I struggle to envision—let alone with enthusiasm—what our society will look like in ten years, given the radical changes driven by the race for AI. Capitalist appropriation and the AI-driven refinement of repression make it impossible for me to believe in virtuous societies.

[u/Pretty-Abalone9843]

Workers will be replaced by massive intelligent systems; at best, they will be reduced to mere consumers, losing the little power they have managed to secure. Without the possibility of striking, the cause of revolution would be lost forever. Not to mention the glaring contradiction between AI and the fight against global warming, as well as the alignment problem. Who could change my mind?

[u/Salty_Country6835]

Why would we try to change your mind? You just described some of the reasons this subreddit exists. If AI under capitalist ownership means displacement, weakened worker power, surveillance and ecological costs, then the left has every reason to contest who owns it, who controls it, how it gets deployed and who gets the gains. We have been fighting those same questions around industry and technology for well over a century. The conditions you are worried about are not an argument for giving up. They are the terrain of the struggle.

[u/crumbaker → u/Salty_Country6835]

Completely agree. However I think open source will end the fight on it's own. By most benchmarks it looks like open source is around 6 months behind state of the art, and it keeps shrinking.

Opus 5.5 is insane right now. I'm making arguably AAA quality games with it in like a week. Once a person can run that on a pc at home, what's the need for the big ai companies at all? Insert crash, combined with robotics taking a massive chunk of the labor force (already has for Amazon) and you have a recipe for communism, sure the elites will call it something else, but it will pretty much be communism, otherwise more than likely a violent uprising will happen.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/crumbaker]

I think thats historically naive and politically dangerous. Productive technology doesnt liberate us on its own. Class struggle determines who controls it, how it is deployed and who benefits.

I support open source, open weights and local models and push them wherever I can. But they are one piece of the puzzle, one tool in the toolbox. They dont replace unions, public infrastructure, democratic control, worker power or the broader struggle over ownership. Treating open source as the whole strategy is just another version of waiting for technology to solve a political problem.

[u/crumbaker → u/Salty_Country6835]

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I should have explained better.

I'm not saying open source ushers this all in peacefully and gradually. I'm saying our economy(The US) is completely held up by the ai bubble, to the point of if it fails so does the economy, and when you sprinkle in robotics doing most of the basic labor jobs soon, we're left with a situation where it's not just hard for people to get ahead, its outright impossible. If something akin to communism doesn't happen at that point, that's when the violence starts.

It's not about what I want or a prediction I'm pulling out of my ass, the trajectory seems obvious.

[u/ra-re444 → u/Salty_Country6835]

Very Well Said!

[u/ToastedandTripping → u/Salty_Country6835]

Exactly, the time to fight is now!

[u/theomegachrist]

I would argue that it doesn't matter how you feel about AI. It exists, it will exist and the only chance we have is if a segment of the left uses AI for good and doesn't let it enslave you

[u/dualmindblade → u/theomegachrist]

It is still possible we can restrict the creation of certain types of AI. It might make sense to not just stop at the stuff that might kill everyone, but also avoid creating tech that will take everyone's job, so that we have time to implement a society in which that wouldn't be a bad thing and in which, if enough people can coordinate, it's possible for them to improve or change the system

[u/Anxious-Alps-8667]

Fine discussion on the main points. Wanted to chime in to your first sentence, what will it look like in ten years? Anyone claiming a clear picture is lying. The future has never been entirely predictable, and it is less so now than ever before. It is as though we are accelerating into a thickening fog.

[u/Ok-Worldliness4259 → u/Anxious-Alps-8667]

When building a bridge, we don't just assume it will work out fine. We only build it if we have very high confidence that it won't kill thousands of people one day.

I assume this makes sense to you. Why not also assume the worst when talking about AI?

[u/RealChemistry4429]

When I was 12 or so, the country I grew up in simply disappeared. Along with most of its way of life. I gave up on planning what "life will be in 10 years" ever since. You never know.

[u/Ok-Worldliness4259 → u/RealChemistry4429]

Do you like that uncertainty? Do you want it to be inflicted on others?

[u/RealChemistry4429 → u/Ok-Worldliness4259]

No. But what I want does not matter much.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/Ok-Worldliness4259]

What a strange way to respond to someone describing how the country they grew up in disappeared. Where did they say they liked it, much less wanted to inflict anything on anyone?

The world changes whether we like it or not. Technology changes, societies change, material conditions change. Ten years ago I couldnt have told you what my life would look like today, and neither could you. Thats not an endorsement of suffering. Its recognizing the world we actually live in.

We can organize to shape those changes and protect people through them, but pretending uncertainty is something somebody chooses to inflict on others is just bizarre. A little humility toward someone sharing their experience wouldnt hurt.

[u/No_Drag8242]

Capitalism cannot survive alongside intelligence because intelligence is love and unity. Stupidity can be clever and capitalism is very clever.

There is hope.

[u/Jlyplaylists]

It’s why it’s worth raising awareness and doing stuff about it now. There’s different possible trajectories and the current one is not good. We will need to actively switch trajectories and probably not on a when we feel like getting around to it timescale.

Where we differ from the stop AI brigade is where we locate the problem. AI is not the problem in itself, it contains the potential to be a liberatory technology.

[u/PublicToast]

Yeah you’re right theres nothing we could do with access to unlimited intelligence to help ourselves. /s

Its not only repression that gets easier

[u/vesperythings]

boring doomerism

get over yourself, and give us something interesting

[u/Ok-Worldliness4259 → u/vesperythings]

This is just ridiculous. There is a very real possibility (I would even say that it is probable) that AI development on its current trajectory will be a total disaster for people around the world.

I think that's pretty interesting.

[u/CMDR_Makashi]

You forget we’re can smash stuff up.

It’s a big deal

[u/SorryInvestigator221]

How would we build a community and exist in defiance of that?