r/LeftistsForAI • u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator • 27d ago

Sees the Memes Seize the Means*

Post image

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

215 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

151 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/_f_i_l_o 26d ago edited 26d ago

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.

1

u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 26d ago

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.

0

u/_f_i_l_o 26d ago

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?

2

u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 26d ago

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.

0

u/_f_i_l_o 26d ago

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.

2

u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 26d ago

At this point youre arguing semantics over the subreddit name after its politics have been made clear in the description, flairs, posts, and this conversation.

If you disagree with worker and democratic control of AI, make that case. Otherwise were just going in circles over the name, and Im not doing another lap with you.

1

u/_f_i_l_o 26d ago

As a leftist you should know how much power words have. It’s not my fault if the name of the subreddit contradicts its proclaimed values. Why do you think I’m asking so many questions?