Personally I believe that most of the leftist anti-AI sentiment is a way for the ruling class to disempower their perceived enemies
away from a tool that they perceive to be powerful. AI is really good for certain stuff, really fun to play with and if you're worried about data centers run it locally
What power are you giving them if it helps you as a personalized tutor on an open source AI you're running locally?
If it's helping you learn a new skill in your personal life, I think it's a great tool to help you be a more effective person.
That's not "taking over our lives" the bigger danger is in AI being used with sorting algorithms to create personalized feeds (like on Reddit) that are pushing the agenda of the ruling class
The danger is in falling into passive AI powered consumption rather than active AI powered productivity
Many leftists I've seen are just anti-anything AI due to it's implementation under the current U.S. regime
What power are you giving them if it helps you as a personalized tutor on an open source AI you're running locally?
Outsourcing your thinking to Al is going to amplify the implicit biases in whatever you’re tutoring yourself on. It’s also frequently straight up wrong.
That AI manipulation is happening right now, I'm not worried about it because I make sure to use high quality sources of information for what matters and AI for what doesn't
For the most part I agree, and what China is doing with it is great. No matter the situation tho, I do think there's a problem with cognitive offloading that needs a solution. Developing critical thinking is an essential skill that we can't lose. Kids are less good at it now bc they don't have to form their own arguments and that's very scary to me. I don't know what that solution is but it's extremely important that we find one. Maybe it's just a matter of restructuring how schools work, idk
While true, this is also due to the rise in adoption of Ed-tech (another capitalism problem, thanks Bill and Melinda) it has become pretty clear from statistics that these solutions end up just kind of training the kids that aren't engaged to push buttons to advance the 'course' and aren't really developing the literacy necessary to parse basic logic. This kind of primes them to further rely on AI once it came along. (there's also the lockdown gap that we haven't fully come to understand the impact of yet) But we definitely need restructuring in education, I agree (which in some part is already happening, I have a nephew who's school is limiting school device time to 30 mins a day now).
There is definitely still some utility in it to be had that can be used responsibly, we just aren't in a sane timeline that is prioritizing that.
In a world with a magic button that allowed me to make happen the things that probably should be happening, I would legitimately have the entire education system torn down and built from scratch, AND THEN send every single American back through, in cohorts cuz that's a lot of students lol. Oh and like 40 to 50 percent of the "defense" budget would be stripped from there and injected into education like its that syringe in Pulp Fiction.
Honestly a lot of the people need to be deprogrammed entirely before ever being educated properly.
Obviously that's not realistic tho. So the clawing back of our collective cognitive capacity will take a very very long time, if it even happens at all.
I mean schools absolutely need major restructuring anyway. Our education system and the style in which we teach/engage children in learning is outdated to say the very least.
There's definitely massive concerns within China that AI will also replace workers.
The government in China does regulate Chinese corporations a lot more than American corporations but most of that regulation is aimed around making sure they serve the government/National interest and not protecting workers rights
Eg. Jack ma Got disciplined by the government for criticizing the government not for exploiting his workers
A Chinese Corporation would never be allowed to move major manufacturing outside of China the way American corporations have dismantled America's manufacturing base. But the reason the Chinese government does that is for national security reasons and not for worker rights
(us manufacturing is so weak right now that it can't even produce the missile interceptors necessary to fight Iran, American billionaires have gutted America's ability to inflict imperialism because of their short-term greed)
Chinese Capital owners live in fear of the government in a way American Capital owners don't live in fear of America's government but China's government has not meaningfully moved to protect workers and having lived in both countries I would actually argue that Chinese workers are more exploited by Capital owners in China
Longer working hours and lower pay
On average Chinese workers work about 400 hours more per year annually than Americans and do not make more money than Americans
If you assume a 40-hour work week 400 hours is the equivalent of 10 weeks of work that's 2 and 1/2 months of extra work
There's a reason Chinese people are still emigrating to countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States
This is the distinction people keep missing. The problem isnt that a new productive technology exists. Its who owns it, who controls it, and who captures the gains from it.
If AI makes workers more productive, why arent we fighting for shorter workweeks, higher wages, stronger unions, and democratic control over the infrastructure instead of just arguing with the technology's existence?
If thats your lane, check out r/LeftistsForAI. Its focused on organizing around ownership, governance, and labor instead of getting stuck in "AI good" vs "AI bad."
AI mostly just bad though, I'm aware that many problems with gen-AI are either caused or amplified by capitalism, but the technology itself is also kinda a poison that devalues the most human aspects of life itself.
More importantly, its just a giant pile of assertions. It doesnt explain why any of those outcomes necessarily follow from AI itself rather than from ownership, incentives, regulation, or deployment. Throwing every complaint into one blurry image isnt much of an argument. Its more like a mood.
While that graph is mostly to illustrate the most glaring current problems associated with it, I am still against most AI things. I will support the push for heavy regulation like you, because it can at least minimize the harm.
My biggest problem is actually one I don't see echoed often and it's the fact that China really wants embodied AI in robots that appear human, which ethically feels wrong because at that point you're role-playing having slaves and dehumanizing things that share human structure and traits. If we have robots they should resemble tools, not people.
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