AI as a Fascist Artifact

2026-04-22 23:15 UTC

And all that data does by definition exclude: “AI” is not built on “all of humankind’s knowledge” but based on whatever a mostly western view of the world and what is relevant looks like. Cultures who are not within that framework, who might even be based on more oral forms of keeping history and knowledge are not represented. Even if those groups are not actively excluded (which again they very often are) there are huge populations who just are not seen by the data do not get a say in how they are represented. Or if they are represented it’s just as problems: Think about unsheltered people for example. The right loves those patterns because they confirm their prejudices: Ask an image generator for a picture of two people kissing and you most often get a heterosexual couple, often white. Because that’s what the training data looks like. That makes “AI” perfect for creating the form of idealized, fictional “past” that fascists love to allude to (“make America great again“), a past that never existed but that needs to be saved or restored (we’ll get back to that later). … we can pretty easily determine the short-term purpose of “AI”: The destruction of labor power. This dismantling happens on multiple levels by attacking the foundation of what allows those forms of organization to take place. The first level is very individualistic: By pointing at “the AI” that can replace a worker that worker is pressured into working harder, not asking for raises or any other improvements of their working conditions. Even though “AI” cannot do your job, the threat itself is useful to employers to undermine your individual power, your feeling of being valuable as a worker. The second level is about attacking the idea of solidarity and connection: Because “AI” will not replace you (again, “AI” cannot replace the absolute majority of workers!) “but someone using AI will”. This sets up kind of a Thunderdome in which we all have to fight against each other for scraps/jobs. This framing implies that you should not unionize and connect with your fellow workers but that you should see them as your enemies, as the people who will take your job and your ability to provide for your family. We know this dynamic, it’s exactly how the right presents migration as “attack”. It also normalizes violence again turning all of existence into an endless fight against one another (unless you are one of the few people in power of course). The third level is somewhat more devious. Because it makes us do that form of dissolving of social bonds ourselves. An example: If I use an “AI” to generate an illustration instead of asking a designer I am saying that while my skills and labor has value, that of the designer has not. This implicitly cuts my ability to form connections of solidarity with designers whose work and livelihood I have implicitly declared irrelevant. It makes me put myself over my fellow workers, workers who are facing the same struggles as me, who are my comrades. But no more.

Replies (11)

@QuadDamage@kbin.earth 2026-04-23 16:58

Good post. There is also the cult factor with the current AI/LLM euphoria in where Silicon Valley is selling their ML tech as an omnipresent god and everyone _must_ bow to its superintelligence. > The second level is about attacking the idea of solidarity and connection: Because “AI” will not replace you (again, “AI” cannot replace the absolute majority of workers!) “but someone using AI will”. This sets up kind of a Thunderdome in which we all have to fight against each other for scraps/jobs. This framing implies that you should not unionize and connect with your fellow workers but that you should see them as your enemies, as the people who will take your job and your ability to provide for your family. We know this dynamic, it’s exactly how the right presents migration as “attack”. It also normalizes violence again turning all of existence into an endless fight against one another (unless you are one of the few people in power of course). This is the latest attempt at socially engineering a cattle pen, atomize everyone into only trusting chatbots and you have a very malleable population.

Open ##1607253
@felixwhynot@lemmy.world 2026-04-22 23:51

I read somewhere that "building community is inconvenient" and I think about that a lot these days. Doing the inconvenient thing (ie, asking your designer friend to design something) builds community, but it is arguably less convenient than having a bot do it for you. The benefit of the inconvenience, though, is the community

Open ##1607254
@Tim_Bisley@piefed.social 2026-04-23 02:38

> And all that data does by definition exclude: “AI” is not built on “all of humankind’s knowledge” but based on whatever a mostly western view of the world and what is relevant looks like. Its based on a specific western worldview the techbros have, and want to project, while drinking whatever flavor of kool-aid is seen as being edgy at the moment.

Open ##1607262
@CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 2026-04-23 05:36

I dunno, claiming that fascism was always in our tech is an incorrect statement. The Amiga 1200 wanted to hurt nobody. I love the Amiga 1200

Open ##1607263
@yucandu@lemmy.world 2026-04-23 05:05

>The right loves those patterns because they confirm their prejudices: Ask an image generator for a picture of two people kissing and you most often get a heterosexual couple, often white. Because that’s what the training data looks like. That makes “AI” perfect for creating the form of idealized, fictional “past” that fascists love to allude to (“make America great again“), a past that never existed but that needs to be saved or restored (we’ll get back to that later). It depends which AI you ask, no? Ask AI made in a mostly white country, you're going to get pictures of mostly white people. Ask AI made in a mostly Asian country, it'll be mostly Asian people. This same dilemma came up with search engines. Everyone complained that "doctor" in Google Image search showed mostly white doctors. Except if you made the same search in Weibo, in showed mostly Asian doctors. Same goes for heterosexual couples, it's just what's more common. I'm starting to get the impression a lot of this anti-AI push is coming from Russia and China, the way it's being framed as an "anti-West" thing. Because the chips for it are coming from the West. It's just like vaccines, and how a lot of the anti-vaccine propaganda was coming from Russia and China. Because they need to make the thing that's saving the world look bad. I'm not saying AI is saving the world. But a "fascist artifact"? Come on. That's classic Russian propaganda hyperbole.

Open ##1607264
@SculptusPoe@lemmy.world 2026-04-22 23:40

Open ##1607265
@funbreaker@piefed.social 2026-04-24 13:44

Can we make everyone at db0 read this? They are very convinced that slop is resistance.

Open ##1862966
@willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-25 03:17

Some notes. Unionizing is great when you must work in a business with highly concentrated ownership. Unions, when they are democratic, counterbalance the concentrated ownership. An undemocratic union can be a tool for worker management as opposed to worker empowerment. However, workers should aspire to own their workplaves. That’s what worker coops are for. In a worker coop workers are the owners and the boss of themselves. That goes far beyond what even the best union can achieve for worker empowerment. Also workers competing for scraps has been a thing forever now. AI simply pours gasoline on that fire. It’s bad, really bad, but not new. The main problem is landlessness or assetlessness. When you own nothing, you will accept any conditions to survive. Owning nothing sets your leverage to 0. Even if you have skills, if you can’t say ‘no’ you cannot negotiate. To be able to say ‘no’ reliably and reasonably you need either personal assets, or incredibly useful and resourseful commons, which are assets in which you have an unshakeable share. We should do away with the landless/assetless condition as a matter of principle. That means wealth accumulations must have a ceiling.

Open ##1869640
@Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2026-04-24 19:31

Kinda depressing. Half the tech is by socialist-leaning lgbtq+ people and the other half is by pedophile fascists, and people picked second forms to popularise. I guess ad money influences a lot.

Open ##2432890
@Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-24 19:34

Heh Yup on all counts.

Open ##2432891
@wk5ar@lemmy.world 2026-04-26 00:20

but Nick Land as an influental thinker and a right wing reactionary is very suprising and unexpected to me. I still consider his work with ccru (the writtings 1997-2003) to be interesting and having some kind of forward potential but when i realised this accelerionist story i was shocked. and how far reaching it is. most of all its clear that a modern capitalist, a "humble liberal" as for eg. peter thiel describes himself is a being who have denounced any moral attachment to his product like they (palantir, meta, google) the surveilance capitalists overlord kind of do like the corporations would do for sweatshops in asia. a being who exploits by day and meditate in the afternoon not having to do anything with the suffering and the evil they have caused. As Žižek also noted the age of the shameless and most perverted.

Open ##2742949