Not in any weirdly-self-aggrandizing "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over" sense, just the depressingly regular one of "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed."
P.S.: For example, imagine having applications for jobs and loans rejected because all the companies' internal LLM tooling is secretly racist against subtle grammar-traces in your writing or social-media profile. [0]
We have a term for that, it's called "luddite". Those were english weavers who would break in to textile factories and destroy weaving machines at the beginning of the 1800s. With the extreme rare exception, all cloth is woven by machines now. The only hand made textiles in modern society are exceptionally fancy rugs, and knit scarves from grandma. All the clothing you're wearing now are woven by a machine, and nobody gives this a second thought today.
The Luddites were actually a fascinating group! It is a common misconception that they were against technology itself, in fact your own link does not say as much, the idea of “luddite” being anti-technology only appears in the description of the modern usage of the word.
Here is a quote from the Smithsonian[1] on them
>Despite their modern reputation, the original Luddites were neither opposed to technology nor inept at using it. Many were highly skilled machine operators in the textile industry. Nor was the technology they attacked particularly new. Moreover, the idea of smashing machines as a form of industrial protest did not begin or end with them.
I would also recommend the book Blood in the Machine[2] by Brian Merchant for an exploration of how understanding the Luddites now can be of present value
1 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea...
2 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59801798-blood-in-the-ma...
They had very rational reasons for trying to slow the introduction of a technology that was, during a period of economic downturn, destroying a source of income for huge swathes of working class people, leaving many of them in abject poverty. The beneficiaries of the technological change were primarily the holders of capital, with society at large getting some small benefit from cheaper textiles and the working classes experiencing a net loss.
If the impact of LLMs reaches a similar scale relative to today's economy, then it would be reasonable to expect to see similar patterns - unrest from those who find themselves unable to eat during the transition to the new technology, but them ultimately losing the battle and more profit flowing towards those holding the capital.
No, that's apples-to-oranges. The goals and complaints of Luddites largely concerned "who profits", the use of bargaining power (sometimes illicit), and economic arrangements in general.
They were not opposing the mechanization by claiming that machines were defective or were creating textiles which had inherent risks to the wearers.
I have never thought of being anti-AI as “Luddite”, but actually this very description of “Luddite” does sound like the concerns are in fact not completely different.
Observe:
Complaints about who profits? Check; OpenAI is earning money off of the backs of artists, authors, and other creatives. The AI was trained on the works of millions(?) of people that don’t get a single dime of the profits of OpenAI, without any input from those authors on whether that was ok.
Bargaining power? Check; OpenAI is hard at work lobbying to ensure that legislation regarding AI will benefit OpenAI, rather than work against the interests of OpenAI. The artists have no money nor time nor influence, nor anyone to speak on behalf of them, that will have any meaningful effect on AI policies and legislation.
Economic arrangements in general? Largely the same as the first point I guess. Those whose works the AI was trained on have no influence over the economic arrangements, and OpenAI is not about to pay them anything out of the goodness of their heart.
Maybe it would have been better for humanity if the Luddites won.
It is not possible to rehabilitate the Luddites. If you insist on attempting to do so, there are better venues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack
Except, we are all Jack.
> "our tech is so powerful that robots will take over"
> "lots of people getting hurt by a short-term profitable product/process which was actually quite flawed."
You response assumes the former, but it's my understanding the Luddite's actual position was the latter.
> Luddites objected primarily to the rising popularity of automated textile equipment, threatening the jobs and livelihoods of skilled workers as this technology allowed them to be replaced by cheaper and less skilled workers.
In this sense, "Luddite" feels quite accurate today.
We don't have to imagine such things, really, as that's extremely common with humans. I would argue that fixing such flaws in LLMs is a lot easier than fixing it in humans.
I currently work in the HR-tech space, so suppose someone has a not-too-crazy proposal of using an LLM to reword cover-letters to reduce potential bias in hiring. The issue is that the LLM will impart its own spin(s) on things, even when a human would say two inputs are functionally identical. As a very hypothetical example, suppose one candidate always does stuff like writing out the Latin like Juris Doctor instead of acronyms like JD, and then that causes the model to end up on "extremely qualified at" instead of "very qualified at"
The issue of deliberate attempts to corrupt the LLM with prompt-injection or poisonous training data are a whole 'nother can of minefield whack-a-moles. (OK, yeah, too far there.)
I just don't think your original comment was entirely fair. IMO, LLMs and related technology will be looked at similarly as the Internet - certainly it has been used for bad, but I think the good far outweighs the bad, and I think we have (and continue to) learn to deal with the issues with it, just as we will with LLMs and AI.
(FWIW, I'm not trying to ignore the ways this technology will be abused, or advocate for the crazy capitalistic tendency of shoving LLMs in everything. I just think the potential for good here is huge, and we should be just as aware of that as the issues)
(Also FWIW, I appreciate your entirely reasonable comment. There's far too many extreme opinions on this topic from all sides.)
To continue one of the analogies: Plenty of people and industries legitimately benefited from the safety and cost-savings of asbestos insulation too, at least in the short run. Even today there are cases where one could argue it's still the best material for the job--if constructed and handled correctly. (Ditto for ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons.)
However over the decades its production and use grew to be over/mis-used in so very many ways, including--very ironically--respirators and masks that the user would put on their face and breathe through.
I'm not arguing LLMs have no reasonable uses, but rather that there are a lot of very tempting ways for institutions to slot them in which will cause chronic and subtle problems, especially when they are being marketed as a panacea.
