It’s undeniable that we are living in a profoundly convoluted era. While arguably the downfall started a while ago, it has been intensified in the last few years with a rapid-fire succession of events, including a pandemic, wars, genocides, and a noticeable decline in the living conditions of ordinary people. For the progressive electorate, largely constituted of white-collar workers, AI is poised to be at the center of the narrative.

Anti-AI

There’s something profoundly wrong about AI. While the concerns may be dressed up in environmental or ethical arguments, for most of us, they are still rooted in a tangible fear for one’s economic stability. Nothing else explains the rise of this internet neo-Luddism. The situation in the streets is still considerably more tame, for now.

The growingly popular stance in some industries is being anti-AI. This discourse, while emotionally accurate, is very much reactionary and fundamentally flawed in two ways: it has no memory, and it proposes no credible future. More importantly perhaps, it’s a divisive political movement.

At best, the mainstream anti-AI discourse serves as a personal consumption choice, which is completely valid but has little repercussion outside of oneself. At worst, when used as an excuse to lash out at those who use AI, it can become a misguided escape valve, more about virtue signaling to an akin social group than proposing viable solutions. It’s social network dynamics mixed with identity politics at their worst.

Watchful Skepticism

At the time of writing this, AI’s alleged productivity gains have been nowhere near as promised. It’s clear, however, that it will change a number of professions significantly. It’s hard to find out what is true and what is not amidst the growing noise, but one thing should be abundantly clear: ignoring AI can be a costly mistake. AI companies may come and go, but the technology it is founded on is here to stay. We can’t afford to turn a blind eye to it.

While the naivety of techno-optimism can make us ignore the many red flags of this technology, the frontal opposition to it is also bound to render us irrelevant and therefore powerless. This is why a watchful skepticism is the healthiest middle ground we can find. Let’s experiment with it, let’s test out its limits and adapt to them, let’s figure out what it should and shouldn’t be used for. But let’s not forget its risks.

The Scapegoat

When things get rough, it’s customary to look for a scapegoat. AI is the perfect scapegoat; in fact, it proposes itself as one. Let’s not forget for a second that AI is just a complex tool. At this point, a large part of society is either using it or will soon be using it. In the same way that refusing to use a computer is unthinkable in this day and age, soon refusing to use AI will be a romantic and self-immolating professional choice.

The economic situation is bound to get worse. And as it gets worse, AI will no doubt be the battleground for the political narrative of the downfall of qualified white-collar workers. Impugning AI before impugning the system that created it is a failed proposition.

Raging against such an elusive tool, however, only serves to boost its sense of importance. More importantly, raging against anybody making use of it only serves to divide us. We have to stop this panic attack now; we must stop squabbling over the inevitable. A guy I don’t usually agree with said something very insightful once: ‘in times of crisis, the ideas will be picked up from those lying around.’ It’s about time we sit down and start proposing ideas before it truly hits the fan. The risk is great, but so is the opportunity.

Looking back to look forward

If we want to tell the story of AI properly, we have to talk about the crooked incentives of our extractivist capitalism. About the emphasis on productivity over humanity. We have to talk about the accumulation of wealth by Big Tech - and the profound impacts of their monopolistic platforms on our society; Amazon, Google, Meta. About how they accumulated their wealth and how it could have been prevented. We have to talk about many complicated subjects, and we have to educate each other on them.

Let me be clear, we are profoundly against what AI represents, and we wish it didn’t exist. But the moment it exists and we realize it’s not going away, we are forced to think about a future that starts off from that square, as bleak as it looks. In an increasingly polarized society, the easier route is to unambiguously adhere to the closest existing discourse. That is not our way forward as a society. Do not confuse this with complacency - on the contrary, this is about political ambition. AI is the battleground for textbook class war, and we the working class had better start finding common interests and get our shit together.

[To be continued]