[splittydev]

The same thing happened when we transitioned from horse carriages to cars. I'm sure a lot of people were quite outraged. But aren't we glad it happened?

Sure, you're allowed to hate whatever you want. I never said they're not allowed to hate AI. I said they're gonna have a hard time in the future if they can't accept that the times are a-changing'.

[afavour]

I actually think that's a great comparison but not for the reasons you're making it.

I live in NYC. When the automobile started to get popular the city saw it as the future and went to extreme lengths to accommodate it. Bulldozed houses, split neighborhoods in half to accommodate parkways and highways that formed our inevitable future. Turns out, cars don't scale. Eventually folks did push back and some of the proposed projects never happened[1] but we're still suffering the consequences the ones that did to this day.

Had there been more criticism and more discussion at the outset we might have avoided a lot of problems. I don't think the choice was "cars or horses", it was "how do we implement this new technology?". Trains and trams, it turns out, would have been better. But the automative industry was rich and powerful and persuaded cities to rip up their streetcar tracks. Many parallels to today's AI industry.

[1] https://www.mcny.org/story/cross-manhattan-expressway

> “virtually everyone believed that the private car was the greatest invention since fire or the wheel. Public transportation seemed to be nothing more than a relic of the past.” Wide modern expressways, Moses believed, would save New York as a great city.

[EdgeExplorer]

Heck no. The world would be a way better place with no personal automobiles. Trains, yes. Even trucks and buses, sure. Cars, nooooooooooo. Cars are among the most clearly net-negative inventions to come out of industrialization. They should be criticized and fought until finally defeated. Self-driving cars are a massive waste of human and physical resources to provide a solution that is still strictly worse than proper urbanism and transportation network design.

[danny_codes]

Absolutely not happy it happened. It would have been way way better for everyone if we replaced horse carriages with subways, trams, walking and biking. The fact that we chose cars was an enormous mistake currently costing people health and happiness in large swaths of the country. Indeed, over 40k people literally die each year. Your change of dying in a car is 0.5% over your lifetime. Your chance of a serious injury is ~30%.

[dml2135]

Plenty of people don't like cars to this day.

[splittydev]

Yes. And I'm sure they're having a hard time. ^

[mrbungie]

It really depends on their environment. Not every city is a car-first city.

[throw4847285]

It's so funny when technological progress guys encounter YIMBYs. They can't even perceive that somebody would have a criticism of the impact of a technology on one's lived environment. "But, history is one big game of Civilization, and we replaced the little horses with tanks? What do you mean you don't like it?"

Whigs gonna whig I guess.

[danny_codes]

Technology-brain is confusing because it's usually pretty well-educated people who presumably read. There are so many examples of technological adoption that has made our lives worse. Cars and social media are easy and widely obvious examples.

[0xbg]

Do most people hate because they view it as less efficient means of transportation then by horse? Or that cars replaced their job as a horse keeper?

[dml2135]

I don't think it's self-evident that we've gained by switching from horses to cars. For most of the trips one makes in their daily life, the ubiquity of cars just means that you now have to travel greater distances. Plus the environmental devastation that cars have wrought. Are we really better off?

[kimbernator]

I feel like there's this idea that progress is good because of economic output, but there's this much squishier and more subjective concept of how much a change impacts our satisfaction with life. I think cars have produced a lot of good in the world, but I also live in the US where we've paved so much of the world that people don't feel like being outside on their feet very much anymore. I think it's had some negative impacts on how we interact as humans.

I feel the same way about AI. Does it make me more productive? Sure. Does it make me suddenly hate the career I used to love? Definitely. Every day I'm told to move faster and to love this cool thing that takes away the math and low-level problem solving that I used to get so much enjoyment from and instead makes me a manager of a chatbot. Any attempt at moderation in the presence of upper management is met with clear threats to my job. Even better, my company (and so many others) are finding unlimited budgets for AI while putting off any sort of raises for the humans involved.

[gdee21]

Now you’re getting somewhere.

I’ll give you the brutal answer that many of you don’t want to hear.

None of you (including me) matter. The only thing that matters is the sovereignty and security of the nation. The people in power care a great deal about furthering this. All the billionaire’s sing to their tune for money does not exceed power.

Moreover - you are only of interest to the state to the extent you are productive. The moment you cease to be productive, it’s in the interest of the state to diminish your quality of life.

Therefore the state cares about output and progress - not about how you feel whilst progress continues on.

[konmok]

> But aren't we glad it happened?

No. Or rather, I wish it happened very differently, and much slower. The rush to make every new city and development "car-friendly" had negative consequences that will last centuries. That's why my city isn't walkable and has awful public transportation, and biking is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the insidious environmental and health effects!

Of course cars have their place in efficient modern transportation, but we would live in a much better world if their development and integration had been slower, more carefully considered, and more criticized.

[onemoresoop]

Not exactly the correct example. Machines replaced horses, the tendency of the current crop of AI tends to replace humans and concentrate unseen control and power and around a small elite. I have nothing against AI as a technology but plenty of concerns about how it’s being used currently.