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Word of the Day: Luddite
The word Luddite originated in the early 1800s.
At that time, a group of people referred to as Luddites, perhaps because their leader was Mr. Ludd, protested against machines being used as an excuse to avoid standard labour practices, such as giving them a lower salary.
These Luddites were not protesting against the machines.
The people were afraid that if they learned the skills to do a job that a machine would eventually do, they would be wasting their time.
We could say they were protesting more about attaining an education that would not prepare them properly for the future.
A similar situation is in the nascent stages at the moment.
Artificial Intelligence will soon begin to replace white-collar workers.
In fact, it has already begun.
In Japan, some insurance company workers have already had their jobs taken over by AI.
It’s just a sign of the times and a harbinger of things to come.
Over time, the meaning of Luddite has changed.
In modern times, a Luddite is a person who hates or fears mechanization, computerization or automatization.
AI is going to be everywhere in the future.
Not too far down the road, AI is going to replace the jobs of white-collar jobs such as financial assistants, insurance adjustors or perhaps even accountants.
As the saying goes, you can’t stop progress, and people who try to prevent or fight against computerization and AI will be called Luddites, too.
We will all have to adjust to this new reality.
The best thing that we can do is prepare for a world in which AI is ubiquitous.
Whether we are Luddites or not, we will all need the skills to work with AI.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 64.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.