The Luddites would have been violently opposed to AI slop, if they had an opinion on it.

[willhslade]

I mean, dentristy and vaccines but ok.