I don’t need to tell you that people hate AI.
asserted
people → need → AI
But resistance to the technology has often taken the form of shaming people for personally using it, with precious little organizing against the companies building the machines.
asserted
resistance → take → machines
This is perplexing, given that those companies are attempting to render us obsolete.
asserted
us → give → ?
The executives may contest this framing, offering some bromides about how AI will augment human work or how we’ll simply find new jobs to do.
uncertain
we → contest → jobs
But their clear goals are to create systems that so clearly surpass our abilities that we will have little hope of competing.
asserted
we → create → hope
OpenAI defines its north star of artificial general intelligence (AGI) as “a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work”.
asserted
that → define → work
And the Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, writes: “AI isn’t a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans.”
asserted
AI → write → humans
The industry’s ultimate ambition, what it calls AGI, is better understood as a universal labor-replacing machine.
asserted
it → call → machine
These systems would be able to do any work a human could do from a remote desk – leaving livelihoods safe to the extent a human touch is preferred, a physical presence is required, or the jobs themselves are legally protected.
uncertain
jobs → do → extent
You may doubt that the industry will ever succeed in its perverse quest, but we should agree that it shouldn’t even be allowed to try.
uncertain
it → doubt → quest
We should freeze frontier AI development – that is, the effort to build AGI, and only resume the work when there is strong public buy-in and broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably.
asserted
it → freeze → work
But realizing this commonsense ideal will require us to get organized enough to overcome the richest industry in history.
asserted
realizing → realize → history
And that means changing the way we think about AI.
asserted
we → mean → AI
In many corners of the internet, especially on the left, people pride themselves on never touching the stuff–while simultaneously making bold, deeply mistaken claims about its nature and capabilities.
uncertain
people → pride → nature
I understand the reluctance to give these companies your money, your data, your attention.
asserted
I → understand → money
But using what is increasingly an indispensable technology is not an endorsement of the industry building it, any more so than using Instagram to advocate for aggressive regulations on social media would be an endorsement of Mark Zuckerberg’s toxic empire.
asserted
using → use → empire
Moreover, the people using AI are going to outcompete the ones who don’t, bending the world in their preferred direction, while forming a deeper understanding of the technology itself.
asserted
who → use → technology
Bosses will use Claude Code to replace workers, while the leftist policy analyst Matt Bruenig is having it build a publicly accessible, automatically updating database of National Labor Relations Board decisions.
asserted
it → use → decisions
If you’re serious about your mission, you should use whichever tools work best.
asserted
tools → ’re → mission
Most importantly, anyone not seriously engaging with what the technology can already do – and might soon do – is ceding their seat at the table.
uncertain
technology → engage → table
Sixty-nine active members of Congress have publicly used terms like artificial superintelligence, the Singularity, and AI existential risk.
asserted
members → use → superintelligence
If certain techies are the only people willing to acknowledge that the technology’s capabilities have dramatically improved and could pose a species-level threat in the future, that’s who concerned policymakers will disproportionately listen to.
uncertain
policymakers → acknowledge → who
Even non-leftists recognize it.
asserted
leftists → recognize → it
Joshua Achiam, then OpenAI’s chief futurist, declared: “The left has completely abdicated their role in this discussion.
asserted
left → declare → discussion
A decade from now, this will be understood on the left to have been a generational mistake; perhaps even more than merely generational.”
asserted
this → understand → left
Dean Ball, who led the authorship of Trump’s AI action plan before becoming an executive at OpenAI, declared: “Joshua is right.”
asserted
Joshua → lead → OpenAI
You may be suspicious of political adversaries wishing you were more present in the arena, but they recognize that – on the technology’s current course – this is an all-hands-on-deck situation.
uncertain
this → wish → deck
Indeed, we all need to reckon with the industry’s race to replace us, but we especially need – and especially don’t have – the left.
asserted
we → need → left
We need organizers.
asserted
We → need → organizers
We need people who can’t help but think about power to teach the ones who never learned to.
asserted
who → need → ones
We need ambition.
asserted
We → need → ambition
We need people who believe that better worlds are possible.
asserted
worlds → need → people
The popularity of stigmatizing individual AI usage has been a gift to the industry, fracturing would-be opponents and activating our identities as consumers.
asserted
popularity → stigmatize → consumers
BP had to pay an ad agency to popularize the “carbon footprint” to shift the blame for climate change to individuals.
asserted
BP → have → individuals
When we think as consumers, the goal becomes minimizing our own complicity.
asserted
goal → think → complicity
We should instead think as citizens: how do we democratically govern this technology in the public interest?
asserted
we → think → interest
Right now, AI is being governed by unelected, unaccountable tech billionaires, subject to intense pressures from shareholders and the Trump administration.
asserted
AI → govern → shareholders
To have any hope of changing this intolerable status quo, we’ll need to build a movement powerful enough to defeat the richest industry in history.
asserted
we → have → history
In March, when I finished writing Obsolete, the book this piece draws from, I predicted:
It won’t be easy, but the ingredients are there for a mass movement unlike any the world has ever seen.
asserted
world → write → any
Everyone has a stake in how AI develops – a reality that will become increasingly indisputable as the technology eats ever more of the world.
asserted
technology → have → world
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
