I understand it as being similar to industrial workers opposing automation in factories under Capitalism, where technological progress ends up ultimately serving Capital, rather than supporting the proletariat. Office Workers have largely not had this same struggle until now, and are engaging with this contradiction for the first time.
This is further compounded by increased power costs in a climate where that isn’t abundant, the dumping of Finance Capital into the sector just to chase profits from an emerging, rather than established market before the TRPF makes profits more scarce leading to over-application, and the lack of compensation for artists and writers that end up training these models.
Exactly, the hate for AI is reactionary in nature. What people are actually upset about is how this tech ends up being applied under capitalism, and that’s where the anger should be directed. It’s also worth noting how differently AI is applied in China where it’s predominantly used in industry and robotics. Even stuff like LLMs are being applied towards socially useful purposes like improving healthcare or government services. There’s also a big difference in the way it’s being developed with Chinese companies treating AI as a commodity, often releasing models as open source and aiming to optimize them for efficiency, while western approach has been to try and make them into services that can be monetized.
Personally, I’ve found AI to be a very useful tool for coding. It’s sped up my workflow significantly because it’s able to handle a lot of boilerplate. It’s particularly good for stuff like making UIs quickly. I can throw some sample JSON at a model and have it produce a decent looking React component. It used to take me hours to figure out styling and handling different behaviors, which I find really tedious to do. I also find it’s very handy for discovering language features. I haven’t had to work with JavaScript for a long time, and the language evolved significantly since I last touched it. Now I have a project using it at work, and I can work with the language much faster without having to constantly hunt for how to do a particular thing using it.
My experience is that this is already a useful tool, and it’s only going to keep getting better going forward. At the same time, it’s not magic, and you still have to learn how to get the most out of it and how to apply it effectively.
And a couple of more articles I can recommend that have good takes on the subject.
Thank you for your perspective, I’ll check out those articles. I can see AI applied to my workspace to reduce tedious data entry and simple calculations that are simple overall but unique on a case-by-case basis, in a manner that under Socialism would certainly be a boon for us for the parts of our job that require such mundane tasks, leaving the more mentally stimulating tasks for more direct involvement.
I still think it risks being over-applied, and certainly already is in the US, but that’s a matter of correctly identifying its use and where it should be cast aside.
I very much agree, we’re now in the hype phase of this tech and people are trying to use it for everything. Eventually, we’ll settle on the use cases that actually make sense. It’s going to be interesting to watch how it gets applied in places like Vietnam and China compared to the west as well. We get to see a direct contrast of how potentially transformative tech will be applied under socialism and capitalism.
Fun times ahead, and at the end of the day I do think the key part is to redirect the hate from the tech itself towards what’s actually causing problems. Whatever we may think of AI, it’s no longer possible to put toothpaste back in the tube so to speak. This tech exists, and it’s not going to go away because people are mad about it. It’s better to be constructive and focus the discussion on how it’s going to be applied going forward.
Exactly, if we are to be Marxists, we should be evaluating how any new technology or idea can be beneficial to the working class, and discard what isn’t while keeping what is. The fact that AI has already helped solve legitimate problems in the field of science and helped alleviate workloads proves that it at minimum has some usefulness and can be pushed in a positive direction, even if it is more often than not used for automated commercials and scams at the present moment. Controlling it and limiting its excesses is the primary issue, but then we can carefully apply it where it does legitimately have value.
I understand it as being similar to industrial workers opposing automation in factories under Capitalism, where technological progress ends up ultimately serving Capital, rather than supporting the proletariat. Office Workers have largely not had this same struggle until now, and are engaging with this contradiction for the first time.
This is further compounded by increased power costs in a climate where that isn’t abundant, the dumping of Finance Capital into the sector just to chase profits from an emerging, rather than established market before the TRPF makes profits more scarce leading to over-application, and the lack of compensation for artists and writers that end up training these models.
I haven’t fully formed my opinion on AI yet, but this article did give a good Marxist reason why it shouldn’t be dogmatically opposed and has its uses for the Proletariat under Socialism.
Exactly, the hate for AI is reactionary in nature. What people are actually upset about is how this tech ends up being applied under capitalism, and that’s where the anger should be directed. It’s also worth noting how differently AI is applied in China where it’s predominantly used in industry and robotics. Even stuff like LLMs are being applied towards socially useful purposes like improving healthcare or government services. There’s also a big difference in the way it’s being developed with Chinese companies treating AI as a commodity, often releasing models as open source and aiming to optimize them for efficiency, while western approach has been to try and make them into services that can be monetized.
Personally, I’ve found AI to be a very useful tool for coding. It’s sped up my workflow significantly because it’s able to handle a lot of boilerplate. It’s particularly good for stuff like making UIs quickly. I can throw some sample JSON at a model and have it produce a decent looking React component. It used to take me hours to figure out styling and handling different behaviors, which I find really tedious to do. I also find it’s very handy for discovering language features. I haven’t had to work with JavaScript for a long time, and the language evolved significantly since I last touched it. Now I have a project using it at work, and I can work with the language much faster without having to constantly hunt for how to do a particular thing using it.
My experience is that this is already a useful tool, and it’s only going to keep getting better going forward. At the same time, it’s not magic, and you still have to learn how to get the most out of it and how to apply it effectively.
And a couple of more articles I can recommend that have good takes on the subject.
Thank you for your perspective, I’ll check out those articles. I can see AI applied to my workspace to reduce tedious data entry and simple calculations that are simple overall but unique on a case-by-case basis, in a manner that under Socialism would certainly be a boon for us for the parts of our job that require such mundane tasks, leaving the more mentally stimulating tasks for more direct involvement.
I still think it risks being over-applied, and certainly already is in the US, but that’s a matter of correctly identifying its use and where it should be cast aside.
I very much agree, we’re now in the hype phase of this tech and people are trying to use it for everything. Eventually, we’ll settle on the use cases that actually make sense. It’s going to be interesting to watch how it gets applied in places like Vietnam and China compared to the west as well. We get to see a direct contrast of how potentially transformative tech will be applied under socialism and capitalism.
Yep, we will have to see where it goes! Just like automation, we have to be careful but not fearful outright.
Fun times ahead, and at the end of the day I do think the key part is to redirect the hate from the tech itself towards what’s actually causing problems. Whatever we may think of AI, it’s no longer possible to put toothpaste back in the tube so to speak. This tech exists, and it’s not going to go away because people are mad about it. It’s better to be constructive and focus the discussion on how it’s going to be applied going forward.
Exactly, if we are to be Marxists, we should be evaluating how any new technology or idea can be beneficial to the working class, and discard what isn’t while keeping what is. The fact that AI has already helped solve legitimate problems in the field of science and helped alleviate workloads proves that it at minimum has some usefulness and can be pushed in a positive direction, even if it is more often than not used for automated commercials and scams at the present moment. Controlling it and limiting its excesses is the primary issue, but then we can carefully apply it where it does legitimately have value.
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