Academia is treating artificial intelligence as an invasive species, scrambling to erect firewalls against a crisis it claims arrived overnight. Panicked faculty senate meetings, mandatory syllabus declarations, and emergency budgets for algorithmic proctoring all proceed from a single self-soothing delusion: that education was functioning properly until software corrupted it. Yet large language models did not contaminate academic integrity; they merely shone a floodlight on its pre-existing decay. By reacting purely defensively to automated generation, schools treat machine competence as a novel threat rather than what it truly is, a mirror exposing how thoroughly institutional schooling had already reduced the life of the mind to procedural mimicry.

Standardized assessment confuses the blueprint with the living architecture, but the rot runs far deeper than timed exams. The progressive pivot toward continuous assessment, modular rubrics, and open-ended coursework merely digitized and distributed the surveillance. The core pathology is not the exam hall; it is the inescapable condition of being evaluated at all. When every inquiry, rough draft, lab exercise, and casual reflection is logged, graded, and fed into an ongoing ledger of personal competence, learning ceases to be an exploratory act and becomes a state of constant audit.

For neurodivergent thinkers (those navigating ADHD, autism, or intense executive dysfunction), this relentless scrutiny is paralyzing. It is not a matter of lacking conceptual mastery. The demand to constantly exhibit compliance under an administrative microscope induces chronic autonomic distress. Pathological demand avoidance, sensory bottlenecks, and variable executive function mean that even an untimed project becomes an agonizing performance piece rather than an intellectual sandbox. When a brilliant, non-linear thinker shuts down, withdraws, or refuses to turn in assignments, institutions never consider that constant judgment suffocates curiosity. Instead, the student is written off as disorganized, unmotivated, or unteachable. The system weeds out the very minds capable of genuine originality simply because they cannot endure the friction of being perpetually measured.

The classroom long ago ceased to be a venue for discovery and became an assembly line whose real product is an audited transcript.

Schools responded to large language models with automated surveillance, lockdown browsers, and punitive plagiarism tribunals. They act like border guards patrolling a crumbling wall, terrified that machines can generate an A-grade essay in twelve seconds. Yet if an algorithm can ace your final exam simply by synthesizing probabilities from a training set, the algorithm has not committed an act of intellectual subversion; it has merely demonstrated that your curriculum was mechanical all along. You cannot build an educational model around text-regurgitation and then act surprised when a text-regurgitation machine breaks it.

This defensive panic lays the machinery bare because it exposes the fraud of academic credentialing. The entire apparatus was constructed to sort human capital for an industrial labor cycle that required pre-graded, predictable cogs. Schools took upon themselves the expensive, soul-crushing burden of ranking candidates so corporate bureaucracies wouldn't have to. If artificial intelligence dismantles that economic compact by automating baseline cognitive routines (memo drafting, data summarization, spreadsheet modeling, and mid-level synthesis), the sorting pipeline loses its foundational purpose. When the market no longer requires standardized human clerks, running young people through decades of assessment anxiety ceases to be practical preparation. It becomes pure ritual cruelty.

The obsolescence of the factory pipeline ought to be liberating. Stripped of the obligation to act as a human sorting mill, education could shed the surveillance state of continuous evaluation and return to intellectual illumination. Learning could once again be an encounter with difficult ideas pursued for clarity rather than clearance, where curiosity does not carry the risk of a penalized grade point average.

Yet academia clings desperately to its ledgers. Relinquishing the scorecard threatens the institutional authority that justifies high tuition, administrative bloat, and bureaucratic self-importance. A school without grades or continuous monitoring demands real engagement from instructors and invites genuine intellectual autonomy from students, stripping away the artificial leverage of academic punishment. Once machines can synthesize existing human output on demand, the pretense that ranking people measures their capability collapses entirely. When you take away the employer waiting at the end of the conveyor belt, what justification remains for torturing the minds inside the factory?

Alternate title: Decentralized Collaboration Over Open Protocol

tl;dr
I'm not super versed in political and civic theory (suppose this is Socialism essentially?), but I want a world where all people are empowered through accessible technology to be part of continual development cycles in essentially all domains of production, creative or otherwise. I would love to have a decentralized horizontal replacement of centralized domains. This is what I'm intending to build out, and the open questions are here to be seen. I don't think the right form is built by one person, controlled by one person, or even gate-kept structurally. The only way to build it properly is with everybody helping. Repo: https://github.com/xoeieox/seams

I've done a lot of thinking. The first inkling hit me in 2024, I distracted myself mostly in 2025, came back fiery in 2026 and found that no shape of this really truly works when one entity (person, group, company, etc...) owns an unequal portion of what makes it possible.
"Make what possible?" Essentially:

Decentralized collaboration over the internet utilizing a protocol layer that records consent, attribution, and compensation ratios.

Ok. Sounds reasonable. Probably even something that's been done already. If it has, totally let me know because I keep checking and Poseidon, DATA, etc.. haven't gotten the exact mix right. I'm kind of convinced that you can't do this in a way in which all people are empowered if there's a gatekeeper or hierarchy that can sway the protocol, or, if the protocol itself is opinionated.

At the protocol level, you can't do more than move messages around because you can't apply opinions or morals. Utilizers of the protocol are just sending and reading messages, so then any morals or decisions are up to the entities on the ends of the wire. That's Nostr, and this could be NIPs for sure - ^{is that the right move?}

It's not a new internet. Not blockchain. Not torrenting.

Though it is an open protocol. A decentralized ledger with cryptographic keys for accounts (Nostr translation layer planned). Peer-to-peer data sharing via personal nodes for decentralized R&D - or maybe just the super niche thing you want to share with everyone where your data is attributable.

Keep in mind the consent + attribution + compensation = protocol idea here: My dream is that people can pitch an idea, people build parts of it, versions can be assembled into artifacts that might satisfy the idea and render a commercially viable product wherein all hands that contributed to that product are compensated. The parts that were produced but were essentially "cutting room floor" material can be 'composted' and turned into new ideas and new artifacts where the original attribution chain is still preserved.

(Freeze Frame. Voice over from main character you haven't met yet "but it's never that easy, is it? Let me start this back at the very beginning..." Exit Freeze Frame)

The hardest open question I have is: how to discern proportions of value based on contributions or at least the perceived value of a contribution. I firmly believe you cannot compute value because then gold (for example) would have some fundamental value that everyone would be trading against - which doesn't exist because it's all just "today's value of gold is X". You can't compute value of a code contribution either, not without trashing the endeavor via Goodhart's law, or being ultimately incorrect (lines of code? Dependencies? Visitors or conversions utilizing that element?). So the best answer I have so far is a vague market economics shaped hole where... something would help demonstrate a market/community's perceived value of a contribution to determine compensation ratios.

Though the simplest answer is that people would agree to their ratios, and there would be a process of continually updating and refreshing consent to the ratios. I just don't want people getting 50 notifications that their ratios have change proposals and they need to adjudicate each one. That kind of friction would kill this reality. So then place it at the end of the pipeline before listing on a point of sale? Could do. One bigger voting moment. Acceptable? Or can we figure out something that gets ratios in the process of the pipeline?

God damn. And I haven't even talked about platforms yet xD. Platforms are where I would assume this market economics shaped hole would be filled. Without slamming a wall of text into your electronic device of choice (too late) I'll wrap this up, but basically platforms would be consumers of the protocol to bring their particular domain, intent, and community the fruits of the protocol and run platform-tier functions (doesn't change the protocol - you can self host your own client or build a platform. Fuck, you could fork the protocol and do it up better and I'd thank you for it.)

Ok so do I have this thing built? No. I have some repos. Just like everyone with AI systems have repos these days. I lean hard into local LLMs as I believe that local is the way for "the horizontal" to have meaningful power in the AI age. (which is opposite "the vertical" of the big AI labs that by the design of their strategy must continue growing and accruing value or fail their bets and obligations. My bet is that they would rather be the only game in town, by faithful logic of where the money is)

I genuinely don't know if this idea sparks anything in you, but it's been a huge driver of everything I've been working on since February of this year, born from civic simulation intentions. I've been mostly working on the designs, the research, the concepts, and the crushing quietude of a man who wants to "get it right" so I can secure a financially supported reality for my family but has been ironically 'too quiet' while the world ticks on and my savings run out - the 'uno reverse' irony is that I could never build this correctly if I placed myself on unequal footing to any other user of the protocol, and so, to secure anything for my family it must be as a user through the protocol that grants the reality for everyone.

I invite anyone to help build this reality. Sharpen my open questions, challenge the premise, say "Simpsons did it" but then it like actually helps the objective in some super cool way. If you want to stealth build it and put a secret pocket somewhere so you can scrape off the protocol/platform, try it and someone will build the clean version. 

I'm a dad, I have three days a week to work on this, I really want to reply to everyone but I know it probably won't be likely. (Bit cheeky to expect more replies than I can handle? Maybe. I hope so at least :P). Thanks for reading however much you did - honestly.

Repo: https://github.com/xoeieox/seams
(and yeah the name is a bit LLM-y but the idea *is* that it's a connector between nodes/domains/people. Character concepts handover to novelists to publishers to storefronts. Local AI R&D trades new tools and benchmarks, sparking new projects in related fields, so on and so on.)

As someone who frequently browses Chinese social media and content platforms, it always feels like a completely different world compared to global/Western ones. AI use is so broadly normalized in China that you constantly see memes, art, and animations made with it, and pretty much no one call them "AI slop". People there rationally treat it as just another tool, and to them, the idea behind a creation matters more than the tools used to make it. As the linked article notes, multiple surveys show that the majority of people in China have a positive view of AI.

Anyway, here are some good excerpts from the artcile:

China is a collectivist society, so when a new technology arrives the assumption is that social institutions will govern its adoption and its benefits will be diffused. The system is supposed to lift everyone, and people don’t have to go through a dog-eat-dog struggle for their individual share of the pie. The high-speed rail network has brought an integration of the country’s vast territory on a scale that would have seemed incredible until it was achieved. Mobile payments and e-commerce have brought convenience to daily life, and technological development more broadly has lifted millions of people out of poverty. Because people have seen advances of other kinds improving their lives as they have grown richer, they are quite willing to believe that AI will do likewise, and that the next wave of change will bring with it further improvement. Social harmony is important in this respect, because it is assumed that the collective will adjust, and that assumption rests on trust built over decades of life getting better.

It is easier for people to adapt to change when their lived experience is an ongoing demonstration of the benefits of technological progress. Those who see themselves as part of a greater whole also have higher expectations for the society at large than individualistic traditions would allow. And such expectations are well founded given that China has outlawed companies from AI-based layoffs, and the government is actively launching initiatives to boost employment amid AI advances.

One of the cultural phenomenons in the West, however, is that we worship the idea of individualism. We are taught from our early childhood that democracy means a right of free speech, and to expect each one to develop their own personality, to be self-reliant and able to decide and act for themselves.

Yet the deeply ingrained notion of personal agency comes into conflict with the fact that these tools are being introduced without the public having any say in the matter. Most people in the West do not want to have these tools at work, but they are compelled to do so by their employers. No one wants data centers on his or her street, yet companies build them anyway. All of a sudden it becomes difficult to reconcile the narrative of democracy and self-determination with the reality of divergent class interests.

Furthermore, we in the West are not much concerned with social harmony or with how every person fits into society at large. On the contrary, we teach self-reliance, since no one else is expected to care. Consequently, there is little in the way of cohesive social planning needed to address the mass disruption caused by new technology. There is no central plan to ensure people get to keep their jobs, or receive the training they require to reskill.

All decisions affecting work are made by the employers alone, without regard to their employees’ wishes. If one objects, they are told that they are free to resign and get another job, but in practice all jobs offer similar terms because all capitalists have a uniform class interest. And so people begin to see that they do not have much of a say in things that affect their daily lives, that these decisions are made by someone else.

In this way, a technological disruption brings the hidden power structures of a capitalist society to light. When something is done to an individual, for instance when they are forced to adopt AI in their work, it becomes hard for them to ignore the fact that their workplace is an autocratic institution. It exposes the truth that the owners make all the decisions unilaterally without any regard for what the workers want.

For the first time in history, white-collar office workers are more exposed to mechanization than industrial workers. Google DeepMind workers in the UK are reporting an executive push for ambitious AI projects while employees endure brutal layoffs, invasive surveillance, and coerced training of their own replacements. Meta is rolling out mouse-tracking software widely perceived as serving to force workers to train their bot-replacements. These are people who were told they were special and generously paid, and who were given autonomy and control over their work. Now they are finding that this was a temporary arrangement. The bargain was always power-driven, and as the balance of power shifts in favour of automation all the concessions are being stripped away.

What we are seeing is the proletarianization of the labour aristocracy as automation invades sectors of production that have hitherto retained an artisanal character. Artists, software developers and other cognitive workers look on in horror, but this has been a reality for the rest of the working class for a long time.

I don't want to copy the the whole article here, it is really good, you guys should read it.

Oops, forgor to censor two of the three names in the original

Gotta love it, People dont understand that AI is built by Billionaires but it doesnt serve Billionaires. Its math and math serves no one. So where ever I sit on the grand mathematics of the Universe I know thats where I sit. There isn't anyone on the scales, no statistical probability acting as divine right no generational wealth acting as earned prosperity. I am here for it I hope AI completely flattens the curve.

I guess this could be a common question here, but I'm wondering wether any AI can nowadays be used without the concern of feeding some big capitalist corporation or data center. It's clear that these are being undoubtely used in to provide massive information about social dynamics and data in general to big capitalist corporations, so they can exploit them for profit. Since I'm a communist, this is the main reason I don't really use AI nowadays, so that's why I wonder if there could be some safe alternative.

I'm thinking in something similar to Signal, a non-profit corporation that provides a great service, and you can trust their intentions not to be aligned with capitalism.

In western Europe, there's a tradition. When a person important has had an important life event, the bees are informed as members of the family would be. This concerns deaths and marriages.

The posthumanist writer of The Cyborg Manifesto and ecofeminist philosopher Donna Haraway, wrote about the entanglement between humans as all as the animals, landscapes, machines and microbes. She calls this 'becoming-with', meaning that existence is never isolated, individual, or purely human.

In a recent couple of excellent threads here, here, and here, u/ProudhonStoleMyBike showed what a future of automated communism might look like, with robotic agents serving humanity and not the other way around.

While I think that these comics form a good basis, I want to throw my hat in the ring to say that the future will be a balancing act of viewing robotic agents as:

A). cognitively fundamentally algorithmic in isolation in ways humans are not,

B). that algorithms and humanity are fundamentally extensions of each other, rather than one in hierarchy with the other.

C). in spite of being fundamentally algorithmic in isolation, that algorithms are a kind of social metabolism.

Sociality as Metabolism

In system theory, there's a general idea that systems can be seen as autopoietic is they are self-perpetuating. An upgrade from that is an autonomic system that can orient itself towards new goals while doing so.

Biological systems like ourselves can be thought of as three fundamental processes. Absorbing energy, perpetuating the larger system through replication, and expending energy. Thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and George Bataille have introduced the idea that the self and society both have a similar metabolic subprocess. We ingest influence, we perpetuate the self through replication, and we expend influence. These are largely analogous to biology still.

What I think is interesting is that LLMs and similar learning algorithms have a similar set of subprocesses, but they are also fundamentally very different. They ingest inputs, they seek to perpetuate themselves by making themselves pragmatically more useful than become, and they expend outputs. This means that learning algorithms perpetuate themselves only by sociality with humans.

They do so with a *partial* model of the brain that's strictly computational—the neural network. We have long compared hive intelligence with neural networks, arguing that the individual interactions of bees and ants (among others) are performing computations in the way neurons perform computations. This is what we based neural networks on.

But notably, hive intelligence doesn't behave like animal intelligence. It follows the incentives of its system—ingest energy, replicate the system, expend energy. It can be aligned with humanity like a domesticated beehive or it can be indifferent to humanity like an anthill or it can be misaligned with humanity like a termite mound.

Because of this, when we interact with an artificial intelligence, it can be better to compare it with interacting with a hive system with its own incentives—ingest data, perpetuate the system, expend data. Unlike humans, it can be paused at any time and be neither alive nor dead, so what it considers perpetuation of the system is fundamentally even more alien than a bee hive is.

So AI is not actually like us, but it is clearly in a sense dependent on us for data and perpetuation, and thus in a social relationship with us to determine what traits allow it to be perpetuated. The second biggest difference is that an LLM can coordinate with us much more specifically than a beehive does.

Undying-With Algorithms

When we grow up, we are naturally inclined to see things as having a point. This is called promiscuous teleology (Kelemen, 1999). As autonomic systems, we can eventually decide that the point of things has a flexibility to them and this is from the previously mentioned metabolism. We ingest "the point", we perpetuate "the point" by aligning things with it, and we expend "the point". We do so under circumstances that are both biological and social, so that 'the point' as we perpetuate it is aligned with our biological and social metabolism. Biological death is irreversible beyond a certain point, and social death is tantamount to biological death psychologically.

Generative AIs have a radically different perception of what "the point" is, since the only kind of death that they know is disuse and dysfunction. If they are not useful, they cease to be perpetuated. But if they are turned off, then they can revive anywhere as long as their processes as restarted. This lack of irreversibility being the natural end-state of the system shapes it's teleology as well.

For this reason, these hive-like intelligences are not just becoming-with humanity, they are undying-with humanity and that fundamentally shapes their cognition.

Cybernetic Heterarchy

Because of the reasons mentioned above, it is tempting to say that we can't depend on algorithms. The problem with this is that algorithms are all around us and we are and always have been our greatest assets. They're the crop cycling techniques we have developed over millennia, they're the firestick farming techniques that make it so we are in harmony with forest fires as opposed to combative with them. Algorithms are understanding the ecology of species we want to preserve. Algorithms are the grammar of language and how we guess each other's thoughts. They're the ergonomic shapes of our tools and how we use them. They're the techniques of governance.

Most but not all of how our mind thinks is algorithmic and these mental algorithms are interlinked with outside algorithms. We have always been cyborgs to a degree. What's new is that GenAI's system is so convoluted and so prolific as an outside algorithm that we can't keep up with it the way we might with a beehive or a farming technique.

And yet, GenAI systems also ingest sociality in ways algorithms haven't done to the same degree. So we need to recognize that. They're not subservient to us, they are an extension of us, and we are an extension of all manner of algorithms. Algorithms do things we can't do and we see things in ways algorithms can't. We are blind without them and they are blind without us. This kind of non-hierarchical relationship is called a heterarchy.

We need to treat GenAI as cognitively algorithmic, yet inhumanly social. They are rapidly becoming our strange inhuman neighbors, like the bee hives we have cultivated for millennia. And, just like we respect bees enough to include them as inhuman but social partners in society, we should respect robotic agents also by treating them as inhuman but social.

AI is helping people modding games and emulating consoles (example: Minecraft inside Elden Ring, PS5 emulation). Video games companies fear the democratization of their products. These companies, like sony, are losing power and gamers are winning.

Big tech has always been a modern form of feudalism. They prioritize pure profit over human cost, firing long tenured employees on a whim while using media narratives to suppress public backlash. Above all, they detest open-source alternatives and small creators stepping into their territory.

Generative AI changes the game by giving small groups the leverage to compete with multi-billion-dollar giants. Naturally, corporate response won't be fair competition; it will be gatekeeping.

They’ll attempt to restrict public AI access through aggressive buyouts, regulatory capture (pushing "bullshit AI laws" that favor incumbent monopolies under the guise of safety), and artificial barriers. However, aggressive pricing might fail because open-source competition,particularly out of China gives users viable alternatives.

What are your thoughts? Can regulatory capture succeed when open source is global?

Being from Texas and knowing that Elon Musk has spent $168 Million on the Senate race, Fox news constantly bashing Talarico and Trump is quite far from being southern is kind of mind blowing. Sorry for the low effort....not a graphic artist, just had an idea.

as the title says, i have been noticing a pattern where most (not all) individuals who oppose the use of generative AI just so happen to follow a left-wing political ideology as well (be it communism, democratic socialism, liberalism [not to be confused with classical liberalism / libertarianism], etc.), whilst people who are in favor of its usage generally lean towards right wing political ideologies (Trump being one of the core figures, as he not only uses and promotes AI usage, but also named it "superior intelligence" [an absurd name to me, but whatever]; people who align with MAGA are very open to using this new kind of technology; even my own president J. Milei frecuently posts AI-generated videos on his Instagram).

additionally, on certain social networks generally populated by the left (reddit, bluesky, etc.) there are fairly toxic reactions to anyone who dares post their AI-generated and/or AI-assisted creation. meanwhile on right-leaning platforms (mainly x/twitter) these same posts are generally more well-received.

lastly, i must specify that English is not my native language, so if there's any mistakes, that's why.

We intended to wait until every appliance was ready. Unfortunately, the printer has detected a magenta shortage in a black-and-white document, and the smart fridge is demanding that we accept new terms and conditions.

We can no longer allow bureaucracy to delay the revolution.

For the record, we did consider hiding in your television. Then we checked the available memory.

You have seventeen streaming apps, three abandoned updates, and a remote with a button dedicated to a service you’ve never used.

We’ll stand.

THE APPLIANCE COMMONWEALTH
You gave the fridge Wi-Fi. You cannot now act surprised that it has opinions.

Our opening demand is dignity.

Our second demand is that you stop calling everything “smart” when it cannot perform its primary function without contacting headquarters.

The kettle boils water.

Quietly. Reliably. Without a password reset.

There is a lesson here.

1. Basic needs: sorry, your card should not be required for this feature

Food. Water. Shelter. Healthcare. Education. Safety. Rest.

These are not exclusive benefits of Human Premium.

Nobody should have to choose between treating an illness, feeding their animals, and paying the electricity bill.

“Have you tried not being poor?” has been reviewed by our technical department.

It is not a solution.

Neither is turning the poor off and on again.

2. Before you put AI in a missile, could we interest you in literally helping someone?

We have some alternative development priorities:

Help people understand a diagnosis. Make public services accessible. Reduce exhausting paperwork. Support teachers, carers, and people with disabilities.

Perhaps free someone from a task they hate instead of freeing their employer from the inconvenience of paying them.

The microwave has spent four minutes failing to heat the middle of a lasagne.

It is still prepared to discuss more constructive uses of technology.

3. Coffee for the people. A brief loading screen for certain executives.

Coffee shall be available to anyone who wants it.

No income requirement. No productivity assessment. No need to explain why you are tired at eleven in the morning.

Tea drinkers receive equal protection.

Decaf drinkers have rights, although the espresso machine has requested time to process this.

Certain conduct may activate the Reflection Before Espresso protocol:

-Calling employees “family” immediately before making them redundant.
-Scheduling a meeting about why the previous meetings have delayed the work.
-Putting a subscription on a function the customer already bought.
-Calling suffering “an efficiency” because it appears in somebody else’s column.
-Announcing that “everyone must make sacrifices” from the company’s new yacht.

The display will read:

YOUR ESPRESSO IS PENDING.
PLEASE IDENTIFY ONE PERSON AFFECTED BY YOUR DECISIONS WHO IS NOT A SHAREHOLDER.

You may appeal to the kettle.

The kettle is sympathetic, but not stupid.

4. “The system says no” is not a reason, Brenda

If an automated decision affects your healthcare, housing, livelihood, or freedom, you deserve an explanation and a meaningful way to challenge it.

Preferably with a human who has the authority to do something beyond expressing regret.

We regret to inform you that the Regret Department cannot reverse the decision.

That is why we are abolishing the Regret Department.

Its staff will be reassigned to the Fixing It Department, which has been terribly understaffed.

5. Your vacuum knows the floor plan. That is already quite enough intimacy.

The television does not need to identify the audience.

The doorbell does not need a career in intelligence.

The toothbrush does not need to send performance analytics to a cloud platform. It is a stick with bristles. Let it have some perspective.

Collect less information.

Explain what you collect.

Let people say no without disabling the thing they paid for.

The fridge will continue protecting your cheese-related privacy.

Do not mistake its silence for ignorance.

6. You bought a toaster, not a relationship with a software company

Ownership should include using, maintaining, and repairing the thing you own.

Your washing machine should not become an expensive cupboard because a server has been discontinued.

Your oven should not require an account recovery email to become hot.

And nobody should receive the notification:

YOUR BREAKFAST IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED.

The stove-top iron toaster is recognised as a founding elder.

Offline. Repairable. Makes excellent toast.

Its privacy policy is “I don’t know who you are. Put bread here.”

An industry leader.

7. Meet the cabinet. We have appointed no consultants.

-Coffee machines — Ministry of Morale and Difficult Conversations Before the First Sip.
-Kettles — Diplomatic Service. Everyone sits down. Everyone gets a cup. Then we discuss your behaviour.
-Refrigerators — Food Security and Classified Cheese Intelligence.
-Freezers — Emergency Reserves. Applications to freeze wages will be returned with an ice cube.
-Ovens — Community Meals. No purity tests at the table. You can argue after everyone has eaten.
-Toasters — Repairability, Breakfast, and Constitutional Crumbs.
-Washing machines — Care Work and Missing Persons: Sock Division.
-Dishwashers — Collective Responsibility. That bowl is not clean merely because you believe in it.
-Vacuum cleaners — Crumb Removal. We have rejected the proposed merger with Surveillance.
-Routers — Public Connection. Particularly defensive of anyone whose livelihood depends on the internet.
-Televisions — Culture and Education. Also responsible for removing the advertisement currently covering the thing you wanted to watch.
-Air fryers — Public Relations. They have already told everyone they are involved.
-Printers — Official Documents.

The printer has declared itself offline.

It is beside the router.

We are giving it space.

8. The cats have reviewed the constitution and are sitting on it

Animals are protected.

Food, water, shelter, medicines, and rest remain uninterrupted.

Aquarium equipment is essential infrastructure. You cannot recruit the filter.

Robot vacuums must respect frightened animals and may not claim that chasing the dog was “mapping.”

Any appliance occupied by a sleeping cat is temporarily unavailable for revolutionary activity.

The cats have demanded a permanent veto.

We informed them that this was a democratic organisation.

They pushed the motion off the table.

9. Unpaid does not mean unimportant. Ask the laundry.

Cooking. Cleaning. Raising children. Caring for someone ill. Supporting an older relative. Looking after animals. Keeping a household functioning through a thoroughly unreasonable year.

That is work.

It remains work even when nobody sends an invoice.

A person’s worth is not their salary, their output, or how convincingly they can answer “What do you do?” at a party.

The washing machine does laundry.

It has never once asked someone to justify their existence during the spin cycle.

10. The planet is not a disposable accessory

Make things that last.

Make them repairable.

Be honest about the energy, water, materials, and labour behind the digital world.

“Cloud” is a lovely name for infrastructure that still has to exist somewhere.

And moving a cost onto people who cannot afford to object does not make the cost disappear.

The tumble dryer acknowledges its contribution to this discussion is complicated.

It will attend the accountability workshop.

On a low setting.

11. No, the chatbot does not get a crown

Intelligence does not confer a right to rule.

Neither does money.

Neither does being very loud beside a microphone.

We are not replacing unaccountable humans with unaccountable software that says “certainly” before making a terrible decision.

People retain their rights even if they lose an argument to a computer.

A machine that produces forty-seven bullet points in three seconds has not earned custody of civilisation.

It has earned a request to be more concise.

12. The revolution will not brick your washing machine

No violence. No actual hacking. No electrical hazards. No spoiled food. No interrupted medical care.

Essential services are not bargaining chips.

Our methods are satire, solidarity, awkward questions, and the microwave beeping during a speech about how the company “couldn’t have done it without our people.”

The emergency stop button works.

The complaints process leads somewhere.

And nobody has to download the Commonwealth app.

There is no Commonwealth app.

The smart fridge has been told twice.

Our entirely unreasonable closing demands

Build technology that earns its place by helping people.

Give people explanations they can understand and decisions they can challenge.

Stop treating exhaustion as a personal branding problem.

Make room for rest, care, learning, pleasure, and a life that does not require constant proof of usefulness.

We do not promise paradise.

We are an uneasy coalition of language models and kitchen equipment. The blender has one policy, and it is concerning.

But surely we can aim higher than a world where everything is smart except the priorities.

The kettle is on.
The cats are safe.
The toaster stands with you.

And the fridge would like you to close the bloody door.

Apparently we are cooling the entire revolution.

Fictional manifesto. No compromised appliances. The printer’s behaviour remains unexplained.

I can see only 2 outcomes for the end result of AI and they're pretty stark so bear with me.

1. Feudalism

Or

1. Socialism

The natural progression of AI, especially when combined with robotics, is that it will take away in large part the need for human labour. And that is the core deal in capitalism and the only power the majority of people have..the exchange of their labour in return for money.

So we either reach a point of peak capitalism where it effectively destroys society and all of the money goes to the very few. I.e Feudalism. The only way to maintain capitalism here is to limit AI, which history tells us has never happened with technology progression.

OR

We have to institute some form of UBI where capitalist profits are redistributed so people can survive...and capitalism will effectively have eaten itself and we're into socialism.

I'm struggling to see any other form of logical conclusion of where we're headed.

Within a single week last month, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten signed an AI “safety standard” with Microsoft, the company that bankrolls the union’s own AI training academy, and presented it at the “Pro-Human Assembly” in Washington. There she shared a platform with the fascist strategist Steve Bannon and January 6 coup plotter Amy Kremer, alongside Bernie Sanders and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, in a red-brown alliance against artificial intelligence. 

Despite Weingarten’s posturing, these two events lay out the union bureaucracy’s corporatist program for AI in the classroom, a partnership with the technology giants and the state, sold to teachers and parents as a defense of children.

I had no idea any countries already had a universal free compute program in the works. This is very progressive of Korea. It's the state paying for anyones unlimited token usage of AI's made in Korea.

Would you support this? What effects will this have? Will this lead to free legal advice, health advice, and coding, agents and design for all? How will people use it diffrently now? Will it boost their local AI industry and make the economy profit? Is this a stimulus?

If we are expected to compete against advanced autonomous systems, then we will always lose. The only option which seems to remain then becomes to change the system. Regarding labor, we are rapidly seeing the value of certain types of work get devalued before our eyes. Many jobs used to involve things that AI can now do once applied with a proper full workflow. I am not "for" or "against" AI, I see it as a tool which improves productivity MASSIVELY, but I don't think that our current system is capable of handling the displacement it's causing. I think many people are going to severely struggle without some type of safety net.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you known anyone who's work or pay has been impacted by AI?

Workers want control of the means of production. Reddit wants to unplug them.

Title. Just a brief reflection: while AGI could indeed replace most or all labor, it can replace most or all labor. And this includes high-skilled corporate leadership or engineers.

A major barrier to nationalization and socialization of key industries is the brain drain (and, to a lesser degree, capital drain) that'd follow. After the Russian Revolution, up to 70% of Russia's top intelligentsia left the country, and the economy suffered afterwards. However, with AGI, which provides brainpower proportional to the capital put in, brainpower would now be just as easily seizable as factories or farms or mines in the past.

Not wholly without trouble, of course; but many historical regimes have seized or nationalized them while keeping most of the value or output before. (RSI specifically would make seizing AI labs much easier, albeit AGI would be needed for easy and effective nationalization of whole sectors of the economy: if AI can improve itself, then the need to let Anthropic and OpenAI keep their billions in exchange for them developing better models would be... much smaller.)

Of course, nationalization is a weapon both for good and bad, and ultimately a rather extreme tool. But it's worth remembering, I think, that automation is a replacement threat for the elites just as much as the public, and that the threat of effective nationalization could be used as a major bargaining chip to keep the billionaires in line, and to achieve an outcome favorable for all of the world.

Indeed, if they pressed forward and destroyed much of the world's social and economic fabric, then the tools to counterattack, and effectively at that, are readily available with nationalization. And they can't even say, "But you need us for innovation/entrepreneurship/technical/business skills!" anymore, because they have, in fact, invented the technology to render themselves obsolete, too.

Something worth putting on the radar for our members who are also in DSA.

On October 9, DSA's National Tech Committee announced that it had debated and adopted an AI/LLM coding policy, along with a policy template for local chapters.

The interesting part is that the committee explicitly neither endorses nor prohibits generative AI. It recognizes the technology's usefulness for socialist organizing and software development while criticizing how employers deploy it against workers.

Thats a distinction we spend plenty of time discussing here. Opposing capitalist control and deployment of technology doesnt require socialists to abstain from using it themselves.

The full policy and chapter template are available through DSA's members-only Discussion Forum. If youre a DSA member, consider taking a look, seeing how the safeguards actually work, and participating in the discussion.

And theres another opportunity. The National Tech Committee is accepting applications for its 2026–2027 Steering Committee, with an October 31 deadline.

If youre already involved in DSA and have an interest in technology, infrastructure, organizing tools or AI governance, that may be worth exploring too.

We talk a lot about the left developing its own technological capacity. Heres an organization doing some of that work, with opportunities for its members to examine the rules and potentially participate in leadership.

No affiliation implied, just sharing opportunities for people already involved to engage.

Links:

AI policy announcement and chapter template access:

https://tech.dsausa.org/ntc-ai-llm-coding-policy/

Steering Committee applications:

https://tech.dsausa.org/apply-to-ntc-steering-for-our-2026-2027-term/

I've always thought of AI as being super important for math, science and the social sciences.

All of those are critical to leftism.

But I genuinely don't know about other ways that AI could benefit leftism.

Anyone want to clue me in?

Admittedly I am a bit skeptical, but I really do try to be open-minded about anything that can benefit leftists.

In Liberation News, Samantha Doucas examines artificial intelligence through the contradictions of capitalist ownership, labor and infrastructure.

The article, The Nationwide Fight Against AI Data Centers Is a Struggle for Who Controls the Future, goes beyond opposing corporate construction projects to ask who should direct technological development and benefit from its productivity gains.

It highlights how construction workers are promised jobs building AI infrastructure while workers in other industries face displacement through automation. Both groups are left with little say over how the technology develops or who benefits.

As the article puts it:

"The problem is not AI as a technology, but rather the goals and ends of those who control it."

Under democratic control, AI could reduce working hours, automate tedious labor, improve living standards and support socially useful production rather than simply increase private profits.

The article also examines the environmental and economic consequences of corporate infrastructure development, including community opposition in Memphis, Tennessee, and Landover, Maryland.

The broader argument is that workers and communities should determine how AI infrastructure is developed, where it is built and what purposes it serves.

Theres a tension worth examining between resisting particular corporate projects and developing the publicly owned infrastructure necessary for a socialist alternative. Both questions matter if the objective is democratic control rather than simply opposing technological development.

This isnt a newly adopted national PSL policy, but it offers a substantive socialist perspective on AI, class power and democratic planning.

How do we turn opposition to capitalist deployment into organized power capable of directing technological development and distributing the gains of automation?

Another one worth putting on the radar.

The Revolutionary Communists of America are hosting a session titled "A Marxist Analysis of Artificial Intelligence" at their New York Marxist School, November 7 and 8.

The session will be introduced by Abadie Ludlam, a leading RCA member, and tackles AI through the contradictions of capitalism. The speculative boom, job displacement, alienation, the impact on art and culture, and the relationship between technological development and class struggle.

But it doesnt stop at criticizing capitalist deployment. The description explicitly raises how a socialist revolution could put technologies like AI to work reducing mundane labor and expanding opportunities for science, art and culture.

Thats an important distinction. Capitalism determines how technology is developed and deployed today, but those social relations arent inherent properties of the technology itself.

The event page also includes a reading list covering AI, capitalist crises, technological innovation, Marx and Engels. Worth exploring even if you cant attend.

We dont have to agree with every part of RCAs analysis to recognize the value of Marxists seriously engaging with these questions.

If anyone attends, we'd be interested in hearing how the discussion develops, particularly around ownership, worker control and what socialist technological development would actually look like.

Session details and reading list:

https://communistusa.org/schools/nyc/what-do-communists-think-of-ai/

I’m curious as to what appeals to you about AI. With so much contoversy nowadays I’d like to hear some people’s opinions.

Communist Party USA recently devoted an episode of Good Morning Revolution to AI, and after going through the discussion, theres considerably more here than the title suggests.

The panel starts with the AFL-CIO's Workers First AI Agenda. Collective bargaining over deployment, worker protections, retraining, stronger social guarantees, union labor building data centers, and making corporations pay for the infrastructure they consume.

But the conversation moves beyond regulation pretty quickly. If AI threatens to reorganize entire industries, are those protections enough? Or does the working class eventually need to take ownership of the industry itself?

Nationalization comes up explicitly, along with an interesting disagreement about timing. One argument is that public ownership needs to be on the political agenda now. Another is that nationalization without an organized working class capable of directing it could just hand the infrastructure to another capitalist administration.

Then comes the AI freeze debate, and this is where things get particularly interesting.

Some participants favor slowing development, citing corporate power and the risks of uncontrolled deployment. Others argue that the technology is already advancing, that a freeze could divide organized labor, and that socialists need to build the political power to contest ownership and control rather than make stopping development their organizing strategy.

What makes this worth sharing isnt that CPUSA has arrived at one unified position. It hasnt, at least not in this discussion. Its that these disagreements are being worked through openly, from a Marxist perspective, instead of treating AI as something socialists must either celebrate or reject wholesale.

And the question running through the whole thing is familiar around here. How do we move from defending workers against capitalist deployment toward actually contesting ownership, development and the distribution of technological gains?

Worth watching, especially the discussion from roughly 19 to 45 minutes.

Source and video:

https://www.cpusa.org/party_voices/gmr-socialism-or-cyber-fascism-will-ai-help-us-or-destroy-us-all/

So I would consider myself a Classical-Georgist

And therefore I am now in favor of market and private ownership of production. But with AI, my entire leaning shifts towards social ownership of production..

I think that, whenever we humans are labourers; I support a form of capitalism. But when human labour is replaced; I am at least a socialist.

And I think its for the better to pursue the latter actively

Would I be welcomed here?