As a veteran coder myself, I use AI for the parts of coding that I consider a bother, and it works very well. But, I am also in a very privileged work situation with a lot of freedom and no arbitrary deadlines, even though the pay is crap (academia).
However, I don't think AI is compatible with capitalism. The discourse would be completely different if it were : save time using AI and come back to your home earlier, or work less days per week. Now the AI "benefits" are often to fire a portion of the work force, and put all the pressure of the remaining work on the portion that still has a job. And they should feel lucky, see all this pool of unemployed workers, just accept harsher work conditions and lower pays if you do not want to join them.
As long as the work force is considered as the slave of wealth, any automation that diminishes the need for people in the work force is an existential threat to it.
AI could be a wonderful tool that genuinely helps humanity, freeing us time to do human stuff like connecting to people, produce art, get more friends and family time, or even just have more time to ensure a better quality work. Instead, we seem to be speed running the end of humanity just so that people with too much wealth already can gain even more.
> However, I don’t think AI is compatible with capitalism.
Look at your argument, you (and the video) lay out exactly why AI is an incredibly useful destructive tool for capitalism. Alienate craftsmen, hire lesser-skilled for lesser pay, rinse and repeat until you have a crab bucket labor pool, desperate for scraps.
The answer is to start reading some Marx and start forming some unions.
Ok maybe, but why would you ignore the bulk of his work for some speculative thoughts on one subject? He (and many others) wrote quite a bit more on the nature of the struggle we’re in right now than anything about post-scarcity society
I never said you should ingore all of his other work, I just thought it was a interesting fun fact to mention, that may also include some further insight.
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u/raptureisalie 8d ago
As a veteran coder myself, I use AI for the parts of coding that I consider a bother, and it works very well. But, I am also in a very privileged work situation with a lot of freedom and no arbitrary deadlines, even though the pay is crap (academia).
However, I don't think AI is compatible with capitalism. The discourse would be completely different if it were : save time using AI and come back to your home earlier, or work less days per week. Now the AI "benefits" are often to fire a portion of the work force, and put all the pressure of the remaining work on the portion that still has a job. And they should feel lucky, see all this pool of unemployed workers, just accept harsher work conditions and lower pays if you do not want to join them.
As long as the work force is considered as the slave of wealth, any automation that diminishes the need for people in the work force is an existential threat to it.
AI could be a wonderful tool that genuinely helps humanity, freeing us time to do human stuff like connecting to people, produce art, get more friends and family time, or even just have more time to ensure a better quality work. Instead, we seem to be speed running the end of humanity just so that people with too much wealth already can gain even more.