Capitalist Artificial Intelligence, Challenges for the Left and Possible Alternatives

Why This Book? And Why Now?

With the rapid developments in artificial intelligence and its growing influence on various aspects of life, it has become essential to provide a comprehensive leftist analysis of this key topic. AI has become a cornerstone in reshaping labor relations, production patterns, and managing public consciousness, surpassing traditional capitalist tools. The absence of a socialist analysis of AI allows capitalist elites to direct the discourse to serve their class interests. Therefore, we need an analysis that explains how AI is used not only as a tool for production but also as a means to control labor, consciousness, and restructure markets.

Why a Leftist Perspective on AI?

This book aims to provide an initial leftist critique of AI, exposing its connection to capital domination and exploring its potential as a tool for liberation within a socialist framework. It is not only theoretical but an attempt to spark a leftist debate on how to reclaim technology from corporations and major states to serve social justice, equality, and democracy.

AI is not a threat by itself; it is a battleground where the class struggle is fought. The digital revolution is reshaping control over knowledge, making it a critical arena for class struggle. Technology is not neutral, and the challenge is to ensure it serves the masses, not deepen capitalist control.

What Does This Book Offer?

This book presents a critical vision of AI from a Electronic left perspective, based on the principles of electronic leftism. It seeks to reclaim technology and redirect AI towards serving society, with a focus on building leftist digital internationals. The solution is to develop open-source, transparent systems managed democratically and push for international laws that regulate AI to serve the public good, not capitalist interests. The real solution is to build progressive alternatives with community ownership, using AI to dismantle exploitation and create a more just society.

The development of leftist capacities in the technical field has become a strategic necessity, parallel to the development of capacities in the political, intellectual, organizational, media, and grassroots fields. Just as the left cannot rely on capitalist media and seeks to build its own independent media, and as it develops its thought, politics, and organizational tools independently, free from the frameworks of capitalist domination, it must also work on building its own independent technological alternatives, with AI at the forefront, to serve its comprehensive liberation project.

Razgar Akrawi

Independent Leftist, Interested in Leftism and Technological Revolution