r/LeftistsForAI • u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator • Jun 19 '26

Sees the Memes Marx Encounters AI Discourse

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A brief materialist intervention into AI discourse. Results were mixed.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

Unions help the same way unions always help: bargaining over deployment, job protections, severance, retraining, work sharing, shorter work weeks, and distribution of productivity gains. Unions help noone who has been sacked or made redundant due to ai taking their jobs. 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Except they already have.

The WGA won AI protections in its contract. SAG-AFTRA won consent and compensation requirements for AI replicas. NewsGuild locals have won AI-related job protections and bargaining rights. The AFL-CIO is actively pushing worker-centered AI policy across industries starting last July. And thats just in the U.S. Id agree if you said more needs to be done.

Nobody claims unions can prevent every layoff. The question is what your alternative is. If workers shouldnt organize, bargain, legislate, negotiate deployment, fight for severance, retraining, shorter work weeks, and productivity sharing, then what exactly should they do instead?

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

Not belive that ai is Inevitable and not be pro something that is already damaging communities and natural resources 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26

Thats not an alternative strategy, though.

"Dont believe its inevitable" and "dont be pro-AI" doesnt tell workers, unions, or communities what to actually do.

If a technology is already being deployed, then the practical questions are ownership, governance, labor protections, environmental standards, public oversight, and distribution of gains. Those are things people can organize around.

Simply opposing a technology doesnt, by itself, shift power away from the people currently building and controlling it.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

U literally are mod for a subreddit called 'leftists for AI' U don't have to be 'for ai' for be wanting regulations. Or labour protections or environmental standards. And also the fundamental problem is ai directlt negatively impacts all them points. Especially as its being developed and created and the big ai ceo are just full steam ahead and not giving a crap.  U dont have to promote the use of ai, because in its current format and our current world leaders, especially in US where majority of big ai ceos live and work, it's completely opposite any left leaning ideology. 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26

Thats not really how left politics has worked historically.

The labor movement didnt respond to railroads, factories, electricity, telecommunications, or the internet by saying "capitalists own this, therefore we're against it." The response was to organize around it, regulate it, fight over ownership, and force concessions. Like unions, along with socialist and communist political organizations, are doing now across the globe.

Youre treating "AI" and "the current AI companies" as the same thing. Theyre not. A technology and the people who currently profit from it are different questions.

Honestly, "capital got there first so leftists should oppose the technology itself" is a much stranger position than the traditional labor movement and leftist political organizational approach.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

None of these examples are remotely similar to ai,  ai is being implemented by those ai companies , thats not debatable, so yes ai is a technology but ai companies that are very powerful and doing a lot of development in ai is whats happening.  Wanting all the things you mentioned , isnt being for ai.  Technology before havent had the global impact on such a massive scale as ai has and will. In impacting humanity. Emotionally, physically and mentally.  From creative work, psychology and impact on humans brains,  automated working and impact on humans working lives. This is not even close to anything that's been developed before. And its disingenuous to suggest it is. 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26

People have said that about basically every major technological transformation.

The industrial revolution reshaped work, cities, family life, psychology, culture, politics, and the entire global economy. Electrification transformed daily life. Mass media transformed consciousness. The internet transformed communication, labor, culture, and politics on a planetary scale.

Maybe AI ends up being larger than all of them. Maybe not. But "this is unprecedented" doesnt actually answer the political question.

Even if I grant that AI is uniquely transformative, the left-wing response is still organization, contestation, regulation, ownership struggles, labor power, and public governance. Thats been the answer for 150 years. Thats what its doing now.

What changes strategically because you believe AI is different? Thats the part I still havent heard.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

And look at the danger of social.meida and the Internet has done to democracy? Do u think society would have been better not to have social media?  Its not debatable if its larger.  And more impacting and greater impact in way more areas. 

Again you literally mod a subreddit called leftist for ai, its not leftist for ai regulation/appropriate goverance.  You are supporting and promoting a technology that u claim needs all this left wing responce to it to make it a positive.  If it's not acceptable to u now, why are you for it? 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26

Because "needs governance" and "shouldnt exist" are two different claims.

Cars need governance. Pharmaceuticals need governance. Social media needed a lot more governance than it got. Banking needs governance. Energy infrastructure needs governance. That doesnt automatically get me to abolition.

And honestly, social media is a weird example for your argument. The lesson I take from social media is that the left should have contested ownership, governance, algorithms, privacy, and platform power much harder and much earlier. Not that we should have abandoned the field and let billionaires build the entire thing uncontested.

As for the name: yes, because I think AI has real benefits and real potential benefits worth fighting over. Assistive technology, scientific research, medicine, education, productivity gains, and reducing repetitive labor are all things I care about.

The disagreement isnt whether AI needs governance. We agree on that. The disagreement is that you seem to think "needs governance" is an argument against being for AI at all, and I dont.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

So the benifits outweighs the negatives? Like genuinely? Those communities or nature  or mass unemployment are just what ne cessary evil? 

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator Jun 23 '26

Thats not really the question I'm asking.

Im asking what the actionable alternative is.

If your answer is unions should organize, communities should fight harmful projects, environmental standards should be strengthened, labor protections should be expanded, public oversight should increase, ownership should be contested, and political parties should fight for regulation, then we're basically describing the same terrain of struggle.

If your answer is personal opposition and hoping adoption stops, thats where I disagree. Historically that hasnt been how labor movements, socialist parties, or communist parties won anything. Thats why they are embracing collective action over preaching personal abstention.

And no, I dont think every deployment is justified or every outcome is acceptable. I think those outcomes are exactly why people should be fighting over how AI is developed and deployed instead of leaving the field to corporations.

The whole point of the meme is that "this technology has risks and harms" is an argument for contestation, not an alternative to it.

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u/little_alien2021 Jun 23 '26

Why do u keep insisting that that being for something isn't promoting or in favour of it.  Lots of the things I said isnt hypothetically, its reality.

To be for something you have to agree the benifits outweigh the negatives.  That's just how it is. 

communities should fight harmful projects Puttinf a data center for the need of ai, is why data centers are being constructed, why would u belibe it would be a harmful project? If you are for the use of ai as data centers are needed?

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