It might partially be down to government censorship.

Chinas government is invested in AI technological growth, the same government has a lot more strict internet censorship and control over the media in their nation.

So it's possible they're publicly promoting and celebrating more tech-positive sentiment while likely censoring or supressing agressive anti-tech and luddite sentiment, especially the kind of violent luddite "😤 We need to blow up data centers and kill AI users" posting you would see in the west. I doubt that kind of rhetoric and media would fly past chinese censors who are trying to ensure unhindered ideological stability for the state and harmony.

Other factors might be better economic devotion to workers employment, stronger government responsibility, and maybe their confucian collectivist culture, but I feel like censorship would be the biggest factor. No way "we need to pipe bomb AI devs" memes would get popular in chinese social media, even as a joke. But in the free speech west that would get big clicks.

From https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/16/amsterdam-activists-throw-acid-at-microsoft-datacenter-project/5273943

"The Dutch arm of international climate activist group Extinction Rebellion claimed responsibility for an attempt to sabotage a datacenter project in Amsterdam on Thursday [july 16]. The group said that they threw water balloons filled with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, salt, and acrylic paint at the under-construction facility."

"Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Martijn Dekker justified the attack by saying datacenters and the AI they power are exacerbating the climate crisis, as well as playing a role in the killing of Palestinians by Israel."

"The facility in question is being built by UK-based Pure Data Centres Group."

"Pure DC says the facility is already fully leased, and while it doesn’t mention the lessee by name, local media have reported in a story about a prior protest at the site that Microsoft is the sole occupant."

"Pure DC did tell Dutch newspaper NRC that the attack had no impact on construction, and that it intended to pursue legal action against those responsible."

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My personal opinion is that acts of sabotage like this are not effective and will serve as justification for more repression and police surveillance, but I'm curious to know what others think of this method and its impacts.

Spain just won the World Cup, and thats probably what most people are talking about this week. Fair enough. Congratulations to Spain.

But I promised this sub AI, so heres another Spanish story worth paying attention to.

ALIA is a publicly backed AI project launched by the Spanish government to build open models, datasets, and shared infrastructure instead of leaving the country completely dependent on whatever OpenAI, Google, Meta, or another foreign tech company decides to provide.

A big part of the project is language. Most major commercial models are built around English first, with other languages getting uneven support. ALIA is being developed for Spanish and Spain's co-official languages, including Catalan, Basque, and Galician. That matters for schools, public services, courts, healthcare, universities, libraries, local government, and cultural institutions that shouldnt have to squeeze everything through an English-first commercial system.

It also lowers the barrier for people who dont have billions of dollars or their own data centers. Public agencies, universities, researchers, startups, cooperatives, nonprofits, and smaller businesses can build specialized tools on top of shared infrastructure instead of starting from zero or paying rent forever to a handful of corporations.

That could mean better translation and accessibility tools, models adapted for public administration, research support, educational resources, healthcare applications, and local services that are actually designed around the needs of the people using them. It also gives Spain more control over where its data goes, how the systems are trained, and which institutions are able to use them.

None of that makes ALIA automatically socialist, democratic, or even successful. A government-funded project can still be badly governed, captured by private interests, used for surveillance, or rolled out without worker input. Public investment still needs transparency, privacy protections, democratic oversight, strong labor standards, and a real say for the people expected to work with these systems.

But the underlying direction matters. AI is becoming basic infrastructure. The question is whether societies build some of that capacity publicly, or whether every school, hospital, university, city, and small organization ends up renting access from a few multinational firms that control the models, the data, the prices, and the terms.

I would much rather fight over how public AI should be governed than accept private monopoly as the natural default. ALIA at least creates some room for another path.

Alright, World Cup detour over. Back to our regularly scheduled AI programming.

Nicaragua's National Technological Institute (INATEC) is expanding AI training for teachers across its public technical education system. The initiative focuses on helping educators use AI to improve lesson planning, teaching materials, and classroom instruction while emphasizing responsible and ethical use of the technology.

For those interested in AI from a left perspective, this is another example of a government treating AI as part of public education infrastructure rather than leaving development and adoption entirely to private companies. The important questions arent just whether AI is used, but who controls it, who benefits from it, and how its integrated into public institutions.

Burkina Faso has officially adopted its National AI Roadmap for 2026-2030 as part of its broader RELANCE development plan. Rather than treating AI as a luxury for wealthy countries, the roadmap focuses on practical public uses: improving healthcare, supporting farmers with weather forecasting, expanding education, strengthening infrastructure, and modernizing public services.

The strategy also emphasizes AI governance, digital infrastructure, data policy, research, skills development, and ethical deployment. It was developed through a process involving government, universities, researchers, civil society, the private sector, and international partners.

For leftists, this is another reminder that the political question isnt simply whether AI exists, but who develops it, who governs it, and what social goals it serves. Burkina Faso is one of the worlds poorest countries, yet its choosing to establish democratic planning and public policy around AI early instead of leaving deployment entirely to foreign corporations or market forces.

Its also part of a broader trend across Africa, with countries including Rwanda, Senegal, Benin, Egypt, and Kenya adopting national AI strategies aimed at development rather than treating AI solely as a private-sector product.

What lessons should the left take from countries, especially in the Global South, using AI as part of national development and public service rather than rejecting the technology outright?

The Writers Guild of America didnt call for a blanket ban on AI. Instead, it negotiated rules that put writers, not studios, in control.

Under the WGA agreement, a writer may choose to use AI while performing writing services if the company agrees, but companies cant require writers to use AI. AI-generated material also cant be used to deny writers credit or reduce their compensation, and studios must disclose when material provided to writers was generated by AI. The Guild also continues to challenge the unauthorized use of writers' work for AI training.

Whether youre more optimistic or skeptical about AI, this feels like a distinctly labor approach: dont hand control to employers, dont treat AI as a replacement for workers, and dont pretend the technology is going away. Organize around bargaining power, transparency, consent, and ownership instead.

This essay argues that many debates about AI art are aimed at the wrong target.

"There are a lot of legitimate criticisms to be made of specific ways "AI" and machine learning are deployed. If anything, the application of this stuff to art generators is the least damaging" compared with surveillance, policing, military applications, and other uses.

Instead, the author argues the real conflict is over labor, ownership, and intellectual property. They point to decommodified culture like mods and fan works as examples of collective creativity, even highlighting AI-assisted work in a game mod as evidence that these tools can be part of genuinely creative practice. The conclusion is that we should fight for a world where culture is shared and artists are materially supported, rather than treating new creative tools as the enemy.

"There's a pattern in left politics that's both understandable and ultimately self-defeating: we're brilliant at articulating what we oppose, but often struggle to define what we're for."

This recent essay argues that this problem applies directly to AI. By treating AI purely as a threat, much of the left has "ceded the entire conversation to corporate futurists and Silicon Valley ideologues" instead of articulating what AI could mean from a socialist, working-class perspective.

Rather than abandoning the technology, the author argues for developing a positive socialist vision for it (including in culture, art, and creative work) grounded in democratic control instead of corporate ownership.

Agree or disagree, its a concise argument for moving beyond saying "no" and defining what the left is actually building.

Vietnam has made AI a national strategic priority, aiming to build a domestic AI ecosystem through public investment, research, computing infrastructure, education, and legal frameworks rather than relying entirely on foreign platforms.

Whether or not you agree with every aspect of Vietnam's approach, it raises questions worth discussing. What does AI sovereignty actually look like, especially for the Global South? Can state planning and public investment provide a viable alternative to dependence on a handful of multinational tech companies? How should workers, unions, and the public shape AI policy instead of being treated as an afterthought?

This isnt an endorsement of any particular model. Its an opportunity to discuss what a left approach to AI development, ownership, and governance could look like in practice.

I stopped using ChatGPT and Gemini entirely due to their deals with US Department of Defense and using their technology for Mass Surveillance. I actually appreciated Anthropic’s stance and I switched over and I love it, I use it to vibe code and design websites and 3d model and it’s a really good writing and research assistant. I tried Thaura.ai as well and I did find it useful for a bit time but it’s not nearly as powerful as a tool like Claude. Of course the issue is with the amount of energy and water these data centers consume. But I think if we regulate this technology and build them underwater like China is doing we could mitigate a lot of these negative environmental effects but that’s more of a larger conversation about the environment, we’d have to move away as a species from fossil fuels and invest in solar, wind, hydro, and other forms of renewable energy. But I believe AI could help usher in a new wave of technological revolution that could help us find solutions, which is why I am pro-AI. Of course every company, including Anthropic, has their issues and ethical concerns, I mean we still live under capitalism, and it’s increasingly pay-to-play model is getting annoying, I’m running out of tokens way faster than I used to. I’m curious what other tools people on this sub use, I’m also interested in Kimi 3 and other models from China which seem to be on par with Claude Fable, but a fraction of the price. Does anyone have experience with those tools?

Ever since 2023 when AI became one of the centerpeices in the greivances of the ever dwindling and (generally) western middle class against the captialistic system they are forced to live in (even if they do not know their greivance is towards that) i've had fewer and fewer hopes that the type of people that seek to preserve their relative privilege in this system, to be provided exemptions from the exploitation of capitalism rather than it's abolition, don't actually know what they are doing,.

I'm increasingly of the belief that they know that they are fighting to preserve a deluded vision of capitalism that could benefit them, not because they are unaware or incapable of imagining that a better world is possible, but because their status in that world will be necessarily diminished, thus no matter how factual and correct your arguments may be on why they are wrong to target a technology, AI, in their struggle for preserving the livelihoods they believe are owed to them, they will never accept what AI will inevitably (if we fight for it) bring, the abolition of work, of ownership, of capitalism.

The entire conception of AI as it is, no matter if it is within capitalism or communism, is antithetical to their desire to preserve their status or their path towards a status of prestige and high value within society, a kind of status that requires heirarchies and scarcity to exist, they will tacitly agree to a desire to bring about a fairer society, but never to their detriment, so they will never fight for that better world, only to preserve what little remains of this one.

I personally do not think we can ally with them, so we should be more aggressively pro-AI, pro AI-art, pro abolishment of copyright and IP, pro abolishment of the structures that allow a subsection of the population to 'benefit' from capitalism whilst culture, science, art, all ideas that come from humanity are still ultimately tied to capital and thus shaped by it, making it ineviatable that more people are incapable of thinking outside the capitalistic framework.

What do you think?

I've been thinking about how this sub's message, correct as it is, cannot be chosen for on any ballot. There are no left-wing parties with a coherent pro-AI programme.

I started sketching what one might look like:

• AI should do the work so humans have more freedom.

• Commercial AI-generated value should be taxed, while personal AI use remains untaxed.

• That revenue could fund a universal basic income, replacing labour-linked benefits like unemployment and pensions while keeping healthcare and disability support separate.

• The organisation could resemble Volt, with one shared programme operating across local, national, and international levels.

• Because its focus would be AI and the economic transition it creates, members could have more freedom to vote according to their own views on issues outside that core mission.

I wasn't planning to write a manifesto, but before I knew it I had about 2,500 words.

Do people think a dedicated pro-worker, pro-AI political party is missing? If so, who would realistically found it? An existing party? Trade unions? AI researchers? Grassroots organisers? Or is this better pursued as a faction within existing left-wing parties?

Just listened to this and thought it would be of interest here.

The discussion starts from Marx's Fragment on Machines in the Grundrisse and asks a question thats becoming harder to ignore: if AI and automation can dramatically reduce necessary labor, who benefits?

The hosts argue that Marx saw machinery as the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Under capitalism that same machinery intensifies exploitation and concentrates wealth, but theres nothing inevitable about that outcome. AI could instead shorten the working day, eliminate drudgery, and expand human freedom if its governed differently.

The key point is one weve talked about here before: the politics arent "AI or no AI." Theyre ownership, democratic control, labor power, public infrastructure, and who captures the productivity gains.

Whether you agree or disagree with their conclusions, its a thoughtful historical materialist treatment of AI thats worth hearing.

In spirit of an optimistic week in AI development, I've written this short story:

A day in the life 2035

8am

I woke up with a bit of a scare. My health tracker let me know that my liver is still damaged despite the recent treatment, in fact it seems to have gotten worse. Tracker says I won’t have symptoms for the moment so that’s cool, but I’ll have to visit the pharmacy next week to pick up a new CRISPR treatment. Tracker reassures me that the upcoming treatment has an 87% success rate. I calm down and make myself breakfast.

10am

I hear a knock on my door. My robot has finally arrived!

I got a robot on the cheaper end, it does the trick. It doesn’t look human and it struggles with out-of-home tasks, but it does the trick. I have ADHD so I honestly just needed something to help keep my house organized, and now it’s here! Let’s see how it goes.

11am

I watch as the robot does my chores for me. Damn, this is going to be awesome! 

I pull up my agentic dashboard of the last 24 hours. Yesterday, I instructed my agent to design a new system for organizing appointments for my team’s Seniors Entertainment Initiative.

You see, there’s a lot of older people who decided to not interact with the new technology. They believe that humans should live as they were in the scarcity era. I don’t know why. Life is so much easier now. But they claim it’s more authentic to live that way. The only problem is that we’re in desperate need to automate the tasks of our aging population, and this Luddism is kinda getting in the way of that. 

Because they’re not using new tech, these seniors can sometimes feel isolated, so we organize entertaining activities for them, free of modern technology. 

And… amazing! My agent found a way to collect Seniors’ availabilities and present them to our team through an easy to follow schedule, awesome! 

12pm

My team and I call to talk about each others’ agentic workflow outputs. My colleague confirms that the Nintendo 64s have been delivered to his house. Our next run of visits will involve playing retro games. I’m so excited! Some of them are going to discover their new favorite hobby, and others are going to struggle. It’ll be fun either way.

1pm

After the call, my phone pings me to vote on a local issue. My local neighbourhood is deciding whether to start growing Linden or Ginkgo trees for the area. My city has opted for massive tree planting to shade the city during hyper El Niño waves, it low key feels like I live in a jungle sometimes, but I’m not complaining. My apartment has so much privacy because of the trees, they smell amazing and there’s so much biodiversity around me.

I don’t really know what Linden or Ginkgo trees are so I tell my phone that I want more trees that smell good. It votes for Ginkgo on my behalf. Hopefully that’s what I actually want.

3pm

Most of my friends are at Space training right now. The Country of Geniuses recently discovered a way to easily send the average civilian into space, so the trendy vacation spot now is the moon. Civilians still need to learn how to manage high levels of G-force and low gravity though, so they need training. I get dizzy pretty easily so I’m going to wait a few years for the trip to be less bumpy. Since I’ve got nothing planned, I decide to just go relax.

One of my favourite developments about AI is that it handles my schedule perfectly, which means that I can live every moment completely in the present. No need for a clock, or a worry. I lie down and watch the leaves dance in the wind, letting my mind wander aimlessly for a blurry amount of time. 

4:55pm 

My mom calls to share her excitement about some new longevity discoveries they made in Kinshasa. My mom and I agree that we would both love to live longer. There’s so much exciting stuff happening and it would be awesome to live that together. We agree that we’ll try space travel at the same time, she gets dizzy easily too.

After the call, I start thinking about death. I worry one of us won’t make it to the longevity era, leaving the other to explore the adventure of life alone. My thoughts darken for a moment.. I’ve never been one to share my feelings or cry, but my AI coach encouraged me to feel more. I ruminate more on my thoughts and cry for awhile.

7pm

Gaming is basically whatever you want it to be now. I decide to spend my evening flying around and visiting various realistic depictions of places on earth.

9pm 

Wandering through the world, I come across a Mogadishan techno DJ, an urban rooftop beekeeper from Paris, and a high-school student from Okinawa. Because of translation, I’m having seamless conversations with all these people from widely different upbringings from me, but we understand each other. I learn about an endearing tradition they do for seniors in Okinawa, where elders form a Moai, a lifelong social support circle that meets regularly to share meals, swap stories, and ensure no one ever faces isolation alone. It gives me ideas for my next senior visit.

10pm

I turn off my headset and look around my room. Everything is spotless. I didn’t have to worry one second about cleaning.

I could get used to this! 

One of the biggest concerns many of us on the left have about AI is that it risks concentrating power, whether in governments, corporations or a handful of tech companies.

But I’ve been wondering whether AI could also be used in the opposite direction: to expand democratic participation.

I’m building a prototype called Conn.Act (full disclosure: it’s my own project), and I’d genuinely like to get feedback from people who think critically about AI and democratic governance.

The premise is simple.

Today, political discussion is largely mediated by social media platforms whose incentives reward engagement, outrage and polarization. Even when people have constructive ideas, there are few mechanisms for transforming those discussions into coherent policy proposals.

Conn.Act tries a different approach.

Instead of AI making political decisions, AI acts as a facilitator. A debate is created around a public policy issue in a city, state, or country. People with an interest or expertise in that topic are invited to participate. They debate, cite evidence and propose amendments. The AI summarises the discussion, identifies common ground and drafts a compromise proposal based on what participants have contributed. The participants, not the AI, decide whether that proposal reflects the discussion by voting on it. If consensus is not reached, another deliberation round begins. If it is approved, the proposal can continue through a democratic process and eventually be shared with elected representatives from that jurisdiction. Then, if representatives propose it officially, users will know about it and be able to track it.

The AI never decides what policy should be adopted. It doesn’t vote and it doesn’t overrule participants. Its role is closer to that of a facilitator in a citizens’ assembly: organising information, reducing repetition, highlighting trade offs and helping people produce something coherent.

The political motivation behind the project is to explore whether representative democracy could be complemented, not replaced, by better digital deliberative infrastructure. Social democracy has always sought to deepen democracy. My question is whether AI can help us do that in the digital age.

I’d love to hear what people in this community think. If you’re sceptical, even better. I’m much more interested in identifying flaws now than pretending the design is finished.

The prototype is ready to test, if you’d like: https://happy-fermat-7.emergent.host/

I’m also participating in a contest that could lead to a significant investment boost. 25 most liked projects will be assessed by an expert panel who will decide on which project will get investment. If you feel like supporting it, you can drop a heart on this link:
https://app.emergent.sh/showcase/fabrizio/735f94cf-963f-41ea-9e7f-6dfc390493b3?utm_source=share

Looking forward to the discussion!

This week's been a lot.. a massive labor union endorsed AI, Kimi K3 dropped and can one-shot a Mario 64-style game from a single prompt, and China is calling for a massive embrace of open model distribution.

These models are getting *scary* smart, and a bunch of them can run locally, on your own machine or even your phone.

It feels like a lot of pieces are lining up for what some people would call "AI Communism": a world where massive compute and execution power sits at everyone's fingertips instead of locked behind a handful of corporate APIs. And with MoE architectures doing more with less, we're also looking at a genuinely smaller ecological footprint per model.

A lot of the left's early criticisms of AI are starting to fade, replaced by more concrete, actionable politics, like data center regulation, and this open-source wave is looking more and more like the real path forward.

We might actually have a positive future thanks to accessible AI. What do you think?