That argument makes sense for construction, it does not make sense for technology.
What do you value more? Innovating new things or mass producing already-existing things?
I particularly don’t enjoy the argument I’m being “aristocratic”. The skills in this field currently exist incredibly broadly, making them accessible even to the average person with huge communities of people capable of teaching and helping one another advance in the craft. When you deskill the field you make it so that the only people with access to those skills are the bourgeoisie, in the future the extreme few people with those skills will be buried away in highly advanced private research institutes and no such community will exist anymore. Those people will be doing much the same thing that this field is currently doing at even the average level of programmer, except it will be prestigious and overblown due to the rarity of the skill, and the quantity of genuinely new things will be far far smaller because they will only be coming out of those organisations, and they will only be private.
If you deskill the entire field say goodbye to anything new and innovative being open source ever again.
Again, held in your statement smuggled in behind the argument is another important wedge. The unmoving and unchanging state of ownership and the permanence of bourgeois rule is presupposed by your argument. Not very communist, and not particularly dialectical in approach.
The unmoving and unchanging state of ownership and the permanence of bourgeois rule is presupposed by your argument.
You are trying to prove the insufficiency of an argument by making a counterargument that is even more insufficient.
We have seen centuries of proto-capitalism, centuries of early capitalism, a century of conflict between hegemonic capitalism and socialism in which the majority of communist gains and inroads were turned back by the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois rule is chaotic and systematically self-reproducing (like the rule of nobility was), but the historical sample and trajectory does not suggest its imminent defeat by the proletariat.
As technology advances, so too do the mechanisms of social control. Global capitalism has proven its ability to adapt to change and subsume any threats, and we are now facing a potentially species-ending polycrisis. You can’t simply wave your hand and say “Marx assures us this specific outcome will happen, therefore the workers will be in control over AI”. It’s 100% counterfactual.
Having a fully informed perspective, or a clear foundation, for all of human technology is what Awoo is arguing for.
unmoving and unchanging state of ownership and the permanence of bourgeois rule is presupposed
Are you saying that Awoo has a negative attitude towards AI because they aren’t taking into account a possible future where we have revolutions, or otherwise seize the means of production? They are negating the agency of the working class to become organized, then fix the problems they raise? And since this might happen, it is treasonous against the future society to raise and perhaps even attempt to address the problems as they present themselves now?
It reminds me of that tech ideology (effective altruism? Or another one?) where they consider all potential future people as valuae as currently living people. So anything done today can be justified if in their theoretical future, it might result in an increase of humans.
Is this how you read Capital? Snarking at any time Marx saw the silver lining in the creation of the industrial proletariat and the massive improvement in the concentration and power of industry like the chapter on cooperation?
I just find it really short sighted and un-marxist, clinging to a version of the world now instead of fighting for a better one that is possible if we work together. You all have a very pessimistic view of the world.
But Communism is meant to stand above the battle for supremacy between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which, taken alone, is the realm of chartism and trade unionism.
Taken dialectically, the mass unemployment of a strata of workers also causes massive repercussions for the stability of the capitalist system. Without workers earning wages, an integral part of the the circulation of capital, that of the reproduction of variable capital I.e. the consumption of goods and services by the proletariat is interrupted. This then causes shockwaves in the form of crises of overproduction that throw even more people into poverty, joblessness and disarray. This then produces opportunities for the proletariat to fight back against a weakened system that is no longer functioning to keep them fed and placid. The attack against labour invokes its opposite, an attack of labour against capital. It is at this point the communists put forth their argument - it is not enough to wring concessions from the ruling class that put you in this mess, you must seek to transform society by their overthrowal and by the collective and democratic ownership of the means of production.
I can assure you that while a strike is a powerful weapon against the bourgeoisie, an uprising and revolt is certainly a greater power that doesn’t rest simply on labour downing tools and not showing up to work.
I understand the frustration against the way capital is wielding LLMs and similar technologies as a cudgel against tech and art workers in particular, but we have to think a level above the current clash between labour and capital. We have to think about the war not just the battle.
Taken dialectically, the mass unemployment of a strata of workers also causes massive repercussions for the stability of the capitalist system. Without workers earning wages, an integral part of the the circulation of capital, that of the reproduction of variable capital I.e. the consumption of goods and services by the proletariat is interrupted. This then causes shockwaves in the form of crises of overproduction that throw even more people into poverty, joblessness and disarray. This then produces opportunities for the proletariat to fight back against a weakened system that is no longer functioning to keep them fed and placid. The attack against labour invokes its opposite, an attack of labour against capital. It is at this point the communists put forth their argument - it is not enough to wring concessions from the ruling class that put you in this mess, you must seek to transform society by their overthrowal and by the collective and democratic ownership of the means of production.
Yes and this is all very bad for average people. Therefore which side of the struggle are we to take? One in favour of bringing about the conditions that will destroy the lives of working people or one in favour of protecting those lives?
One side is accelerationism. The other is authentically fighting to protect the lives of average people.
I can assure you that while a strike is a powerful weapon against the bourgeoisie, an uprising and revolt is certainly a greater power that doesn’t rest simply on labour downing tools and not showing up to work.
This won’t be an uprising. It will be a war of survival. If bourgeoisie no longer need labour then the protection that the working class receives for its usefulness is removed. The bourgeoisie will recognise that the uprisings are existential for themselves, they will not seek to simply bring people back under control to exploit them because that incentive will be gone, they will seek to exterminate all threat to themselves. This can and will be carried out through any means necessary, including deadly chemical weapons at a mass and unprecedented scale. The bourgeoisie will seek to be the surviving class, then they will live in fully automated luxury and abundance after they win.
Call me a revisionist but I do not think Marx was correct in his assumption that the contradiction could only resolve in one direction - an inevitable working class victory. Marx only envisioned a world in which the working class would be permanently necessary for their labour, he did not and could not imagine a world where the working class could have that taken away. When you do take that away this contradiction can resolve with a bourgeois victory as well. They can win and they can live in the communism that follows by themselves.
This argument is just longtermism, and Elon Musk cites it regularly to defend against any and all criticisms of newly developing technology. All harms in the present are fine and good because in the inevitable future we are going to create everything will be better!
You want to claim I’m not thinking like a communist and I’m not being dialectical. Yet your yourself are supporting a position that opposes struggle whereas I stand with using struggle in all of its forms, and the radical change of a form of production such as the mass automation of previously manual labour in programming that AI represents is certainly a theater of struggle.
That argument makes sense for construction, it does not make sense for technology.
What do you value more? Innovating new things or mass producing already-existing things?
I particularly don’t enjoy the argument I’m being “aristocratic”. The skills in this field currently exist incredibly broadly, making them accessible even to the average person with huge communities of people capable of teaching and helping one another advance in the craft. When you deskill the field you make it so that the only people with access to those skills are the bourgeoisie, in the future the extreme few people with those skills will be buried away in highly advanced private research institutes and no such community will exist anymore. Those people will be doing much the same thing that this field is currently doing at even the average level of programmer, except it will be prestigious and overblown due to the rarity of the skill, and the quantity of genuinely new things will be far far smaller because they will only be coming out of those organisations, and they will only be private.
If you deskill the entire field say goodbye to anything new and innovative being open source ever again.
Again, held in your statement smuggled in behind the argument is another important wedge. The unmoving and unchanging state of ownership and the permanence of bourgeois rule is presupposed by your argument. Not very communist, and not particularly dialectical in approach.
You are trying to prove the insufficiency of an argument by making a counterargument that is even more insufficient.
We have seen centuries of proto-capitalism, centuries of early capitalism, a century of conflict between hegemonic capitalism and socialism in which the majority of communist gains and inroads were turned back by the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois rule is chaotic and systematically self-reproducing (like the rule of nobility was), but the historical sample and trajectory does not suggest its imminent defeat by the proletariat.
As technology advances, so too do the mechanisms of social control. Global capitalism has proven its ability to adapt to change and subsume any threats, and we are now facing a potentially species-ending polycrisis. You can’t simply wave your hand and say “Marx assures us this specific outcome will happen, therefore the workers will be in control over AI”. It’s 100% counterfactual.
Having a fully informed perspective, or a clear foundation, for all of human technology is what Awoo is arguing for.
Are you saying that Awoo has a negative attitude towards AI because they aren’t taking into account a possible future where we have revolutions, or otherwise seize the means of production? They are negating the agency of the working class to become organized, then fix the problems they raise? And since this might happen, it is treasonous against the future society to raise and perhaps even attempt to address the problems as they present themselves now?
It reminds me of that tech ideology (effective altruism? Or another one?) where they consider all potential future people as valuae as currently living people. So anything done today can be justified if in their theoretical future, it might result in an increase of humans.
Is this how you read Capital? Snarking at any time Marx saw the silver lining in the creation of the industrial proletariat and the massive improvement in the concentration and power of industry like the chapter on cooperation?
I just find it really short sighted and un-marxist, clinging to a version of the world now instead of fighting for a better one that is possible if we work together. You all have a very pessimistic view of the world.
I was asking if I understood what you were saying properly. Your answer is some accusations against me.
Answer me a question: Where do workers get their power to fight from?
I assume you want me to say labour.
But Communism is meant to stand above the battle for supremacy between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which, taken alone, is the realm of chartism and trade unionism.
Taken dialectically, the mass unemployment of a strata of workers also causes massive repercussions for the stability of the capitalist system. Without workers earning wages, an integral part of the the circulation of capital, that of the reproduction of variable capital I.e. the consumption of goods and services by the proletariat is interrupted. This then causes shockwaves in the form of crises of overproduction that throw even more people into poverty, joblessness and disarray. This then produces opportunities for the proletariat to fight back against a weakened system that is no longer functioning to keep them fed and placid. The attack against labour invokes its opposite, an attack of labour against capital. It is at this point the communists put forth their argument - it is not enough to wring concessions from the ruling class that put you in this mess, you must seek to transform society by their overthrowal and by the collective and democratic ownership of the means of production.
I can assure you that while a strike is a powerful weapon against the bourgeoisie, an uprising and revolt is certainly a greater power that doesn’t rest simply on labour downing tools and not showing up to work.
I understand the frustration against the way capital is wielding LLMs and similar technologies as a cudgel against tech and art workers in particular, but we have to think a level above the current clash between labour and capital. We have to think about the war not just the battle.
Yes and this is all very bad for average people. Therefore which side of the struggle are we to take? One in favour of bringing about the conditions that will destroy the lives of working people or one in favour of protecting those lives?
One side is accelerationism. The other is authentically fighting to protect the lives of average people.
This won’t be an uprising. It will be a war of survival. If bourgeoisie no longer need labour then the protection that the working class receives for its usefulness is removed. The bourgeoisie will recognise that the uprisings are existential for themselves, they will not seek to simply bring people back under control to exploit them because that incentive will be gone, they will seek to exterminate all threat to themselves. This can and will be carried out through any means necessary, including deadly chemical weapons at a mass and unprecedented scale. The bourgeoisie will seek to be the surviving class, then they will live in fully automated luxury and abundance after they win.
Call me a revisionist but I do not think Marx was correct in his assumption that the contradiction could only resolve in one direction - an inevitable working class victory. Marx only envisioned a world in which the working class would be permanently necessary for their labour, he did not and could not imagine a world where the working class could have that taken away. When you do take that away this contradiction can resolve with a bourgeois victory as well. They can win and they can live in the communism that follows by themselves.
This argument is just longtermism, and Elon Musk cites it regularly to defend against any and all criticisms of newly developing technology. All harms in the present are fine and good because in the inevitable future we are going to create everything will be better!
You want to claim I’m not thinking like a communist and I’m not being dialectical. Yet your yourself are supporting a position that opposes struggle whereas I stand with using struggle in all of its forms, and the radical change of a form of production such as the mass automation of previously manual labour in programming that AI represents is certainly a theater of struggle.