I've long argued the aggressive push for AI in industry should be a rallying cry across political lines for Universal Basic Income, healthcare, shorter work weeks, etc. If the very plain goal is to automate jobs, great, pay us to stay home & enjoy our lives. No? Then 99% of us have a common fight. - ThreadSky

rob-sheridan.com • 89 days ago

I've long argued the aggressive push for AI in industry should be a rallying cry across political lines for Universal Basic Income, healthcare, shorter work weeks, etc. If the very plain goal is to automate jobs, great, pay us to stay home & enjoy our lives. No? Then 99% of us have a common fight.

Reposted from Quinta Jurecic

one thing I've been pondering this week is whether genAI is inherently an oligarchic project and—if so—why there isn't a stronger leftist movement against AI as a plan to take away jobs

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alilnightmusing.bsky.social•88 days ago

PS, AI is mainly (for the tech/crypto-bros and their ilk) a step on the way to literal eternal life. Screwing the workers is just icing on the cake.

rob-sheridan.com•88 days ago

Good luck with that, techbros, I don’t even trust their “revolutionary” AI to accurately summarize an email for me so I think they’re gonna end up in the dirt like the rest of us before they come anywhere close to AI eternal life.

rob-sheridan.com•89 days ago

And I think focusing too much on being against AI as a specific tech is short-sighted. Kill AI, they'll find something else. Fighting to keep jobs just the way they are is just fighting for a status quo they'll keep eroding. We can only beat them if we convince people a better system is possible.

rob-sheridan.com•89 days ago

But AI is the best cross-industry opportunity in a generation to unite workers, not because it can actually do all the things they claim (it can’t), but because it has the CEO class so frothed up on snake oil that they’re showing their hand. They aren’t usually this obvious about their long-game.

nettleleaf.bsky.social•89 days ago

otoh, the Luddites were on to something.

They will never willingly share the wealth.

alechouze.bsky.social•89 days ago

AI is supposed to make our lives easier and enable us to create art and music and enjoy all of the expressive ways we celebrate being human. That's the AI we want. Not this bullshit that creates for us and allows us all the time we want to keep working at our jobs.

scottsantens.com•88 days ago

Exactly this. AI should literally work for all of us.

lockfarm.bsky.social•89 days ago

The thing is politicians are utterly reliant on industry for growth - they cannot improve the economy, keep up with national debt or increase quality of life, productivity and all the other indicators without industry.

And the dominant industry has run out of answers without ridiculous bets like AI

tacticalmoonpie.bsky.social•89 days ago

When unemployment and poverty soar, out come the pitchforks. Or, let's be real, out come the guns. Our country is knee-deep in them.

anarchitek.bsky.social•89 days ago

Abso-fucking-lutely!

mariancall.bsky.social•89 days ago

it's very funny to me how the powers that be are so fixated on reducing their labor costs that they don't seem to grasp that laborers' excess wages are exactly what pays for all the shit they plan to sell.

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