From Broken Looms to the AI Boom
summary
Connects Jacquard punch cards to modern code and shows GitHub Copilot writing a React unit test in under a second, alongside the 18th‑century cascade: flying shuttle, spinning jenny, and Cartwright power loom driven by water and steam that replace skilled weavers with factories and child labor. Drops numbers: 60–80% of textile workers are women earning 2–5× below livable wage and software is ~8% women globally (28% in US). Urges asking who benefits when automation reshapes work.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction by host
- 2:20From sewing to coding
- 3:42GitHub Copilot demo
- 4:24Industrial Revolution looms
- 6:56Who were the Luddites
- 9:42Legacy of the Luddites
- 10:47Babbage’s automated factory dream
- 12:30Protecting your craft
- 13:35Who benefits from automation
- 14:16Call to action
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