alt Hacker NewsComputers have been mechanizing people's jobs away for god knows how many years now. Everybody on this site is guilty of it to some degree. I'm a doctor, and automating me out of a job has been one of the wettest dreams of programmers since the expert systems of the 20th century, and that dream is palpable in every HN thread about medicine.
But now that computers have come for the "creatives", it's suddenly an attack on human dignity? No.
Programmers are not special. Artists are not special. Humans are not special.
Replies
smashburger • yesterday at 9:43 PM
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magicalist • yesterday at 7:33 PM
> Programmers are not special. Artists are not special. Humans are not special.
Really winning me over with this take. Definitely prefer this vs checks notes human experience, creativity, and dignity.
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The person you're responding to isn't talking about automation or jobs, they're talking about creating being fundamental to the human experience. And they're 100% correct. Humans have been creating since ancient times; the earliest cave painting discovered is 67,800 years old [1]! By comparison, how old is modern capitalism?
Work and art have existed long before emperors, kings, feudal lords, and capitalists and they'll exist long after them. Any economic or political system that misuses technology to disrupt the ancient human need to create is fundamentally anti-human. The biggest fault with our current socioeconomic system is it prioritizes the worst aspects of humanity (greed, hoarding, consumption) over the best aspects (building and creating). That's why people are upset.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/world/asia/indonesia-hand...