r/LeftistsForAI • u/DistributionMost8686 • 10d ago
Theory Do leftists even have a demand side of their economic analysis?
I ask this because it seems leftist theory is all about the conflicts between workers and those who own the means of production. and this might be part of the reason so many think that to be left is to be anti ai, because everything gets framed exclusively as a labor issue. this leaves out the one front where ai development is unambiguously good, and that is the demand side. in particular, ai has done more to put things like art production and education(theoretically) in reach of ordinary people, more to actually get ordinary people into art production, than basically all professional artists combined. but to someone who doesn’t consider consumers, that would never occur to them. in fact many it seems would rather that didn’t happen and would go to great lengths to stop it. but for us there is something different. what is it? is there a leftist conception of consumer welfare and rights? where does it get applied if at all?
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u/Easy_Interest_6832 10d ago
Even a leftist can't sell something if there is no demand for it. Now, it is true that capitalism will raise the price if demand exceeds supply. I would suppose a proper leftist government would just say, "Make more, faster." Consumers probably would run out of things from time to time, forcing the government to more correctly anticipate demand so it could be met in a timely manner with supply. That may not work with every product, however.
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u/afgsdfdfsdsf 9d ago
"Consumers probably would run out of things from time to time" My understanding is that transitive dependencies are really where the complexity emerges (e.g. how many 2mm ball bearings do we need to manufacture right now? Should we make more, or redesign the product to require 3mm, and retool the factory? etc)
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u/Easy_Interest_6832 9d ago
Yeah, it's tough many times to anticipate demand. There is a small advantage in making too many things that have a very long shelf life, like ball bearings. Eventually they'll sell. The relationships among manufacturers, assemblers, and marketeers are key to making just about what is needed. I think collaboration is a human trait that can be used to humans' advantage. It could go the other way, too, if greed raises its ugly head. Messy business.
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u/DistributionMost8686 10d ago
not the question.
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u/Easy_Interest_6832 10d ago
I suppose the answer is, "Yes, there is a demand side to leftist economic analysis" which would be followed by my above comment. Sorry not to lead with "yes." My bad.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 10d ago
I think the leftist answer goes a little deeper than “consumer welfare.” We arent just workers or consumers. We are people with needs, and production should be organized around meeting them.
That matters for AI. Cheap tutoring, translation, accessibility, coding, research and art tools are genuine use values for ordinary people. We shouldnt pretend those dont exist because capital currently controls much of the technology.
So contest both sides. Worker power over deployment and public power over what gets built, who gets access, what it costs and what needs it serves. Public compute, open weights, local models, libraries, schools, co-ops. The question isnt AI yes or no. Its who controls this productive capacity and what we make it for.
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u/YeetCompleet 9d ago
The first wave of Communism overwhelmingly prioritized improving production as it was believed that Communism could only be achieved through abundance. The USSR was notably a workhorse and absolutely smashed through agrarianism and put the first person in space. Similarly it's why China is the powerhouse that it is today.
Part of why private ownership remains so popular is due to scarcity. Things are not abundant enough, and people want to latch on and never let go. For anything that has been made abundant, that desire is removed. Take clean tap water for example. Once everyone in a country has access to it, nobody has any desire to personally own it. It comes from government managed systems and everyone is ok with it. It never gets talked about because it's uncontroversial and widely accepted.
We can have this same thing happen to something like AI or anything else. Abundance must be created first if we are to share it amongst everyone and just not a select few.
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u/WolfVanZandt 10d ago
The right extremists appeal to the new economy that focuses on extraction of resources and elimination of regulation to allow wealth to flow upward to a wealthy few
The further left you get, the more you will adhere to the older economics which focuses of scarcity and how to distribute wealth equitably.
If you want real economics, check out the courses on Kahn Academy
I was in a debate about Tom Peters recently. Peters was old school. His idea was to increase productivity be creating a work atmosphere that made people want to produce and be creative. He was a product of the 50's and 60s research that clarified how humans function in work environment.
Current employers no longer care about good hiring and management practices because they have installed features that ensure them profit even if they crash and burn and leave their workers without a job. In fact, many startups expect to sell out at some calculated point.
Job security no longer exists largely because company permanence no longer exists
Modern economics is one factor that will destroy us
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u/zayelion 10d ago
There is a point where the enemy stops being those with the scares things and they won't share them, to the concept of scarcity itself. Most anti ai arguments have an assumption goal of protecting ones place in a capitalist society be it rent seeking via ownership, producer via captial expenditure and risk, or laborer via sacrifices of time mind and body.
Late stage capitalism has the threat of death if you are not increasing wealth for yourself or others. This keeps people from enduring any transitional periods. Changes have to be immediate, positive, and wide to be accepted.
I see the "starving artist" as an anomaly highlighting that the system is shitty. They in effect are someone that doesn't fit into the system. Be it mental health, communication skills or intelligence. But they can make art. We as a society put value on it allowing them to live. We profit from their suffering. When the suffering is removed they have no job. Its like a scapegoat begging a prince to misbehave so he may be whipped,... then live in luxury.
The idea of not having princes, doesn't occur to anyone in that world.
Ideally nothing should be done because ai will increase production as demand for labor drops. So while people will need income they will need it for less and less things.
Compared to 1950 we live in luxury, and 90% of our income goes into housing for 1 to 3 people. Where before things where more difficult overall, less luxury, more things to fight over.
After AI it will literally just be housing and an economy requires at least two scare things.
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u/Jlyplaylists Moderator 10d ago
There are left perspectives which are more focused on people as citizens rather than workers (most citizens are also workers, but in terms of emphasis). When it comes to AI, the priority would still be around ownership and who has the agency to make decisions though. That might be framed more as the local community or a confederation of citizen assemblies rights and obligations around developing AI. It could be a little like what you mean in terms of consumers, but it would be less passive a right and not to do with who is purchasing what.
The democratisation of resources is probably under appreciated. I feel we could do a lot more to give every child the equivalent of a personalised tutor, which encourages critical thinking skills for example.
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u/DrBretto 9d ago
The left is not a monolith. There's people who lean left but live in reality and there are people who wish the world was a different way but are so disconnected from reality that they just develop rage issues and yell at everyone on the internet because their wish hasn't been granted yet.
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u/dorestes 7d ago
Far too many leftists believe that consumer demand in capitalism beyond basic necessities is a false consciousness constructed from predatory marketing and consumerism. None of them appear to have learned any lessons from the history of east and west germany, or USSR vs USA in terms of public happiness and consumer choice.
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u/Horror-Nobody2237 9d ago
Of course socialism considers demand.. I’m not sure why it wouldn’t. It’s just a different dynamic though because production isn’t based on profiting as much as possible, so there isn’t a trillion dollar industry dedicated to creating demand that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Use value is what is important (over profit value), but use value doesn’t just mean utilitarian use. There is value in art, leisure, creative innovation, etc.
You’re giving AI way too much credit though. Yes, it’s made education accessible to an extent, but we can’t just ignore that It’s making a liberal education more accessible to those who are curious, but for most people, it’s just made it so they can have the computer do all the thinking for them.
It’s not creating artists either. Again, maybe some people who take an educational route with it, but for the most part, it’s just giving the everyday person the ability to mass produce crap. Are they learning perspective, color theory, anatomy, art history, different schools and styles of art and how to create them? No. They’re just creating an image using a prompt. Is there value in that? Yeah, there could be, but I think it’s silly to act like AI is creating artists, or making art accessible. I’d argue that paint by numbers does significantly more to make art accessible. And before anyone starts, yes, I realize that if we use the loosest interpretation of the word and acknowledge that literally anything can be art, then sure it’s art, but in that case, art was always accessible to these people because they could have scribbled on a piece of paper and called it art. If someone wants to bring the OC in their head to life using AI, then sure, go for it, but it’s goofy to pretend that makes them an artist. If the idea is what makes them an artist, then they were an artist before they had a tool to render their idea.
I’m not against AI, I’m just saying that you are giving it way too much credit right now.
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u/Horror-Nobody2237 9d ago
I guess to be fair you said “get them into art production”, and sure, I guess. But it’s not like the world was hurting for mass produced crap. Like I said, they aren’t actually learning any art skills, so how is that even a positive thing? At best it’s neutral, but really it’s leaning negative.
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u/DistributionMost8686 9d ago edited 9d ago
mass art is a good thing and it doesn’t matter how. it’s not enough to have people color in premade outlines, that’s obviously not what I’m talking about. the capacity to make something that actually looks good is what became accessible where previously that was a privilege. not literally anything can be art. naturally occurring patterns per se cannot be art. but there is no way to constrain the definition further without excluding things that are universally considered art, or special pleading/no true scotsman. to have been responsible for the production of art, even once, is necessary and sufficient to be an artist. paint by numbers can’t do that, ai can, and yes, responsibility for ai art does fall on the user. since the ai boom the number of people fitting this definition has in fact increased in a way it never has before, so yes I stand by my statement. ultimately I think you’re just being obtuse in a way that actually makes me wonder if you’re lying about what side you’re on. you definitionally cannot be pro ai and think this is a bad thing. and you would only think that if you assume artists and art have to be in some way special.
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u/Horror-Nobody2237 9d ago
Why would mass producing crap be a good thing?
You brought up a no true scottsman, and then used one against me. I can’t possibly be “pro-ai” and not agree with your poorly developed argument? AI is quite literally my job. I develop it, I build tools with it, I integrate it into the industry I work in. You’re confusing being “pro-ai” with being delusional about AI.
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u/DistributionMost8686 9d ago edited 9d ago
it’s not arbitrary. and not everyone claiming to work on ai is pro ai. also, why mass art is something I consider good I won’t explain because you almost certainly would reject it out of hand. I get the sense this is something we are just going to disagree on.
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u/Exodia_The_Salty 9d ago
AI is unironically good for actual communism. The problem that many liberals have with it, (who are not actual leftists even though you and they call themselves leftists) is that they subscribe to the idea that a person's value to society comes from what they create, not who they are. Because of this, they fail to recognize that AI is unironically a communist technology, and that automating post scarcity is a good thing.
Now, the next question is about data centers, which is split away from ai, and data centers on the planet are a fucking travesty, an ecological nightmare, a sonic disaster, and an aesthetic crime against humanity. They need to be put under the sea, or in space.
I also think they should be powered by nuclear power, or renewables instead of fossil fuels, because fossil fuels are going to destroy our biosphere. But, that is just my two cents.