worse still — we aren’t even talking about socialization. What Sanders is talking about is (partial) nationalization. The question we are debating is not “Should the workers take over?” but “Should the government?” It may have escaped the notice of those in that debate, but the current government is not particularly sympathetic to socialist interests. That Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have both “called for the nationalization of AI firms” is presented by Guastella as a positive thing, as transcending the partisan divide. We think it represents a grave strategic error.
This is particularly crucial precisely because AI is attacking many of the most privileged workers, bringing the logic of mass production to realms that have so far been relatively protected from it. Take, for example, therapists. It’s easy to picture the capitalist AI future for mass-produced therapy: it’s not the rosy picture of full automation, in which a chatbot can provide competent therapy for the masses. The future in which we all have dozens of “agents” working on our behalf (or whatever the current sales pitch may be) will look bleak — like a single therapist overseeing window after window of AI chat interfaces. Client after client is talking to a language model, the trained professional is there to oversee the chats — scanning them for dangers and possible liabilities. The provided care will be of dubious quality — but boy, will it be cheap.
(still guild-related thought pattern (is it proudhonism or whatever it’s called?), but at least approaching humane thought rather than previous drivel (linked at the top of the article)
no mentions of ai weapons systems, of course.
Like no one talks about what if we just don’t want it? We can refuse tech, it’s not inevitable, we don’t want a machine that alienates us from our labour and creates an isolated society of consumers.
Your comment perfectly illustrates a common mistake among leftists to conflate AI as a technology with capitalists using it against our interests as workers.
As it stands AI is usually bad news, but that’s because we live under a capitalist system where the bourgeoisie will use any technological breakthrough to undermine us. This says infinitely more about that economic arrangement than the technology itself which can be used for a myriad of ends.
It’s all fine to say that the technology is value neutral in principle, but it simply isn’t how it manifests today. The technology can only be detrimental under capitalism, it is going to be used for genocide wherever it hasn’t already begun and thus far the capitalists are not only the sole faction building them but are also the only ones with the resources to commit to “frontier” LLMs. There’s just not enough momentum from our side to turn that around from manifesting a fascist destiny with these things, the destruction of all the capital left to the working class accelerates with every land purchase these red-tech theoretics enable.
Though I’m not arguing for capitalism under any circumstances it’s simply a gross oversimplification to say AI can’t and doesn’t have any positive value under capitalism. AI being used for cancer research is not detrimental to our interests.
It’s also not like we can prevent AI from developing anyway if we don’t yet own the means of production. That’s what these matters boil down to every time. If we disavow any development under capitalism that could be used against us then we’re little more than conservative reactionaries fighting a battle that’s already lost.
Instead any new development ought to be used as momentum to argue for and organize towards the collective self-determination of production.
AI being used for cancer research is detrimental to our interests so long as it’s used to justify every violation this tech will be used for, just like every sob story used to justify an tyrannical development (it’ll catchremoveds, it’ll protect kids etc) especially when you factor that the cure for cancer will only be used to treat the ones exterminating everyone else. Don’t pretend human intelligence isn’t enough to make that kind of progress without help. Technology is not inherently neutral, its providence is important. The only reason guns and weapons of mass destruction are useful is because someone else built them. That’s nothing. These things are by their own nature or the nature of what it took to bring them into the world biased towards being bad. And like with any new technology it’s no good contriving a niche context where they might be useful after all just so you can plunge ahead recklessly like an accelerationist that thinks building the singularity is more important to themselves than clean water. In the end this tech is more odious than what a communist should want to make, you need to to ask who’s labor it is when you use something by open-ai or anthropic. There’s a difference between y’know critical support for deepseek and trying to stifle liberal anti-ai sentiment by arguing from toy model first principles like a conservative doing a “rational debate”.
Okay, so no AI then until further notice except that requires organizing towards collective control of the means of production which would solve AI being used against us by a tiny minority of imperialists anyway.
Yes? We’re powerless to actually dictate the uses presented to us, just our personal participation and the expenditure of our personal labour. For the proletariat to support LLMs, or to not support LLMs, is largely irrelevant - except that the former weakens your stance against those who actually control it, and the capitalists want your support.
No AI. No human genetic augmentation. No immortality. No neural control brain interfaces. Even when they promise this time they’ll show mercy, this time surely the technology is too good and noble to scrape the marrow from our bones, that one day it’ll be ours, that we don’t want to be left behind the wave of the future.
Revolutionary defeatism applies to Progress, most especially that of the tools of control. If there was an actual arms race, sure, it’d be appropriate to have a technical appreciation for the potential of the technology… were we living in the nation fighting for human liberation.
Perhaps that is China, but I do not live in China.
If we’re powerless to dictate the terms of technological development under capitalism it’s even more nonsensical to think we can simply reject AI out of existence, which is what you seem to be arguing while completely ignoring my argument that we ought to organize towards collective control of said technology which would solve the concerns around AI being used against our interests.
Like no one talks about what if we just don’t want it? We can refuse tech
Not really, I’m afraid. You shouldn’t stop technological development under the premise of a world where capitalism exists in your socialist state, because otherwise other states developing this technology will leave you behind. Centralized democratic control over technology is much better than the refusal to develop it.
If you make a socialist state, capitalists in other states larger and wealthier than yours will suspect that you have invested in mind-burning technology and name their headaches after you. That’s how much they’ll be leaving you behind.
What if the democratic will, in a world without capitalism, insists on not developing the technology regardless?
That’s a different story, yeah, assuming we live in an internationally socialist disarmed world
I hope one day we’ll get to find out!
Can’t the US socdems not even see that government and business is in the same boat ? And they aren’t rowing.
FUCK AI
don’t date robots
Good dog! There’s your treat gives you a petrol based snack
I guess we forgot about the “fully automated” part of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism.
I thought we were working towards a future where if we want to work then we can, not be forced or coerced to work and thus be alienated from our work. Wouldn’t robots and automation (i refuse to call them AI) facilitate that?
I think we need the Gay Communism in place first, then fully automated, then space. Order of operations is important
It seems like the opening post (the quote within) was advocating to get rid of the automation altogether, even though they are supposed to be under our control during socialism and the switch to communism.
I think this comment makes a better argument, or at least says it better than what I was trying to say: https://hexbear.net/comment/7327862
Throwing our entire capacity of compute power to make a hodgepodge facsimile of all online interactions and media, and draining our critical resources for computer technology, is not going to bring us communism.
You can have communism with steam age technology, you just have to learn how to share things, live together, and not waste everything.
We could also theoretically go back in caves and live a communal lifestyle together except we wouldn’t be pushing humanity beyond capitalism since that would remain the dominant mode of production and development.
I swear you Luddites are pulling the socialist movement back with this bullshit.
I’m not exactly advocating going back in caves (which is largely ahistorical), I want to maintain at least the microchip, the Web, the LED bulb, CRISPR, and the technological supports for these.
I do not advocate blindly following the Economy into loops of compulsive consumption. Take a look at our reserves of critical mineral resources (including construction-grade sand) and topsoil, the rate at which humanity is blowing through them. Then ask yourself how many years we have left of resource supply and whether reaching those points of depletion in the coming century is advancing humanity, or dooming it to a permanent constraint.
You do not need to become a mirror image of capitalism to fight capitalism, which runs on a self-destructive power. Capitalism has not stood the test of time on any substantial time scale.
The maximalist control ambition, whether it’s Kardashev or the Dark Forest model, is a road to ruin.
I never advocated to mirror capitalism. I’m advocating for the collective control of the means of development and production which would include AI. That is the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Once obtained it’s up to us as a class how to develop these technologies to our benefit or cease production altogether, but you need the dictatorship either way.
I’m going to scream at luddites
You can restrict usage of things, you can limit use to efficient models that won’t destroy the planet, etc., it’s not a choice between “use it and let it run and ruin everything” or “destroy the lying machines.” You don’t need to use it for fucking therapy to get benefit out of, say, food workers not having to man intercoms to take orders. There are labor and time saving utilities here but i swear to god half of lemmy hasn’t interacted with an llm since 2023. If we’re talking about a hypothetical where we’re nationalizing this shit we’re talking about a situation in which we’re past being in capitalist hell where every implication of llm use is through the lens of bourgeois control, have a little more imagination than “we must smash machine”
I am sure it can do some impressive things, though I can’t say I have seen great evidence of it (where it can do impressive things are probably fields I don’t understand). I also think it’s weird to call people luddites over this. Like yea, if we have communism and it’s used for good, sure why not. As it stands now though, to me it reads like “How we can use the torture nexus for good assuming it doesn’t kill all of us” which doesn’t inspire me.
As it stands now though, to me it reads like “How we can use the torture nexus for good assuming it doesn’t kill all of us” which doesn’t inspire me.
You’ve got the west essentially trying to make a turbo fission powered super calculator because they think if they drain the biosphere to power a computer it’ll make it intelligent. China is not doing that with their research and they’re developing models nearly “as good” that work with a fraction of the resources. And that’s talking about LLMs doing shit like writing code, which isn’t what I think LLMs should be used for and not what I’m saying when I say “they have uses and utility.”
I also think it’s weird to call people luddites over this
It’s probably the most apt comparison that could ever be made because of people wanting to smash the machine instead of seize and utilize it
I am sure it can do some impressive things, though I can’t say I have seen great evidence of it (where it can do impressive things are probably fields I don’t understand).
Also I’m not necessarily saying the results of current LLMs are “impressive,” like, don’t get it in your head I think Dr LLM should be a thing since I literally just said they shouldn’t be used for stuff like therapy.
But like in my own case I had terrible neck and shoulder pain progressively getting worse. I was (and still somewhat am) worried it was related to my psoriasis, like, oh great, degenerative spinal condition time. The doctor I saw basically had no time for me and just gave me a referral for physical therapy and a muscle relaxer that she and the office pharmacist gave 0 explanation for.
A few random questions on google search later (i honestly don’t remember how i formulated the query) and the LLM is basically like, is your mattress memory foam? Is it on perfectly rigid support? And it turns out, no, it’s on a box spring because my dad didn’t want to give us the support it came with. The mattress was sagging in random points between the springs and was literally destroying my spine.
I put it on the floor and instantly felt better and now 2-3 weeks later my neck and shoulder feel normal
Then the muscle relaxer turned out to affect how my CNS deals with adrenaline. Which I found out not from the doctor or the office pharmacist but as I was actively undergoing withdrawal symptoms. Fun! The best part about that was complaining about it on here to have Nerd Scolds tell me not to use LLMs for medical shit.
Let me say this as a separate sentence for those nerds: i asked the doctor and the office pharmacist for info about how to take it and was given no caution. The doctor was less informative than the llm. Idk how people can read that and still tell me “don’t google shit” like the alternative (knowing nothing due to the human doctor’s negligence) would be better.
Then I’m typing in shit about it being humid in my house despite the A/C and a dehumidifier running and it starts asking me about the AC condensation line. I still don’t know if it’s the cause of the humidity, but it pulled up the instruction manual for my AC unit which clearly indicates the P trap on the condensation line should be deeper, it currently has a 1" water seal but the manual calls for 3". And it’s definitely sucking in outdoor air through the p trap, so i think it’s right in that it’s a problem even if it’s not THE cause of the humidity issue.
Those are 2 things where I might have stumbled on the necessary information through reddit threads on a regular google search, but tbh I doubt it because I wouldn’t have put in the time to continue interrogating those issues. And then the muscle relaxer thing is an instance where a human professional (two, actually!) completely failed to provide me critical information on a drug’s safety.
All of that is shit i would consider “useful” and that’s why i’ll always get irritated at people who act like LLMs are stuck in 2023 giving you recipes for Glue Pizza.
I don’t think any of these uses are worth the extremely wasteful way the West is doing this shit, though. But that doesn’t matter in entirely hypothetical situations where capitalism is abolished and we’re nationalizing shit
Yea honestly the situations you are describing are some of the more common use cases that can be actually helpful. I do wonder if google and the others getting so fucking shitty amplifies the feeling. But I have heard the same from people I trust. Like you said, can be good stuff (the computer from Star Trek basically) but have to be able to do that without murdering the environment even more.
I do wonder if google and the others getting so fucking shitty amplifies the feeling.
Oh no definitely, like, I wouldn’t say it’s better than the search results themselves were a decade ago before they fucked it all up. But it’s still presently a general improvement over “search + reddit” to find even a scrap of info
A data center is being put in near where I live and they have flooded the houses there.
Then we have flock cameras coming to my town.
Like I don’t think you are wrong. But you have to meet people where they are at. Its hard to see the good in something when the only thing it is being used really in America is trash images and shit and making things worse.
People are afraid that if they let anything through it will lead to the parts that is causing actual harm. And they have every reason to feel that way given the mountains of evidence that shows you can’t have anything good in this hell country.
The people are responding the only way they can think of to such a thing. Its our job to show another way.
I do believe Ha-Joon Chang’s spiel about how the washing machine has been more transformative than the Internet, but when I went to live with quasi-Luddites, they were doing pretty fine with their half-barrel hand-cranked washing machines.
Before 4 years ago, “AI” meant programming, it meant a kind of software design. There’s a huge difference between using just the electricity you need to automate something versus stretching the entire electricity supply to cram everything into something that replaces human interaction and human capability.
Nationalizing it doesn’t solve it unless we are talking about a forced seizure of said ai companies. One where the ceos in charge are in prison for life, and we fix the mess they made.
Otherwise this is just the ai companies getting the giant key to the city.
I don’t want to say Bernie is being a useful idiot here, hes the only one out there putting in work.
Nationalising it is fine, whatever. Bailing out the industry is what I have a problem with.
