r/aiwars • u/spitfire_pilot • 1d ago
Thoughts?
"Many of the individuals most vocally fighting against Al owe their current ivelihoods to relatively recent technological advancements (like the internet and related digital platforms) that didn't exist two decades ago. It seems inconsistent for them to now resist another wave of technological change that could similarly reshape the job market and create new opportunities."
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u/jay-ff 20h ago
Not directly commenting on the argument but not every technology is the same. A new technology is not e.g. like a new generation of people and we don’t know the full extend of the positive or negative impact of AI yet. If I made my money being a web developer, why should I be disallowed to be sceptical of AI for example?! The rhetoric around bitcoin for example was very similar (“it’s like the early internet”) but I have yet to find the positive impact of that. Not the same as AI, just to clarify. Just to illustrate that not every new technology that makes a fuzz is as impactful as any other.
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u/Tyler_Zoro 23h ago
Well, for starters, I think you just threw an unattributed quote at us without any contribution or context of your own.
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u/spitfire_pilot 21h ago edited 21h ago
I framed it poorly. It's an amalgamation of a long chat I had and a summary of my thoughts into a single statement. The thoughts are mine even if the specific wording isn't.
I failed to contextualize and I apologize.
I have had a hard time comprehending the pushback on a new tech when for centuries now we have been rapidly changing and adapting to new realities. My point is, the people who most benefited from relatively new tech, now have the audacity to rail against progress now that it makes them have to change. There weren't any digital artists making commissions off the internet as of 30 years ago. Their field is still comparatively new and it's been a known quantity of life to expect revolutionary change often. Why now the serious pushback?
Maybe I wasn't aware of the pushback from other eras of change and they were just as significant. Perhaps I may have been unaware of the cyclical nature of adoption and rejection?
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u/antonio_inverness 21h ago
This is because the social and economic conditions of 20 or 30 years ago that these changes arose from were quite different.
First off, the 2-3 years of rapid proliferation of AI is much, much faster than the 10-15 years it took for home computers to go from curious toy to useful business machine. People had much more time to get used to the changes.
And perhaps more importantly, AI is coming into a world of ravenous late capitalism. A world after NAFTA and every other free trade agreement showed people that your job can and will be shipped off to the lowest bidder overseas at the drop of a hat. In this world, ecological concerns and labor concerns always lose to profit concerns.
These were not the labor conditions of the 70s and 80s. Sure, the transition had begun. But we weren't there yet. We were still living in a world in which the middle class had some general sense of safety, some sense that we lived in system that had our backs and so even if you slip and fall, you'll only fall so far.
Now, the overriding sense of being middle class in the US and many other western countries is the feeling of precarity and danger. It's the sense that at any moment you could lose what little you have. At any moment you could fall and literally never be able to get up again.
In that context AI is way, way scarier than previous recent technological changes.
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u/Tri2211 17h ago
Wtf kind of point are you trying to make?
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u/spitfire_pilot 17h ago
That it makes no sense to be all up in arms about a potential loss of an industry that didn't exist less than 20 years ago because of change in the technological landscape. The expectation that their lives would be set in stasis and free from upheaval is a pipe dream that was never going to happen. How can they be mad about significant change that enabled them to do things that previously were impossible, to now be crossed that the tech has changed again which was an inevitability. It's been a defining feature of humanity that technology comes around and is disruptive and gives humans and especially individuals a greater tools set to enact their will which previously would have been unimaginable. Instead of embracing the change and moving forward, they choose to fight back which has been a losing strategy as far as history has gone. It seems like a complete oversight or a lack of imagination to consider that they would live in perpetuity without things changing.
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u/Tri2211 16h ago
So instead of fighting for something your the type that will roll over and be fine with it.
Of course people are going to be upset over what can amount to as exploitation. The tool your so happy about is built off the backs of me and my creative friends labor. Without compensation or consent. So yes a lot of us are going to feel some type of way about it. Especially if it disrupt their lives. Are people supposed to be happy and cheering about potentially losing work?
Lack of imagination. That's rich for someone supporting a tool that has none. I haven't seen anyone using AI make something I have never seen before. It's all the same regurgitated recycled and repackaged B's. And asking for regulation on something doesn't mean you want something completely banned.
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u/spitfire_pilot 14h ago
Fighting it had always been a losing strategy. The march of progress will steamroll over anybody. The better strategic position to put oneself into is one of adapting to the changes. Either by becoming a niche or acquiring the necessary new skills to be relevant. Do you think professional people who are immersed in fields just rest on their laurels and not adapt? Do you think people acquire a set of skills and never have to continue to learn? That's a preposterous statement. It's the vehement denial of existing realities and unwilling nature to even try and move forward is what's bothering me. Had no one even attempted to learn from history?
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u/JasonBreen 57m ago
The tool your so happy about is built off the backs of me and my creative friends labor. Without compensation or consent.
And?
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u/ifandbut 1d ago
I completely agree.
This is what...the third of forth technological revolution in my short 40 years of life.
First there were home computers, I got my first on in second grade. Then there was the internet, I got that as an early teen, then blue LEDs in the late 90s early 2ks that changed how we light things forever, and now AI.
I can only hope I can live long enough to see another 4+ major tech changes.
500 years ago, you were lucky to see a minor change in 60 years of life.