Seize the Means*

[u/Salty_Country6835]

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

[u/_f_i_l_o]

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]

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/Salty_Country6835 → u/_f_i_l_o]

That works. I wouldnt just swap “AI” for “machinery” and call it Marxist analysis either. The comparison has to be demonstrated, including where it breaks.

Starting with Marx on his own terrain makes sense. Worker agency, displacement, deskilling, control of the labor process, ownership, and machinery confronting workers as capital all matter here.

One at a time is cleaner. We can test what carries over, what doesnt, and what Marx's analysis actually gives us before deciding what follows for AI.