Luddites were machine experts too: a history of AI, work and lost identity
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-10-23
Quoting Alex Imas's new Substack essay with Soumitra Shukla: work has never been just income minus effort costs, as in standard economic models — identity, meaning and sense of agency are wrapped up in what people do for a living. The piece takes a historical view of how technological transformation disrupts identity through jobs, noting the lesser-known fact that Luddites were experts at using the machines themselves, and their protests pushed economists like David Ricardo to rethink automation — later inspiring the Arts and Crafts movement. It connects to recent pieces by Ezra Klein and Francis Fukuyama on AI, meaning and agency.
More from AGI Musings
- If OpenAI and Anthropic won't harden soft targets, 'loyal AGI' becomes a necessity — teortaxesTex · 2026-10-23
- Will Cyber Become Defense-Dominant? rauchg and Security Researchers Debate — kuza55 · 2026-10-23
- Owning GPUs Doesn't Make You Sovereign, Argues Air Street Capital's Nathan Benaich — nathanbenaich · 2026-10-23
- Sarah Hooker amplifies Haijun Xia's piece on dynamic task UIs for AI agents — sarahookr · 2026-10-23
- "Computers Can't Really Do Arithmetic": A 1940s Debate That Mirrors Today's LLM Arguments — debreuil · 2026-10-23
- AI hiring cools: PhD with six top papers gets only 5-6 offers from 20+ firms — dotey · 2026-10-23