cecinestpasunbot

I disagree that AI is “stealing” for the same reason I don’t think piracy is stealing. It’s true that everything AI produces is inherently derivative. However, intellectual property only exists as a set of market relationships enforced by the state. Even so, I would agree that artists are getting exploited. However, that’s because the market they are forced to engage with is controlled by capital and not because IP is a physical thing that can be stolen.

I get that socialists will naturally be sympathetic to artists who often are not well compensated for their labor. However I think it’s also important that we understand that in order to make a living, independent artists rely heavily on intellectual property law. As such, they tend to want to categorize all AI art as unoriginal and derivative of existing works.

Unfortunately I think that’s a bit of a liberal argument. It ascribes some ineffable quality to human creativity that AI cannot replicate. In doing so it obfuscates the process by which the state creates and enforces a market for intellectual property. Therefore, I don’t think it’s particularly useful argument for socialists to make.

That’s not to say “AI” companies aren’t exploiting the work of unpaid artists. That is definitely still true. We just need to be advocating for solutions that go beyond what capitalist markets can offer.

I think they’re closer to where the DSA was maybe 6-7 years ago when it was basically an amalgam of social democratic aims and means with Trotskyist analysis.

China is making some big moves towards green energy that give me hope. Ironically I think US aggression has pushed them to seek energy independance at an accelerated rate. They also needed to point their massive productive capacity towards something new anyways since their urbanization efforts are slowing.

For me radicalization is synonymous with learning to be anti-capitalist and developing class consciousness. Before that most people can’t articulate why we can’t have all the nice things you mentioned.

I always conceived of the proletariat as a subsection of a broader working class alongside peasants, slaves, the lumpenproletariate, and even professionals and managers. In all cases members of the working class must work to survive but they do not universally have the same relationship to the means of production that would incline them towards class consciousness.

That makes sense. It aligns with their perceptions of foreigners. If one assumes the natural inclination of humans is to desire some form of liberation democracy, then it follows that citizens of illiberal countries must either brutally repressed or complicit in their governments actions.

It’s genuinely freaky to see liberals fully convinced that everyone but the US is belligerent and so diplomacy is pointless. The irony is lost on them.

You get a mortgage because the interest you would pay on the loan is less than the money you make investing elsewhere.

Just in time to make the Bell Riots a reality!