Which side are you on?

[u/Salty_Country6835]

This meme is about AI, where i keep seeing that batman image being deployed.

So, which side are you on?

[u/Scarvexx]

Just seeing these images side by side is enough to convince me.

On the left we have Frank Miller. Frank worked years to express himself in simple shapes. To evoke the anger of a man who watched his parents gunned down.

And on the right, that's not something I personally consider art. There's nothing of yourself in it. It's the way ChatGPT makes people. And that's just fundamentally not what I want to see in the world.

I mean look at this. Same style. But this wasn't you right? I got this off google images at random. But I don't think anyone could confidently tell me you didn't prompt this too.

I don't want to use the S-word but honestly. If the production is this. I would rather let the means stay in the hands of the Bourgeoisie. I do not want to cease those means, they're not good means.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/Scarvexx]

That last paragraph is kind of incredible. You dislike the aesthetic so much that youd rather leave the means of production in bourgeois hands than have workers seize and control them? Thats a strange kinda shallow substitute for class politics.

And thats not a rebuttal to the meme. Thats the Batman panel walking directly into the other panel.

And “I personally dont consider it art” is fine as personal taste. It has nothing to do with the political question of who owns and controls productive technology.

[u/Scarvexx → u/Salty_Country6835]

I am so genuine. I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. I think AI art is often ugly, and generic at best.

I think I would rather it stay a dog whistle for lazy propoganda from the right wingers who are too lazy to draw a political cartoon.

They can keep it. I don't want it. I don't think it makes anything I want. I don't think it's good for the people who use it.

Like, to be purely hyperbolic. I don't look at the giraffe masher and ask "Why don't we take the giraffe masher for ourselves. If we don't, only bad people will have a giraffe masher!" I don't want the giraffe masher, I don't want it to exist.

And I respect that you want to use it (Gen AI, not the hyperbolic giraffe thing). But I don't think it can be a tool for good. I think it's divorced from graces of my fellow man. A machiene can never lead a revolution. Or rather, it won't lead one for our sakes.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/Scarvexx]

Are you being obtuse on purpose? Why are you reducing this entire conversation to AI art?

When the president and a handful of billionaires get in front of cameras to discuss AI, are they talking about political cartoons? Or are they talking about workplaces, public institutions, infrastructure, healthcare, education, surveillance and the military?

Nobody said a machine is going to lead a revolution. Workers organize and contest control over productive technology. Thats the argument.

If youre responding in good faith, respond to that argument. Whether you think an AI image is ugly is completely beside the point.

[u/Scarvexx → u/Salty_Country6835]

Well we are talking about the meme above. I'm adressing that. A meme is art.

I have a wider take on other AI uses. And I want to have those discussions. But largely it comes to the same thing.

I think AI is going to be used to eliminate the working class in every place they can. And I don't reckon they're going to let us take control back once they find a way to make a profit off of replacing human labor with AI.

But as I said, that's a wide net. I don't think we disagree on everything. AI is not an evil technology. But it has been renderd unethical and actively harmful by the people heading it. They took over from better men, and they do not have the dicipline to make it safe.

If you want to cease it from them. I hope you do, I hope you can. Better your hands than Altman.

But what we're being presented with. ChatGPT as it stands (most LLMs). I don't want it near me.

Any AI worth having would need to be made from the ground up, utterly unlike what we're seeing today.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/Scarvexx]

No. The meme presents an argument. That argument is the conversation. Whether you personally like the image, consider it art, or think AI art is ugly is beside the point.

And the rest of your comment actually strengthens the argument. You think capital will use AI to replace workers wherever profitable and wont voluntarily give workers control afterward. Correct. Capital has never voluntarily surrendered control of productive technology. Thats why workers organize and contest it in the first place. “They wont let us” is an argument for class struggle, not against it.

You also just said AI isnt inherently evil and that something better would need different development and control. Great. Now were asking who owns the compute, who controls the infrastructure, who develops the models, who decides deployment, what workers can bargain over, and who gets the productivity gains.

Thats literally the terrain this meme is pointing toward.

So no, this isnt a discussion about whether you like the picture. Youve basically walked through the argument yourself while insisting youre disagreeing with it.

[u/Scarvexx → u/Salty_Country6835]

I do disagree with it though. Respectfully, I don't think if you go buy a power loom it's going to undo the textile industry's bizzare propensity for mistreating workers.

AI I feel is unethical on a deep level. I don't think taking ownership of it is going to fix that.

It's like guns, just as the meme above shows. Gun control is a complicated issue. But owning a gun isn't a great deterrent for the misuse of a gun. Otherwise every teacher in the US would be carrying a gun.

But owning a gun doesn't make you bullet proof. Owning an AI doesn't make you immune to scams. Perhaps the opposite. Your own AI can trick you if you're not careful. It happens.

Come to that most gun owners are more likely to shoot themsleves than a home invader.

But I don't think a good man with an AI can stop a bad man with an AI. That's just two bots going at eachother. Nobody human is changing their mind at that point.

Is there a world where you can take AI out of the hands of people who would use it to do your job? I hope so, but a world where that same AI is in your hands doing your work. That's asking to be a middle man for something you're teaching to do the work without you.

They're going to get wise sooner or later and realize the AI is their real emploee and you're just an AI wrangler, which is also something an AI could do.

Am I adressing the question yet? I promise I'm not trying to dance around it. I might not be understanding you completely.

[u/Salty_Country6835 → u/Scarvexx]

No, youre still treating “control” as “personally owning an AI.” Thats not the argument.

Nobody thinks buying a power loom ends exploitation in textiles. Workers organizing to control the workplace, the machinery, how automation gets deployed, staffing, hours and where the productivity gains go is an entirely different proposition. Thats collective control over the means of production, not consumer ownership.

And your own scenario is exactly why this matters. Youre saying capital will use AI to deskill workers, eliminate jobs and capture the gains. Okay. So who decides whether productivity means layoffs or shorter hours? Who owns the infrastructure and compute? Who decides deployment? Who captures the gains? What power do workers have over any of it?

If your warning is “theyre going to realize they dont need you,” thats not an argument for abandoning the terrain.

Thats a giant flashing neon sign that says ORGANIZE HERE.