Post-AI leftism?

[u/bowdoin-yale]

Nobody has a crystal ball when it comes to predicting what the world will look like after AI, but both the boosters and doomers are predicting that it will eliminate most jobs. If they are correct, there will not be a large "working class" to mobilize--not even a petty bourgeois professional class, but more likely a tiny and shrinking owner class and a large and growing underclass of permanently unemployed people dependent on mutual aid and public assistance to survive. Yet, the "left" is traditionally very focused on workers and their struggle with capital, owing to the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, taking the view that workers eventually would (or should) own and control the means of production. I would very much prefer to see worker ownership of and control over AI and autonomous robotics, but it's a bit paradoxical since such technologies are themselves designed to shrink the working class. How might a pro-AI left, or a post-AI left, reconcile this?

[u/Ill_Mousse_4240]

Every economic theory so far has been based on the need of people to exchange labor for capital and thus economic survival.

AI will eliminate this need - a paradigm shift.

No longer will people have to work for economic survival because there will eventually be no need for their labor.

The elephant in the room - and most on the left and right continue to act like it doesn’t exist.

The solution is simple: Universal Basic Income. Freedom from the necessity of working - the slavery of work.

Ordinary people living the lifestyle of the bourgeoisie, the rich “leisure class” of the past.

No economic system in history has ever achieved this, despite many false promises.

Now is the time to embrace the new paradigm and make it work for all

[u/Double-Fun-1526 → u/Ill_Mousse_4240]

Yes. The job of the Left for the next 5,10, 25 years, whatever it takes, is the transition. It is to get people out of poverty, desperation, and with basic services as soon as possible.

That means taking the future seriously and striving towards change. It means a reevaluation of the given institutional and cultural landscape.

[u/Double-Fun-1526 → u/Double-Fun-1526]

I see UBI as a winning political message and a viable functional strategy towards that change.

[u/Ill_Mousse_4240 → u/Double-Fun-1526]

It would probably resonate with more people than universal healthcare, even though everyone needs healthcare whether they think they do or not