Firstly, "Luddite", "artisan", etc. is a pejorative label, a label we should not accept. It is a rhetorical trick that AI marketers use shut down skepticism by trying to shame those who question their sales pitch. If "Luddite" is valid discourse on HN, so is "AI huckster" and "AI grifter" and we should label these shady AI promoters as such.
Secondly, not all tech has net positive outcomes despite initial benefits. Leaded gasoline is a historical example. Despite AI being useful to me as a tool, it is not clear that that it's positives outweigh the negative societal impact. Only time will tell but it is not wrong or "Luddite" to express those doubts.
Most likely not. Luddites hate all automation and machinery.
There is probably a name for something in the middle of that spectrum. Even the strictest subgroups of Amish are not Luddites, not even close. The definition of that name would have to include some aspects of pragmatism, logic, common sense and balance. Just because new tech is launched and may be temporarily popular does not mean it should be praised, adored or even accepted. AI will destroy the environment and make electricity expensive.
For example, I would never give up my 1947 tractor. It can do more work than a horse. The used UTV I bought is also very handy. I like old trucks though I absolutely despise what people call modern cars and what they have become despite their crappy implementations of environmental improvements that they have fooled and reprogrammed people with that makes the oil and automotive industry orgasmic. Drive by wire and internet accessible is equal to assassination on demand RIP Anne Heche. Modern vehicles are intellectually disgusting and abhorrent. Modern touch screen controls are just irresponsible.
In my view technology and some machinery have taken giant steps backwards and not wanting to accept such vial abominations is not being a Luddite rather it is just being practical, having some common sense and not being enamored by the hype machine.
> There is probably a name for something in the middle of that spectrum
Well if there isn't one then we can make one, similar to how Luddite as a word came through this according to wikipedia:
> The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]
The question arises as to who is the Ned Ludd of the modern era of AI/LLM who represent what you are talking about in the sense of pragmatism, logic,common sense and balance.
> Just because new tech is launched and may be temporarily popular does not mean it should be praised, adored or even accepted
Agreed, not all that glitters is gold.
Edit: speaking of the question arises part, I think that I personally liked Mitchell's view of AI, he is a bit too optimistic at times but I find his overall opinion balanced and more nuanced,
so perhaps mitchellism or hashimotoism/hashimotism could be one of my votes.
A bit sad to see that both Hashimotoism and mitchellism are sort of taken/have something similar which seems to be a cult about potterhouse church or something, definitely a rabbit hole that I might explore further.
I am thinking ghosttyism or vagrantism but it might get a bit uncertain but yea, the search for a good name continues!
> not all that glitters is gold, One of my favorite proverbs along with not all that wander are lost
My mother is an english teacher and she was just (edit: not just but it was a 1-2 years back iirc not sure) sharing some story within her literature and this proverb was quite relevant to that story. Fun story but maybe I should ask my mother the story again perhaps.
> not all that wander are lost
There is a saying where I live called "सुबह का भूला शाम को घर आ जाए, तो उसे भूला नहीं कहते|" which means that "If a forgotten person comes home in the evening, then he is not called forgotten"
which means in my interpretation that as long as you can realize your mistake and accept upon it and try to improve, then you aren't forgotten or moreso you shouldn't really regret too much about it, the idea is to accept mistakes and improve and apologize etc. if a genuine mistake might be done and the proverb is used to forgive people in some essence.
This got offtopic but hey, welcome to hackernews and thanks for reading and have a nice day @bender :-D
I think AI is a wonderful tool if used intelligently, but it can be -- and is -- used for just about anything, with the consequence that we live in a sea of intellectual and artistic slop whose level is very slowly yet steadily rising.
I don't have an answer beyond using AI as intelligently as possible for your personal purposes. The technology is there, and its misuse doesn't negate or obviate its beneficial uses, nor do those uses contribute to the rise in the level of the sea of slop.
I started building a platform for human-first content but I don't know at this point whether I'm misreading the room completely or other people are also fed up.
As I'm typing this, I'm listening to "I just can't get enough" playing after Google's agentic shopping demo and I literally feel sick to the stomach.
I used to point fingers and laugh at communist luddites and I don't really want to become one and I don't know how I could escape that path.
Listening to the keynote all I could feel was disgust and I can't fathom what people were clapping for.
Yeah, I get that 100%. Didn't watch it but I'd feel the same way. Of course, the people in that room are highly selected/filtered, but still, clapping for that feels nauseating.
I remember when Matt Taibbi called Goldman Sachs a vampire squid on the face of humanity, and that phrase made the rounds for a while. Feels like it should be repurposed for the AI industry.
> Listening to the keynote all I could feel was disgust and I can't fathom what people were clapping for.
My friend, there are equally as many if not more people who are fed up by AI for example, students booing people is a recent case.
The people who are at Google AI are very likely the people who are working at AI and are quite desperate for it for both financial and technical reasons.
> I used to point fingers and laugh at communist luddites and I don't really want to become one and I don't know how I could escape that path.
I think that you are worrying about being luddite because of that label itself. Like because you have laughed previously at luddites, you might be worried about that label and thus having a self contradiction which is creating a small crisis of identity.
For what its worth, its still worth mentioning that companies aren't getting any tangible benefit from AI while burning millions of dollars some of which even layoff-ing people and people speculating about it because of the high costs attached.
It is questionable as to the real practicality of AI in many things. They might be good in certain use cases but I think that we are treating it as something more than a tool, which feels the wrong approach.
There are people highly respected like Mitchell who are saying that there are people that he respects in the industry and literal companies who are in the state of AI psychosis and ask these companies on how they make profit is still a question of sweat to them as it seems that they are degrading the tooling and models (Famously anthropic has had a lot of heat recently)
Also, think about 2022-23, how many skills used then of AI are being used right now. Nobody knows whats gonna happen in next few years (and if they do, they might have exterior incentives too)
So either way if the technology turns out to be absolutely amazing and life changing and people are clapping about it on google I/O. don't worry, the features will come in general testing and you would then see the normal consensus of things and you don't really have to do things or follow them as you can just have your own vibes and you wouldn't really be a luddite.
My point is that if you are trying AI right now because of the fear of missing out or in some sense the fear of being called a luddite at the moment, then even by the own premise of AI, there wouldn't be many skills that you can meaningfully learn about AI and you could just pick it up down the line if or when the tech stops being speculative asset with whole economy relying on it while crossing fingers.
So my point is, don't worry about these labels or anything perhaps. I am a crypto luddite (except stablecoins) and that has worked in my favour for the most part, if AI works great, if it doesn't work, still great :)
Anyways I am really getting interested in robotics and for some reason making my own operating system or reading some source code of C compilers and golang or running ternary LLM models on FPGA (yes LLM related but I am really interested in fpga right now).
Honestly the bigger question I am worried about is the job market as someone still in high school.
And ps, I am saying this as someone who has been vibe-coding before it was a term or like the LLM way, but I feel like one can churn out a lot of projects and I surely have done it too but they lack any meaning or depth and I am just saving them so that I could in college, learn the languages more properly and understand what they are doing as I wish to understand these softwares.
Just my 2 cents but thanks for reading, not sure if its related to your comment or not but just my thoughts and yeah thanks for reading and have a nice day!
No, you're not a Luddite.
Firstly, "Luddite", "artisan", etc. is a pejorative label, a label we should not accept. It is a rhetorical trick that AI marketers use shut down skepticism by trying to shame those who question their sales pitch. If "Luddite" is valid discourse on HN, so is "AI huckster" and "AI grifter" and we should label these shady AI promoters as such.
Secondly, not all tech has net positive outcomes despite initial benefits. Leaded gasoline is a historical example. Despite AI being useful to me as a tool, it is not clear that that it's positives outweigh the negative societal impact. Only time will tell but it is not wrong or "Luddite" to express those doubts.
Have I Become a Luddite?
Most likely not. Luddites hate all automation and machinery.
There is probably a name for something in the middle of that spectrum. Even the strictest subgroups of Amish are not Luddites, not even close. The definition of that name would have to include some aspects of pragmatism, logic, common sense and balance. Just because new tech is launched and may be temporarily popular does not mean it should be praised, adored or even accepted. AI will destroy the environment and make electricity expensive.
For example, I would never give up my 1947 tractor. It can do more work than a horse. The used UTV I bought is also very handy. I like old trucks though I absolutely despise what people call modern cars and what they have become despite their crappy implementations of environmental improvements that they have fooled and reprogrammed people with that makes the oil and automotive industry orgasmic. Drive by wire and internet accessible is equal to assassination on demand RIP Anne Heche. Modern vehicles are intellectually disgusting and abhorrent. Modern touch screen controls are just irresponsible.
In my view technology and some machinery have taken giant steps backwards and not wanting to accept such vial abominations is not being a Luddite rather it is just being practical, having some common sense and not being enamored by the hype machine.
> There is probably a name for something in the middle of that spectrum
Well if there isn't one then we can make one, similar to how Luddite as a word came through this according to wikipedia:
> The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]
The question arises as to who is the Ned Ludd of the modern era of AI/LLM who represent what you are talking about in the sense of pragmatism, logic,common sense and balance.
> Just because new tech is launched and may be temporarily popular does not mean it should be praised, adored or even accepted
Agreed, not all that glitters is gold.
Edit: speaking of the question arises part, I think that I personally liked Mitchell's view of AI, he is a bit too optimistic at times but I find his overall opinion balanced and more nuanced,
so perhaps mitchellism or hashimotoism/hashimotism could be one of my votes.
Hashimotoism may be too close to Hashimoto's disease [1] though both may have issues [2]
not all that glitters is gold
One of my favorite proverbs along with not all that wander are lost. There must be a word that has more of a well balanced individual connotation.
[1] - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hashimotos-di...
[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/Mitchellism/
A bit sad to see that both Hashimotoism and mitchellism are sort of taken/have something similar which seems to be a cult about potterhouse church or something, definitely a rabbit hole that I might explore further.
I am thinking ghosttyism or vagrantism but it might get a bit uncertain but yea, the search for a good name continues!
> not all that glitters is gold, One of my favorite proverbs along with not all that wander are lost
My mother is an english teacher and she was just (edit: not just but it was a 1-2 years back iirc not sure) sharing some story within her literature and this proverb was quite relevant to that story. Fun story but maybe I should ask my mother the story again perhaps.
> not all that wander are lost
There is a saying where I live called "सुबह का भूला शाम को घर आ जाए, तो उसे भूला नहीं कहते|" which means that "If a forgotten person comes home in the evening, then he is not called forgotten"
which means in my interpretation that as long as you can realize your mistake and accept upon it and try to improve, then you aren't forgotten or moreso you shouldn't really regret too much about it, the idea is to accept mistakes and improve and apologize etc. if a genuine mistake might be done and the proverb is used to forgive people in some essence.
This got offtopic but hey, welcome to hackernews and thanks for reading and have a nice day @bender :-D
I am basically with you.
I think AI is a wonderful tool if used intelligently, but it can be -- and is -- used for just about anything, with the consequence that we live in a sea of intellectual and artistic slop whose level is very slowly yet steadily rising.
I don't have an answer beyond using AI as intelligently as possible for your personal purposes. The technology is there, and its misuse doesn't negate or obviate its beneficial uses, nor do those uses contribute to the rise in the level of the sea of slop.
I started building a platform for human-first content but I don't know at this point whether I'm misreading the room completely or other people are also fed up.
As I'm typing this, I'm listening to "I just can't get enough" playing after Google's agentic shopping demo and I literally feel sick to the stomach.
I used to point fingers and laugh at communist luddites and I don't really want to become one and I don't know how I could escape that path.
Listening to the keynote all I could feel was disgust and I can't fathom what people were clapping for.
Yeah, I get that 100%. Didn't watch it but I'd feel the same way. Of course, the people in that room are highly selected/filtered, but still, clapping for that feels nauseating.
I remember when Matt Taibbi called Goldman Sachs a vampire squid on the face of humanity, and that phrase made the rounds for a while. Feels like it should be repurposed for the AI industry.
"Vampire squid of the mind".
> Listening to the keynote all I could feel was disgust and I can't fathom what people were clapping for.
My friend, there are equally as many if not more people who are fed up by AI for example, students booing people is a recent case.
The people who are at Google AI are very likely the people who are working at AI and are quite desperate for it for both financial and technical reasons.
> I used to point fingers and laugh at communist luddites and I don't really want to become one and I don't know how I could escape that path.
I think that you are worrying about being luddite because of that label itself. Like because you have laughed previously at luddites, you might be worried about that label and thus having a self contradiction which is creating a small crisis of identity.
For what its worth, its still worth mentioning that companies aren't getting any tangible benefit from AI while burning millions of dollars some of which even layoff-ing people and people speculating about it because of the high costs attached.
It is questionable as to the real practicality of AI in many things. They might be good in certain use cases but I think that we are treating it as something more than a tool, which feels the wrong approach.
There are people highly respected like Mitchell who are saying that there are people that he respects in the industry and literal companies who are in the state of AI psychosis and ask these companies on how they make profit is still a question of sweat to them as it seems that they are degrading the tooling and models (Famously anthropic has had a lot of heat recently)
Also, think about 2022-23, how many skills used then of AI are being used right now. Nobody knows whats gonna happen in next few years (and if they do, they might have exterior incentives too)
So either way if the technology turns out to be absolutely amazing and life changing and people are clapping about it on google I/O. don't worry, the features will come in general testing and you would then see the normal consensus of things and you don't really have to do things or follow them as you can just have your own vibes and you wouldn't really be a luddite.
My point is that if you are trying AI right now because of the fear of missing out or in some sense the fear of being called a luddite at the moment, then even by the own premise of AI, there wouldn't be many skills that you can meaningfully learn about AI and you could just pick it up down the line if or when the tech stops being speculative asset with whole economy relying on it while crossing fingers.
So my point is, don't worry about these labels or anything perhaps. I am a crypto luddite (except stablecoins) and that has worked in my favour for the most part, if AI works great, if it doesn't work, still great :)
Anyways I am really getting interested in robotics and for some reason making my own operating system or reading some source code of C compilers and golang or running ternary LLM models on FPGA (yes LLM related but I am really interested in fpga right now).
Honestly the bigger question I am worried about is the job market as someone still in high school.
And ps, I am saying this as someone who has been vibe-coding before it was a term or like the LLM way, but I feel like one can churn out a lot of projects and I surely have done it too but they lack any meaning or depth and I am just saving them so that I could in college, learn the languages more properly and understand what they are doing as I wish to understand these softwares.
Just my 2 cents but thanks for reading, not sure if its related to your comment or not but just my thoughts and yeah thanks for reading and have a nice day!
Charlie Stross here on HN 2 days ago:
"I'm not a fan of actually-existing late-stage capitalism, frankly.
What I want is Banksian fully automated luxury gay space communism.
(You can quote me on that. I hate what tech has turned into.)"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48163649
(Charlie wrote the book on our emerging ai dystopia, prophetically, decades ago)
This book just jumped close to the top of my reading list, thanks for the rec.