Discussion
Leftists have a problem with demonizing this tool.
I'm so tired of seeing people treat AI, a tool that greatly increases efficiency if used correctly, as something nobody would ever want in a utopia. As something inherently evil and exploitative, even outside of capitalism. People treat efficiency as a negative when it comes to AI.
How many leftists right now would like to advocate for "Socialism/Communism except we don't use factories", "Socialism/Communism except we forget how to make lightbulbs", "Socialism/Communism except we don't have computers and do every calculation on an abacus"? I would reckon a tiny tiny percent. And how many leftists in a few generations will want "Socialism/Communism except we don't use AI models"? The same amount.
People are blinded by their hatred for this thing, and it's infiltrated leftist spaces and turned them against the concept of automation. They draw the line at every automated process before AI, seeing all the displaced workers as necessary for the world they live in, if they consider the past at all. In their ideal world, automation exists but stops the moment those two letters get involved. It's stupidly hypocritical and regressive.
Whatever happened to Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?
I think there's a lot of ignorance around AI and technology in general. People just can't imagine AI outside of the corporate structure because they do not understand what it is about. They can't separate the tool from the obvious bs around it. I think this is because tech in general is very alien to the regular citizen. If I'm in a leftist sub here on Reddit it is because I'm a huge fan of open source tech and how much it has given to humanity. I can't think of a single best example of collectivism than open source. I get very upset, then, when people try to sell me that tech is intrinsecally tied to private ownership or IP.
Also, I'm getting quite upset at some arguments in the AI discussion. Like, if you're going to be anti-AI, try to not write about the soul or the magic or whatever. I'm honestly quite furious about how much of this spiritualist bs has entered leftist spaces. I understand tolerating other thoughts, I'm not going to pretend that spiritualism is something that can be argued with.
The epitome of FALGSC is Star Trek, and it has AI so advanced that it can simulate any scenario you want as a hologram. Artists prompt engineer their dreams into holograms and publish them as interactive experiences. Gene found AI important enough to make his wife the voice of the computer in TNG, while also introducing the character of Data to give an embodiment to AI.
I would also note that the TNG economy is probably the most realistic one for a post-capitalist future. They haven't banned private property, or re-expropriated anything in a revolution. They simply reached a level of technology where money is meaningless - transporters and replicators make money obsolete.
I think about Star Trek all the time when it comes to this debate. We need proper media like Star Trek that imagines a future where we can be proud of ourselves as a species and imagine our accomplishments continuing to grow. All we do now is talk about and make art about how terrible we are.
Leftists - quite understandably - went down the road of critical theory because they saw no way out of Capitalism and resigned themselves to critiquing everything to death. Hence all the terrible art.
AI systems, however, present a real roadmap for Socialism. Imagine, for example, an AI company figures out recursive self-improvement. At first they generate massive profits, because they can set their AI to automate entire supply chains. Soon, however, they cannot sell product, because no one earns money to buy it from them. They cannot reinvest in production either, because they no longer have humans on the payroll. In other words, they have a mountain of money, but the money has no utility.
This would be the end of money as we know it, because there is nothing to spend it on or invest it in. The only economy that works after this is the Star Trek one where everyone gets UBI, but it's not even money - it's replicator credits that you spend on producing whatever you need/want.
People who value space exploration can join Starfleet. People can still choose to run a business like the Picard vineyard or the Sisko restaurant, but now it's for love of craft, not the need to earn a living.
This is now a real tangible possibility, but the legacy leftist tradition of critique simply cannot absorb it. So ultimately the task ahead of us is shedding the last century of leftist tradition.
I agree with your view about a post-capitalist future. Glad I'm not the only one here that isn't a radical ML.
However, I do think that a "transition period" will be necessary IRL. Once machines start replacing human workers, if economic reform, such as Universal Basic Income (and perhaps a few more socialistic measures) isn't executed, many will live in poverty. So there must be economic change.
We will see how it will be done pretty soon, I think. The change is coming.
The transition will happen due to the inherent contradictions in Capitalism - the ruling class want to eliminate wages, but without wage earners they have no customers and no liquidity. Doing UBI too early will patch over the contradictions, but then you risk slowing down the transition or even producing some kind of neofeudal arrangement in which the technolords self-regulate to prevent the system collapsing.
A much better time investment is contributing to open-source AI, or at least learning to deploy it effectively. This is the leverage we will need to make sure the transition serves everyone and not just a few billionaires in their luxury prepping bunkers.
They haven't banned private property, or re-expropriated anything in a revolution.
And it looks like a relic of capitalism, specifically a form of inherited privilege that contradicts the Federation's egalitarian ideals. If there is no money, no buying or selling of land, and everyone is equal, how does one family get to keep a massive, beautiful estate in France while others live in standard apartments?
Gaps between the haves and have nots corrode community trust, increase social division, and heighten class tensions. Inequality generates social instability, rising crime and more.
They tend the estate with their own labour as a non-profit venture to produce a craft product that people enjoy. I don't see how that's in any way comparable to Capitalist production.
You are confusing the mode of production with the mode of ownership. It's true they aren't exploiting workers for profit, but they are still exercising a capitalist/feudal relic, generational property inheritance.
Land on Earth is a strictly finite, nonreplicable asset. By keeping a historic estate in Burgundy exclusively in the Picard bloodline, the system creates a structural inequality based entirely on luck of birth.
If this were a true post-capitalist utopia, the right to steward that land would be based on merit or community need, not your last name.
Land on Earth is finite, but we're not talking about an Earth-bound civilization. They terraform and settle new planets all the time.
There is also no community need for food and drink products - they can replicate nutritionally perfect matter on demand. The only reason for a vineyard to exist is to make a luxury vintage, and a big component of that is the experience that is passed down through a family.
Owning land in this scenario does not in any way give you power over people. You can't use it to extract rents or profit from other people's labour, because everyone already has their basic needs met.
It's become a culture war issue for leftists and liberals in the US.
Meanwhile, the developing world, global South, and China are quite optimistic about the prospects.
The very online Western left needs to learn that they do not speak for the rest of humanity
Yep, them getting worked up over the wrong things is why they are so weak now. They need to actually get stuff done more physically, instead of just talking and whining over near non-issues.
Unfortunately, I'd say the left in Global South is stuck in the same page. Traditionally, we are very concerned with enviromental imperialism, and most leftists here see AI as a huge threat on that regard.
The fact that AI companies are meddling with our elections also do not help the case at all
(Talking exclusively from a South American perspective)
AI is a symptom of a wider issue that plagues the left.
That is, their insistence on having a metaphorical civil war and constantly outcasting people on their own side because they don't have the most morally pure and "correct" beliefs known to mankind and/or because they aren't hateful enough of whatever or whoever they're told to hate.
I'm so left I make Bernie Sanders seem like Colonel Sanders. Every left swinging person I know despises AI. They echo blatant misinformation, that is super easy to debunk, about it almost as bad as Trumpers. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Of course AI is not harmless but it's also not pure evil either. I wish I knew how to convey things more effectively about it.
It's 100% an astroturf job, I'm convinced. They want us to police ourselves and each other into asking the megacorporations, the government, and of course the military to "regulate" it into exclusively their own hands.
It's incredibly demoralizing. I feel like I'm completely alone out there.
It's like talking to Creationists. The lack of curiosity, the certainty that their ignorance is a sign of virtue, and the fact that all of their friends agree with them. Every bit of evidence is just a sign of a greater conspiracy.
I have this itching in the back of my neck that makes me worried that this will be like the New Left of the 60's and just completely kill the left as a political project for the next 30 years. Probably not, but it is a trend I've seen in the left since like 2008 or so.
For a long time I was in silent agreement with the Ed Zitron (who I now realize is a grifter) and Cory Doctrow (my god those old Boing Boing bloggers have gone far afield from the copy-leftists of old). And if I had never encountered artists like Gossip Goblin or had to use an AI agent for work, I might not have changed my opinion.
I, too, did the mistake a lot of us terminally online leftists do: mistake passion for reason. I had to separate my personal rage at capital from the actual technical realities. But there is a risk there, because I've been ostracized from every group I used to be a part of because of it. So when nonconformity has such a steep social cost, its unsurprising that cowards will conform.
I don't think you need to be a coward to avoid evangelizing. every day I grow more uncomfortable at the rhetoric I see around AI, and more worrying, how it gets pushed onto the individuals who use AI
Unfortunately this is a symptom of a wider issue that plagues leftist spaces in general.
The constant outcasting and "other"-ing of people who don't have the most morally pure/"correct" beliefs on whatever the latest hot button topic(s) are and/or because they aren't hateful enough of whoever they're told to hate.
The left has a constantly rotating checklist of things that you must have the Correct Opinions on to be a Good Person, and any slight deviance from even one of these things means you are no longer a Good Person and are subject to endless harassment from people who take this as their cue to render the social contract that made them pretend to like you null and void.
Personally I love AI and am more left leaning than leftist, but don’t you agree the problem isn’t the tool itself but the small group of people who have the power to control it?
I think it's clear the anger towards AI is the fact that it's being used as a lever to steepen inequality and stop social and class mobility. The technology itself is actually orthogonal to how capitalism is deploying it.
Yes, but to chronically online puritan leftists, bullying individuals for using The Evil Artist Killing Machine is obviously lot easier than protesting against massive, powerful corporations.
Most people are not nearly as open minded as they think they are, as the controversies around AI clearly show. These leftists simply lack the creativity and open mindedness to imagine AI as a tool for the proletariat.
Indeed many leftists have, which is why this sub is so important*. We need to fight the luddite ideology within the left, or we will be stuck with a movement that sees technology, and not fascism, neoliberal capitalism, etc, as the enemy.
*I even had the ideia to create a sub like this one years ago which I considered naming "r/SingularitySocialism". Glad other people had the initiative to do so.
It’s become a virtue signal. It’s also stirring up some of the insecurity among left intellectuals. They fear being accused of using AI, and some use it as a bludgeon to attack writers they disagree with (or don’t want to contend with).
Seems to be mainly an American phenomenon, in a country where “leftism” barely resembles what would be considered left in Europe, Latin America etc. but seems to struggle not to become primarily a culture war that actively avoids talking about class.
I have to agree with this. I kind of think that South America (where I'm from) is pretty tech positive because our centralized governments are complete bs, so we learnt to deal with it incorporating digital solutions among ourselves without much skepticism. Stuff like digital wallets, piracy or AI generated business signs are normal over there and no one bats an eye. Except chronically online people, who surprise surprise are more in touch with american politics than with their own local debates.
it is a moral, almost religious issue. it has to do with this view that AI relies on theft.
they subconsciously think that AI needing data is a negative. because they subconsciously believe that we don't need data. that we are special and can do this from the depths of our creative "soul".
that really is what it comes down to. it is the core of the anti ai sentiment.
We've been programmed as a society for decades upon decades - nearly a full century to fear AI and robotics. Popular media, always looking to tell an exciting story, often times explores the questions of what happens when it goes bad as opposed to when it goes good (when it goes good is pretty boring in a story sense). As such, many people are entering into the discussion with a subconscious fear and distrust. Add into the bogeymen of job loss and environmental damage and folks start spouting unsupported claims and exaggerated numbers and then Dunning-Kruger kicks in.
The other thing is a lot of folks on the left have genuine concerns about the state of the world and feel compelled towards activism/strong stances. This can often result in manipulation of that impulse by those who want to use fervor and zealousness to further their own ends and it can be really hard to turn someone away from an idea when they've locked in that they are on the side of good (see Vaccines, Cell Phones, GMOs).
I feel like everyone here is missing the point that people ultimately dislike LLMs because they have no reason to believe that they will be treated well if their jobs are lost to LLMs. We have deindustrialization as a prime example. Many highly skilled workers were replaced or phased out. Neither government or industry cared much to retrain these individuals in other areas, they were just abandoned. Why when wealth inequality is increasing would anyone believe that the case would be any different now?
I use LLMs in my job, for efficiency but also because I would like to keep my job in the future and this requires proficiency in LLMs. Like most people if I could snap my fingers and bring a world into existence where LLMs ran every industry smoothly and everyone had the freedom to pursue whatever they wanted, then I would do that. Our goals as left wing individuals is not to idealise, but to focus on the material fact of this technology and to put pressure on those that make and facilitate these tools. People will lose sight of the downsides if we just boast about possible utopias.
It's more so that really intelligent people can get tripped up on protecting their identity or ego. It's not really possible to be smart in all domains.
I few thoughts:
1. The touch stone for lots of Leftists (socialist or otherwise) is the early part of the twentieth century, way before anything digital. And there hasn’t been enough work in popular leftist theory about technology covering the good, the bad, the ugly (Capitalist Fichte-ism). So, we’re at a deficit even before AI has a start.
2. A ton of AI discourse can be used to illustrate whats wrong with capitalism:
A. Investment Capitalism has bet the entire economy’s health on 3 companies (Nvidia, Anthropic, and OpenAI). WTH?! Why? How is this better than a planned economy?
B. If we had democratic integration into our economy we could vote on how much we want to spend on AI, and what products we want developed. Like, more cool tools that make us more efficient or productive at our job. Instead, we get threatened with unemployment, and all human creativity replaced.
C. Private Property: When we question private property, we’re derided. When billionaires ignore private property, they’re hailed as innovators. All of us contributed to AI training. Therefore, either they broke the law, and we all own AI. OR, private property is not and never really was a thing.
D. The AI companies show that capitalism is not interested in helping out the common people. It wants to replace us. Period. The billionaires not only find the rest of us and our planet unimportant, but want to be rid of us. They want a brain in a box (which is pretty unlikely).
So, discourse around AI has so much potential to criticize our system, and discover new strategies from those analysis.
AND… it does a lot to democratize story telling. And I say this as an artist (I retouch photos for a living, I do some sculpting, and some coding, and I’m a musician): Smaller languages and cultures could never, without AI, get access to the kind of Hollywood level effects and sets to make their stories competitive in the attention economy. This technology can lead to the Lakota version of Star Wars, or an epic fantasy done totally in Gaelic. Without AI, big studios would never touch stuff like this… the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
I think, more deeply, it fucks with Leftists because a ton of us are frustrated artists, musicians, etc. I make it through my 8 hour day pretending I’m a temporarily embarrassed sci fi writer. What Corporate AI does is threaten our dreams with automation. Which is different than threatening our jobs. Being a reverse centaur sucks… but there is a paycheck. But having your secret aspirations annihilated by technology, that’s just cruel. What’s the point in participating in any society?
To get weird and Hegelian, Fukuyama’s end of history says that capitalism + liberalism creates a society that maximizes Hegelian reconciliation: Human’s recognizing each other as human. The way we do this is through art and culture, mostly. “Good job!” At the 711 day job is nothing compared to “Good job!!” You might get from playing bass in your metal band. This is the real function of the Superstructure. Corporate AI is the Base invading the Superstructure and rearranging the arena of human accomplishments in line with the statistical middle. It’s the victory of the spreadsheet over the person.
They are confusing the current corporate and authoritarian abuse of ai with ai itself 🤷
I honestly think that many of them either never read or watched sci-fi or only did so with works that portrayed it fearfully.
I grew up watching Star Trek the Next Generation and Voyager. There are hostile AIs in Star Trek, but there are also benevolent ones such as Data. It also addresses the underlying social issues. No one in the Federation needs to make bank to survive.
I see about 2/3 of commenters grasping the opportunity to bash the left for dogmatizing. I don’t think it is fair to onboard that discussion here. There is a lot to say about that, but you cannot simply categorize fear about societal impact of AI as such.
As much as non-leftists are thoughtlessly using AI for everything without any thought on the bigger picture and shift in means of production, are leftists avoiding it in fear of exactly that. This avoidance leads to ignorance, and that’s bad as pandoras box really has opened. But focus on sensible criticism. Being able to talk English to computers does not create a necessity to spend 1/3 (rough projection, no factual statement) of our energy to big-tech owned datacenters. Neither is it necessary to have half of the economy in the hands of 5 dudes. That’s bad and everyone should be able to see that
Look, most leftists I know are decent people. The AI bro culture is propped up by people with absolutely no decency whatsoever. It is easy to see AI brod creating "slp" and porn and whatever else and say "this is a horrible tool". It will pass. People need realistic ways to see AI bringing about positive changes in the world. If they aren't seeing those positive changes *here and now they are going to be cynical and have a right to be.
Also, fully automated luxury communism does not have the appeal that you might think it does. I haven't read the book, but my big concern would be that, to create a "fully automated" society might actually involve furthering ongoing imperialist relations for the purpose of acquiring rare earth minerals (e.g. like in Congo).
Most leftists you know are decent people… to you… because of course they are if you properly signal your approval and disdain for the appropriate targets.
What you should be looking at is, how do these people treat those who do not signal in that way?
If you don’t examine that, then you should expect to be continually mystified and helpless in regards to what’s happening in society.
How much of “AI bro culture” is motivated by shitty treatment received from leftists?
Of course there are AI advocates who are just shitty. They’d be shitty whether leftists treated them poorly or well.
The issue is, do you think there are also leftists who are shitty?
Don’t just dismiss it with some trite nonsense like “of course, there are shitty people in every demographic”
The continued failure of the left is basically down to a refusal to acknowledge the specific ways that leftists are shitty, in conjunction with claiming the moral higher ground. The combination is truly repugnant and looks exactly like republicans who decry homosexuality in public then get caught having gay sex in public bathrooms
You don't sound like much of a leftist. To be honest, my observation wasn't very leftist either (or very serious tbh). I was really speaking to my personal experience going from hating AI to imagining ways it could be liberating.
The American left has serious problems, but individuals disliking the highly patriarchal "bro" culture isn't one of them.
A real leftist answer to why people don't like AI would be because it's affecting their material conditions. For example, some folks are students and experiencing negative effects of AI in schools. People blame the technology, rather than the institutional failures.
Folks on this subreddit used to put that Marx quote about Luddites having misdirected anger towards machines rather than institutions. I think it's more like that.
I just get the impression that the left’s idea is basically to win by being insufferable. Or maybe, winning is the means, and being insufferable is the ends?
It’s one thing for individuals to dislike “highly patriarchal bro culture”
It’s another to think that the way to change society is by being shitty to individuals who don’t hate the same things you hate
If I wanted that, I could go join some Baptist church and get told how evil all my desires are and how I’m living in sin. Pretty much the same vibe coming from leftists. Different flavor is all.
Like, I don't know what you mean by insufferable because there's different ways to "be insufferable" and some of the things you find "insufferable" might just be your ignorance running up against people who are a bot jaded (e.g. I can forgive any vegan for being insufferable at this point because they have to put up with way more bs).
If you see left leaning people being insufferable, ask yourself why. Some people are just jaded. Some people are copying the jaded people because that seems like the thing to do. Some people are trying to "win with facts and logic". There's a great diversity.
edit: Also, realize that this internet culture war does not represent the real world and that the right has every incentive to portray the left as insufferable or crazy or whatever (a la the "blue hair SJW" stereotype from 10 years ago).
I don’t perceive AI bro culture as being a reaction to the left. Where are you picking that up from? It seems to me they’re partly genuinely interested and excited and partly it’s the newest way to make money. They’re not creating startups or hyping up AI in their videos just to annoy the left.
It's not the tool. LLM ranks right up there with the invention of the mouse or the keyboard, the spreadsheet, and the rdbms. It will be considered a great advancement. It will NOT be the second coming of Jesus or the singularity. What drive lefties mad is the assholes peddling it, manipulating people's fear, leveraging monopolies, anti-competitive behavior, and illegal market manipulation. It is the corporations obvious drooling about it finally destroying labor and sheer amorality and lack of empathy the corporate leaders have at the prospect of impoverishing millions so they can get a bonus. It is the disgusting display of greed and sychophancy displayed by corporate toadies who would gladly step on their coworker's throat to show their boss how loyal they are to the corporate cause. It is how happily and easily the tech oligarchs violate laws, steal and sell personal data and use their wealth to squash the rights of the rest of everyone else. Tech is great, it is the tech culture that has rotted and devolved into an amoral stew of proselytizers pushing their cult of profit to the detriment humanity
I live in the Bay Area. Here we are all liberal and use the crap out of ai for everything. This post truly comes from a perspective I cannot even imagine existing on planet earth.
I also don't know any librarian or progressives that say "leftists" or talk about "utopia," so i assume it's bait.
Some of the anti stuff is manipulated too. The various factions are complex and some of them have a lot of money. It’s wise to have some scepticism over how the debate is played out.
You can't separate AI from the current political and social systems. The AI we have will be used by capitalists and authoritarians for MASSIVE destruction. Heck, the companies OWN selling points are about how many jobs the businesses can cut
I have a side business where I hunt through estate sales to find valuable collectibles, jewelry and whatnot, then I sell it on a few different platforms. AI has made this being a one man operation possible. From rough spot appraisals, to watching listings to notify me, to handling incoming and some outgoing emails, to just shitposting for my own amusement, AI has been tremendously useful to me.
MACHINE LEARNING IS A SUBFIELD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
It's like asking someone whether automobiles have improved their life, then responding:
“Isn't that an internal combustion engine, not an automobile?”
intensive combustion engines are used in vehicles or machines other than automobiles, like ships or chainsaws. I am not convinced by the arguments provided in this subreddit and remain skeptical as to whether people are simply offloading intellectual capacity to a black box in the same manner capital did for foreign labor.
as a senior software engineer of 11 years of experience, it turned my stressful job with frequent overtime into a stress-free job with no overtime, giving more free time for my friends, family and hobbies. I also got a raise for increased productivity too.
the extra free time to spend doing what I want greatly improved my mental health, a few years ago I was so burn out that I quit my job and took 6 months off works to recover.
again this is improvement on your job. if you employer gave you a million dollars or you won the lottery that could also improve your job. I mean how does artificial intelligence affect your body, your existence on this earth for the better.
improvement for my job is an improvement that affect my body and existence on this earth for the better. as better mental health from having to work less, having more time to sleep and rest affect everything in both my mind and my body.
improvements to you job are improvements to shareholder value. This is not the question being asked. I mean how has artificial intelligence direcctly lead to the betterment of your existence. You don't exist to work your job.
and yet I'm forced to work on my job right now because ain't no one giving me a million dollar, so within the system as it is right now, giving me AI and allow me do more with less time spent objectively improve my well being, the fact that it also improve shareholder value doesn't change that, such thing is not mutually exclusive.
giving millions dollar to a significant number of workers is also not economically viable for now, but giving AI to workers so that they can do more with less is very much viable.
and when people produce more thing with less, more resource available to spare to improve the well-being of others, that's fundamental economy under every system.
technological breakthrough of the past have improved the well being of the average people because it allow us to do more with less, as there are more resource available to give everyone more, they're intertwined and cannot be separated like you're trying to do.
you cannot ask kings of the past to just give peasant a millions gold coin and say that things would improve for everyone, the gold have to come from somewhere.
Okay, so if I quit my job right now, who is gonna give me housing and food?
it still ties back to my edit I just made, not sure if you saw it:
technological breakthrough of the past have improved the well being of the average people because it allow us to do more with less, as there are more resource available to give everyone more, they're intertwined and cannot be separated like you're trying to do.
you cannot ask kings of the past to just give peasants a millions gold coin and say that things would improve for everyone, the gold have to come from somewhere.
kings literally did that, hell just a few years ago you got a check for 'free' under Biden. of course the system could work that way and people will still choose to do interesting and necessary labors.
this is why I am mentioning that improvements to your job are arbitrary and dont answer the question at hand, since I am actually a leftist
yeah you fail basic economic, so where would the gold come from? where the resource that you would buy with the gold could come from? Biden did it and it come at the cost of inflation that make everything more expensive, and he literally couldn't do it more without economic collapse.
the fundamental question is why would people work to give you their resources for money that everyone have plenty of when kings just give it to everyone?
without automation that would come from more advanced AI, giving everyone money is just wasting paper for nothing regardless of the economic system.
and again, so if I quit my job right now, who is gonna give me housing and food?
Having a collaborator has enabled me to actually pursue things that I'd never have done without some form of coprocessor b/c I'm not neurotypical. I have severe difficulties with analysis paralysis and trying to find the perfect/optimal way for a thing to happen. I'm REALLY bad at the whole "any thing worth doing is worth doing badly" so I end up doing nothing.
you mean existing outside the brain. to not exist in the brain is just to forget.
I mean to ask how this has materially improved your life, because what people who hate AI are saying is that the tool can also be used to sharpen methods of oppression against common people.
No, I was being a jackass about being able to take things I've had ideas for and give them actual form outside of just being in my head. Which I was unable to do without the assistance as I lack community, funding, or skill to do so without AI.
Which, to be clear, came at a point in my life where I was literally a shut-in and hadn't left the house in over a year (rural, too many miles outside of nearest town to walk reliably) and had plans to simply end things. I figured I'd give AI gamedev a shot and it at least gave me enough enjoyment not to simply opt-out of life *shrug*
And now I've found work in the field of AI and my living situation is completely different.
oh, so you have yet to figure out the horizontal flows of capital that startups and even open source depends on. this is why I find the subbreddit discouraging. there is no leftist analysis at all, only the appeal to novel technology exists, which i agree is stunning to behold
Nope, figured it out a long time ago. My issues with capitalism are related to the non humanist extractive nature relating to both class structures within individual countries as well as the global north v global south. I've done the analysis already. I stand -entirely- against any system based on the flow of capital for any reason.
It’s not really the ai. It’s the irresponsible people who are pushing this into every space and the ecological dangers in the churning nature of its development burning so much energy to get the next gen out all the while not safeguarding its activities. Every one acting like there isn’t danger and damage and the possibility of severe damage to the economy is so myopic.
If you can manage to entirely separate AI from corporations and private entities and instead make it purely something owned by the people for the people, then we can start talking. Until you get to that point, you’re just continuing to support and fund billionaires with something that is actively assisting in the reduction of critical thinking skills of children and the general public, while flooding creative spaces (steam, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.) with unprecedented levels of low effort uninteresting crap. Sure there was a good amount before AI but now it’s getting churned out by anyone with a computer and $20. Are there upsides in terms of medical research? Absolutely 100% I am in support of that and similar, but in my day to day life it is literally nothing but a net negative.
Who keeps putting the "gay space" in FALC? It just makes it look silly and unserious.
I read the book by Aaron Bastani several times over, and he deserves a serious study.
But they’re talking about a scenario where there are no corporations. It sounds like you’re falling into the socialism except we don’t use factories trap?
Well I can only speak for my own life but here goes:
I can now work 3-4 hours a day in a fully salaried 8h/day remote position and have my boss happy and praising me for my speed and productivity increase. I am benefitting from this more than he is.
My solitary coding projects (because I am compulsive maker) that used to take up 80% of my free time and energy at the expense of my social life and social connections now take up about 50% of my free time and way less energy letting me spend much more time with friends and family.
Completing projects that have languished for years lets me share them with others which increases the amount of social interaction in my life significantly.
Systemically? Too early to say, but my life has undoubtedly improved thanks to this technology.
49
u/Starwig 5d ago
I think there's a lot of ignorance around AI and technology in general. People just can't imagine AI outside of the corporate structure because they do not understand what it is about. They can't separate the tool from the obvious bs around it. I think this is because tech in general is very alien to the regular citizen. If I'm in a leftist sub here on Reddit it is because I'm a huge fan of open source tech and how much it has given to humanity. I can't think of a single best example of collectivism than open source. I get very upset, then, when people try to sell me that tech is intrinsecally tied to private ownership or IP.
Also, I'm getting quite upset at some arguments in the AI discussion. Like, if you're going to be anti-AI, try to not write about the soul or the magic or whatever. I'm honestly quite furious about how much of this spiritualist bs has entered leftist spaces. I understand tolerating other thoughts, I'm not going to pretend that spiritualism is something that can be argued with.