> I don't understand the people digging in as zero LLM absolutists.

Relevant read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

I feel like it’s easy to understand what’s motivating these individuals to take that stance.

Definitely not the same. Luddites were fighting for humane working conditions; breaking machines was just a means to an end. They weren’t doing it because machines were the problem.

Anti AI crowd on the other hand just doesn’t like AI. A modern equivalent of a Luddite would be someone going on strike to protest firings.

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southerntofu 9 hours ago | parent [-]

You are being overly dismissive of a mindset you obviously don't understand. Of course being anti-AI is about decent living conditions for humans. Most of us don't believe in singularity or Matrix-style threats.

But current AI is actively destroying our breathable/livable planet by drawing unmatched quantities of resources (see also DRAM shortage, etc), all the while exploiting millions of non-union workers across the world (for classification/transcription/review), and all this for two goals:

1) try to replace human labor: problem is we know any extracted value (if at all) will benefit the bourgeoisie and will never be redistributed to the masses, because that's exactly what happened with the previous industrial revolutions (Asimov-style socialism is not exactly around the corner)

2) try to surveil everyone with cameras and microphones everywhere, and build armed (semi-)autonomous robots to guard our bourgeois masters and their data centers

There is nothing in this entire project that can be interpreted to benefit the workers. People opposing AI are just lucid about who that's benefiting, and in that sense the luddite comparison is very appropriate.

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yoz-y 9 hours ago | parent [-]

You have misinterpreted my comment. But I concede that I should have written it more clearly.

I divide anti-AI people into two groups. Those who don’t like AI because of what it is, and those who don’t like it because of its impact on society. Naturally there is an overlap.

Luddites were not opposed to the technology. So the comparison to them is only correct for the latter group.

Not talking about LLMs on a forum is not going to change anything in the grand scheme of things. It could be a protest, but I see it more (the feeling I get from the announcement) as a means to protect the forum from being overrun regardless whether AI is ultimately good or bad.

Also note that nowhere in my comment I have stated my position in this argument.

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southerntofu 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Sorry for misinterpreting your original comment.

I'm not really convinced there's people who don't like AI "because of what it is". I mean, because of what it is, beyond any social/political considerations.

The only case i know of that is when there was an open letter with Sam Altman and other AI investors calling out the existential danger of AI, which in my view was a way to divert the debate from political questions to hypothetical Matrix/Terminator questions about consciousness and singularity.

	▲	em-bee 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		really? is it so hard to believe that people dislike AI because it is unreliable, can't be trusted, changes how we work with code, takes the fun out of coding? i am not worried about social consequences. society can adapt. i am also not worried about energy use. we have endless clean energy if we can figure out how to use it. yes, i am worried about society choosing the wrong adaption. that is, i believe we should train everyone to be teachers, doctors scientists, and artists. the stuff that AI should not be doing. but i am not worried about using AI for automation, putting people out of jobs. if we give them the opportunity to learn new jobs and, IF, AND ONLY IF, we get AI to do it's work with 100% reliability and accuracy. only then AI will be useful. i have tons of software projects that i'd like to get done. but i can't trust AI to do them for me, because i would spend even more time to verify the results than i would to code it myself. so yeah, i absolutely don't like AI for what it is, a tool with limited uses that requires me to work in a way i don't want, if i want to benefit from it.