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thankyoufriendyesterday at 5:07 PM1 replyview on HN

Actually it was 7 years of physical training that deformed their bodies:

"But the work left the body callused, bent, and molded. You could tell a cropper by his enormous forearms and by the “hoof” of callused skin that built up on his wrist. In the spring of 1811, George was in his early twenties, and he’d spent his post-adolescent life learning the trade. Seven years of hard, exacting labor; seven years of paying his dues. That led to pride and attachment to the work, to a brotherhood, to an identity."

Merchant, Brian. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech. Little Brown & Co. (ADS), 2024.


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bogzzyesterday at 5:17 PM

Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding! Let me pivot then-- I still argue that it is a fundamentally different case when it comes to LLMs.

1. Threatening young and educated people with not being able to realize the potential that they believed they were building for themselves is toying with social uprising.

2. Weaving is an apt example of redundancy on account of technological innovation but it's a poor comparison to LLMs where the narrative is that they will continue to get better until they approach a general intelligence level which would put a much much higher percentage of the population at risk of losing their jobs. Again, the segment of the population that has invested most into their skills, and will be the most angry and capable of organizing should that come to pass.

Weaving doesn't as aptly represent the core of what we as a species are good at and excel at, as knowledge work does.

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