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dredmorbius 2 days ago

My point is that many technologies which were once thought of as luxuries eventually come necessities. Socially if not physically.

Adam Smith of all people writes of this:

By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them.

<https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/...>

Running water, sewerage, gas service, home postal service, electricity, automobiles, telephone service, Internet service, mobile phones, universal healthcare, and many other utilities were once considered luxuries but came to be recognised as essentials.

latentsea 2 days ago | parent [-]

I don't need my linen shirt either. I'll be just fine, naked in the forest.

Jokes aside, I already don't live without my LLM. Rely on it too much. Though more for comfort than survival.

dredmorbius a day ago | parent [-]

Naked in the forest is underrated, until the ticks and mosquitoes arrive ;-)

Fair points, I'll add that I'm not sold that LLMs will become indispensable. There's plenty of flashy tech which hasn't.

But of the past 20--30 years' or so offerings, it seems to have a reasonably high chance.

latentsea 20 hours ago | parent [-]

If you bring the LLM to the forest and prompt it for how to avoid the ticks and mosquitos it will most likely tell you to put a linen shirt on.