The 1940s carpenter analogy: today's AI skeptics sound exactly like power-tool protesters
WolframRvnwlf · x · 2026-09-11
Eric S. Raymond sketches a thought experiment: imagine it's the 1940s and power tools are replacing hand tools, making previously impossible jobs feasible—only to find picketers at your worksite demanding "STOP POWER TOOLS!".
The post walks through the protesters' arguments one by one—how do you train apprentices without feeling the wood, what happens when we consume aged timber faster than trees regrow, carpentry is a mindset not just skills—and hints they plan to exclude power-tool users from jobs.
The obvious subtext is today's AI discourse: skill devaluation, resource concerns, and "real creativity will die" mirror the anti-power-tool rhetoric almost verbatim, framing AI resistance as historically recurring Luddism.
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