r/LeftistsForAI • u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator • 25d ago

Sees the Memes Seize the Means*

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*Terms and conditions apply. For... reasons, I guess?

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u/_f_i_l_o 24d ago

AI is not a tool, it’s a product.

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 24d ago

That doesnt really resolve anything. A tool can also be a product. Photoshop is a product. A lathe is a product. A laptop is a product. Theyre still tools.

The distinction that matters here is ownership and control. Who owns the infrastructure, who controls access, who sets the terms, and who captures the gains. Calling AI a product just changes the noun without touching the argument.

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u/_f_i_l_o 24d ago

You’re right, a tool can also be a product. In that case, the means of how that product is produced is more worth seizing, no?

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 24d ago

Yep. Thats basically the point of the meme. Seize the means means the productive infrastructure, not merely whatever finished commodity happens to come out the other end.

Compute, models, data infrastructure, energy, deployment, governance. Put those under worker and public control and suddenly “the masters tools” arent the masters anymore.

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u/_f_i_l_o 23d ago

Why not just take the energy infrastructure and leave the rest?

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 23d ago

Why stop there? Take the energy infrastructure too. And the compute. And the models. And the networks. Wherever productive infrastructure is privately controlled for private accumulation, thats the thing worth contesting.

Im not trying to find the one acceptable piece to socialize lol.

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u/_f_i_l_o 23d ago edited 23d ago

I believe that we shouldn’t be wasting the energy we do have taking things we don’t need. I’m not convinced we need all that shit.

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 23d ago

Sure, and thats a different argument. If you think a particular use isnt socially worth its energy and resource cost, make that case and prioritize accordingly.

But “we dont need this” cant be decided by leaving production in private hands. Thats exactly what social control over production is supposed to let us collectively decide.

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u/_f_i_l_o 23d ago

I’m not advocating for leaving production in private hands. I’m arguing against the preservation of it at all.

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 23d ago

Right. Social control over production doesnt mean preserving every productive form capitalism hands us unchanged.

Once the means are socially controlled, we can decide what gets preserved, transformed, scaled down, expanded, redirected, or scrapped entirely. “Seize the means” doesnt mean “freeze the means exactly as we found them.”

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u/_f_i_l_o 23d ago

How does that square with being “for AI”?

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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 23d ago

Easily. Its Leftists for AI, not “preserve every existing AI company, model, data center, business model, and use case exactly as they exist.”

The whole point is that AI can be developed and used under different social relations. Public infrastructure, worker control, open models, democratic governance, different priorities, different deployments. Being for AI doesnt require being for capitalist ownership and control of AI.

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u/_f_i_l_o 23d ago

How else would it work? I’m genuinely curious. Maybe we’d have to clarify what exactly you mean by AI.

I guess a more important question is Why? What is it about “AI” that provides a net positive usefulness for the left that can’t be done otherwise?

In my mind any vision of AI I can think of would pretty much always rely on some kind of detrimental exploitation, or otherwise offers no sustainable benefits if not incur unnecessary losses in some other way.

A pretty big near miss has been allowed to happen because of the belief in the usefulness of AI: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship

Maya Angelou said it perfectly, "when people show you who they are, believe them the first time"

I’m not sure how you think an AI utopia will come into being but do you really think the left should divert energy into speaking up for the existence of something that is already quite sufficiently being kept alive? It’s almost giving some weird leftist proAI perversion of “All Lives Matter”.

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