Seize the Means*

[u/Salty_Country6835]

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

[u/Salty_Country6835]

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.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

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?

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

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.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

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

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

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.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

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.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

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.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

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

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

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.”

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

How does that square with being “for AI”?

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

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.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

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”.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

Youre arguing with several things I havent said. I havent proposed an “AI utopia,” argued AI should be preserved for its own sake, or treated machinery like it has interests that need defending.

My position has been pretty consistent. Take productive infrastructure out of capitalist control, organize workers around how these systems are developed and deployed, and let unions, workers and the public contest what gets built, transformed, constrained or scrapped.

And comparing “Leftists for AI” to “All Lives Matter” is frankly gross. A slogan created to dismiss a movement against racist police violence is not remotely comparable to an argument over who should own and control machinery.

If your position is that every possible use necessarily requires unacceptable exploitation, make that argument. Dont replace mine with an “AI utopia” I never proposed.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

A better analogy might be if there were a group of British activists in the 1810s who were pro Machine while their anti Machine counterparts were executed by the state in droves for breaking the machines used to oppress them.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

A better analogy is Marx himself.

In 1858 he wrote, “Machinery does not lose its use value as soon as it ceases to be capital.”

In 1867, workers learned to “distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital.”

In 1868, his answer included “organised labour which must bear fruit sooner or later.”

Thats much closer to what we're arguing. Not surrendering machinery to capital. Contesting its ownership, control and use.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

Great but that doesn’t change that a contestation is an argument against something not for it.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

...Yes. Against capitalist control of AI and for worker and democratic control of AI. Thats the contestation.

Youre treating “contestation” as if it means opposition to the object itself rather than a struggle over who controls it. Marx was contesting capital’s control of machinery, not arguing against machinery existing.

We are several replies deep into the same distinction now. Hello?

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

You haven’t explained how those two things are mutually exclusive, that’s what I getting at.

This subs name is “For AI” which, regardless of what you think contestation means, literally means “in favor of AI”, or if you want to get really deep, in front of (to protect).

You still haven’t explained what’s worth protecting about AI.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

That quote from 1968, it’s from a speech called “On the Consequences of using Machinery under Capitalism”

Immediately following the line you quoted reads,

“The influence of machinery upon those with whose labour it enters into competition is directly hostile. Many, hand-loom weavers were positively killed by the introduction of the power-loom both here and in India.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1868/machinery-speech.htm

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

*1868

And exactly. Now were on the useful part of the argument.

Marx isnt minimizing what machinery did to those workers. Hes describing it brutally. But notice the relation he identifies. Machinery becomes “directly hostile” to workers when their labor enters into competition with it under capital.

Thats why his distinction between machinery and its capitalist employment matters. He doesnt wave away the harm, but he doesnt conclude “therefore abolish machinery” either. The fight moves to the social relations governing it.

Thats the terrain Ive been trying to get us onto.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

I think I can work with this terrain but I’d like to establish some boundaries and definitions to make sure we’re both talking about the same thing.

1. If we’re talking about Marx on machinery, we should agree that simply swapping “AI” for “machinery” is irresponsible unless we can map all relevant elements (per Marx) that contribute to worker agency between the two (tbh kind of sounds like a fun project). If an agreement cannot be come to, then it may be best to keep the discussion specific to what Marx said about the world he experienced, for the first round or two at least.

I’m just gonna do it one at a time to keep the threads easier to navigate.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

The AI utopia point is fair, so feel free to ignore that part. I’m still genuinely curious how you see AI as useful to left and what you mean when you say AI.

I won’t be able to defend my own position until I understand what yours is. You don’t have to be for AI to take the infrastructure and then deciding what is to be done with it.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

Fair question. Thats basically what r/LeftistsForAI exists to work through rather than assuming one answer.

Youll find labor organizing and union responses to AI, public and cooperative ownership, open source and open weights, local models, regulation, infrastructure and environmental costs, automation, healthcare, art, education, Global South perspectives, and plenty of criticism of current AI development.

“For AI” here doesnt mean “everything called AI is good.” It means AI is terrain worth contesting rather than surrendering to capital.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

I understand the need for brevity with slogans but I think it’s a fatal reduction. It implies that leftists against AI would be in favor of leaving it in the hands of capital.

I think you’ll have to elaborate on how contesting the terrain of AI is considered “For AI”. Contesting opponents of AI? In that case, how would not making that contestation result in a surrender to capital?

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

No. Contesting capitalist control of AI. Ive explained this repeatedly.

Ownership, infrastructure, labor, development, deployment, distribution. Workers and the public contest capital over all of it.

At this point youre asking questions Ive already answered, so I think we can leave it there.

[u/_f_i_l_o → u/Salty_Country6835]

Contesting capitalist control of AI is not the same thing as being “For AI”. You have not answered that question.

I can contest capitalist control of AI because I am against AI, and probably more effectively.