It’s Alright to be Angry with Bernie Sanders. His Proposals to Regulate Artificial Intelligence can lead to a Triumph of Conservatism. What is Missing is Workers Self-Management.
Senator Bernie Sanders was recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live. While they enjoyed themselves, patting each other on the back for combatting Trump derangement (really making a business out of it for their personal advancement), here was another opportunity to showcase Sanders’s shifting campaign against Artificial Intelligence. Not to mention Sanders’s dubious claims that he is leading a ‘revolution’ and that ‘it’s alright to be angry with capitalism’. More activists, who are genuinely socialist-curious, need to recognize that it’s alright to be angry with Bernie Sanders.
‘We are not Prepared for Artificial Intelligence’
When Bernie Sanders has suggested ‘we are not prepared for Artificial Intelligence’ he continues to speak of the nation, that hierarchy of social classes. This is a strange stance for someone who is opposed to oligarchy, rule by the few. But of course he is a Senator taking part in elite representative government.
Now Sanders, has also suggested that A.I. could wipe out the working class. Surely, he has told us that toilers were oppressed and exploited before. But things can always get worse. This is not the same thing as suggesting the country is doomed. If the nation-state or a republic is oligarchy, rule by the few, he seems to be warning both toilers and their bosses, many of whom are apparently and surprisingly nice and well-meaning. He has also called for a halt to the construction of new data centers, apparently needed to gather water and electrical power for the humongous calculations that must be pursued by those who are keepers of A.I., beyond consumers playing around with it.
Will A.I. Wipe Out the Working Class? Will it Steal Our Wages?
Sanders of course suggests A.I. oligarchs are preparing to ‘steal your work’; this is his appeal to toilers as subordinate wage earners. His offer of a national socialism continues. Then Sanders is happy to report that the A.I. oligarchs recently have acknowledged that it is a dangerous technology that they cannot fully control, and want government regulation. And now the false advocate of class struggle is back to a shared national interests again with those he apparently denounces. Sanders warns, this is not science fiction. We may not be able to control A.I.; it may end up controlling us. He now presents himself as a partner with the likes of Elon Musk and Sam Altman and encourages the best and the brightest behind Trump to build a global consensus to pace and pause the development of A.I.
A Very Good Historical Question by (of all people) Jimmy Kimmel
Now Jimmy Kimmel asked Bernie Sanders a very good question. And we can’t think it was an easy thing for the tear-jerking, wiseacre Kimmel to inquire with great wisdom, despite the fact that he poses as leading a free speech fight against Donald Trump.
Kimmel asked Sanders, was he familiar with any other time in history, where the super-rich had ever voluntarily asked the government to help them regulate industrial capital, new technologies, or markets? After all that is not something ordinarily Robber Barons or conservative politicos actually pursue, right? Sanders paused, and said he could think of no other comparative moment in history where this was so. His answer was total nonsense. And this is a key problem with ‘progressive’ thought.
Separate from Trump’s bad faith and malicious propaganda, there is reason to be on guard against those who advocate a New Deal, when it can actually be a new scam. Nowhere else in the world did apparent socialists, telling everyone it is alright to be angry with capitalism, walk hand in hand with the standard bearers of the empire of capital, and call this a ‘New Deal’. Only a charlatan or fool would pursue such a path. And Bernie as elder is past his age of innocence.
Bernie and his Progressive Crowd Are Always Living By Lies
Progressives are always suggesting that they are leading a clash against corporate America or Big Business. When actually they don’t even, with audacity, wish to regulate it. The capitalists behind such ‘progressive’ politicians want to set the terms of regulation. And the super-rich have always invented counterfeit activists, journalists, and politicians, to take the lead in a propaganda campaign, that makes it appear that social change for the benefit of the multitudes is a type of ‘class struggle’, when what is placed forward is the exact opposite. It is an agreement about state planning among many of the oligarchs, in contrast to the capitalists (preposterously an ever decreasing number) labeled the irresponsible few.
One hint that Sanders often leaks out, that proves this is how he actually thinks, is when he suggests the possession of $1 billion by a human being is enough. Of course there are increasingly human beings that have hundreds of billions, and the world even has its first trillionaire. Yet crucially, we must understand that Sanders leads a coalition supposedly of, by, and for workers side by side with his preferred millionaires and billionaires. And while a million dollars isn’t what it used to be, given historical and recent inflation, this is a peculiar basis of a mobilization of working people.
From Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin D Roosevelt: Progressives Have led a Triumph of Conservatism
To be manifestly clear, from Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive movement to Franklin D Roosevelt’s the New Deal, despite the suckering in of assorted socialists, muckrakers, and culture-talkers into their coalitions (always those who are anti-war perhaps but not anti-imperialism), these governments led a triumph of conservatism. These progressives promoted the reforms of industrial and finance capital to sustain their power and legitimacy above society.
All along the oligarchy was in the drivers’ seat. Historians, political philosophers, and economists including Gabriel Kolkho, CLR James, and Paul Mattick, clarified this long ago. Therefore while progressives feign a revolt against corporatism, in fact they have always collaborated with the rulers to sustain it. And of course whoever proposes to raise taxes on the rich, and with a welfare state of mind, expects them to continue to privately own the means of production are at the very least peculiar. Yet even where property is publicly owned or nationalized, and perhaps A.I. might partially have this status in the future, it does not mean that state regulation has anything to do with workers self-management. Though dependent participatory forms can be invented; they are funded by the foundations of the imperial super-rich all the time.
Artificial Intelligence & Barbarism, Sanders & the Mask of Socialism
As Alexandros Schismenos, the brilliant Greek political philosopher has shown, in his Artificial Intelligence & Barbarism, and in his recent criticism of Bernie Sanders, while Sanders has contributed to stirring discussion of the dangers of this technology in the public square, he has not in any way placed urgent tasks in working people’s hands themselves.
Schismenos has been starting to theorize what ‘self-deregulation’ by everyday citizens might look like. This might confuse some where deregulation is normatively associated with capitalist free market idealism. He recognizes that a corporate liberal coalition (which Sanders proposes to take part) actually replaces popular democratic oversight with closed profit driven self-surveillance with the state power as partner, while shielding A.I. firms from liability. It is unclear if this means exposure to civil penalties (monetary fines), or a greater responsibility for the social ecology.
State Regulation, Self-Deregulation, & Workers Self-Management
Schismenos argues when tech elites warn of software execution failures as evidence of a growing autonomous ‘super-intelligence’ society as a whole must fear, this is used to legitimize market enclosures and top-down administrative control. Put another way a state capitalist planning coalition, in the name of the public interest, could guarantee the tech elite’s super profits, where perhaps their exposure to economic losses (even without a disaster of social and ecological infrastructure) is really why among the ruling elite there is a growing anxiety. Certainly, they are not born-again in their commitment to a cooperative commonwealth.
It is a challenge for those concerned with popular control of A.I. to observe properly. Apparent progressive voices of labor build a coalition with Big Business, wielding a false philosophy of history as if this has never happened before, and in the name of state regulation paves the way for a triumph of conservatism.
The Wrong Form of Coalition Can Strengthen the Oligarchs
Get Matthew Quest’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
What may be conserved? The power of the oligarchs, who are facing social criticism, that Sanders (among others) make an overstated show of opposing. Schismenos therefore suggest a self-deregulation in response to state regulation; this ‘self’ means here self-directed consistent with the word autonomy (meaning self-organization).
Yet it seems that those who are for workers self-management and an enlarged concept of citizenship pursuing social ecology have an unsung power and creativity to harvest. If for example, there is an expansion of A.I. data centers, where in the U.S. there are approximately 3,730 to 4,767 total data centers (including both general and specialized AI-driven facilities), with about 1,333 currently operating and over 2,350 planned or under construction, this represents not simply economic production but social relations. This suggests thousands if not millions of workers are in position not for more permitted marches and rallies walking in circles but something more.
Workers Can Recognize and Record the Gravest Dangers
Many have shown alarm about the blurring of public and private property, and the enormous anti-human tendency toward ecological destruction that these A.I. data centers suggest. Their monopoly of large swathes of land, huge amounts of electricity and water, where there are already underdeveloped public infrastructure for human use, is a grave danger.
It seems while citizens of any job status can and have been rallying to oppose the ever encroaching A.I. infrastructure, coalitions of electrical, telecommunications, and water and sewer workers are in the best position to observe and record the collaboration of state and capital in this pernicious assault on society. Yet they can be encouraged to go much further.
Popular Democratic Oversight Committees
While our lives are increasingly lived on the internet, and digital reason and telepresence is increasingly overcoming human association to make decisions face to face, popular democratic politics must not only oversee and discipline A.I. It must take back public space so we can assemble, commune with one another and form our own government.
Sanders may, if pressured to do so, produce dependent participatory forms, to consult with workers and citizens as subordinates to the state. In recent electoral political debates, elite observers of public opinion clearly show a growing anger at A.I., and the building of data centers in particular. Even centrist politicians are forced to promise that no data centers should be built, unless water and electricity is guaranteed to citizens free or at minimal cost. Further, there is awareness that imminent domain laws are being abused to transfer public lands to private ownership for these data centers.
If this is being acknowledged by mainstream politicians and legacy media, this means their authority is in crisis, and opportunity exists for ordinary people to invade, occupy, and control the regulation of A.I.
Popular Committees animated by the principles of direct democracy, workers self-management, and social ecology should make transitional demands on the state and capital on the terms of how A.I. should be regulated.
What Might these Transitional Demands of these Popular Committees be?
Cornelius Castoriadis, the famous Greek philosopher who made his name in France, argued the hallmark of socialism, as in a popular self-directed new society, is that it will bring about a change in the nature and content of work, through the conscious and deliberate transformation of inherited technology. The popular self-directed socialist society subordinates technology to human needs. We must keep in mind a crucial distinction. Where automation or A.I. is made subordinate to human control (this is a contemporary concern), it doesn’t mean it will be subordinated to ensuring the necesssities of life or that labor will directly hold the reins of society. What are these necessities? The guarantee of food, housing, healthcare, education, clean water, electricity, and assurances that ecological destruction will be avoided. Yet this cannot be separated from toilers and commoners making all decisions about the economy, technology, the ecology, etc.
Therefore, while in US public opinion there are anxieties about A.I., how it will impact employment, costs of living, and the environment. Some capitalist politicians feel compelled to promise that communities can reject the presence of A.I. datacenters in their community or insist on the guarantee of free or lowcost water and electricity. Despite what some politicians say, there are no guarantees that A.I. will not eliminate whole sectors of employment.
Therefore transitional demands need to include full employment for those who want it, a universal basic income, price controls on and guarantees of food, healthcare, and housing, and oversight of A.I. by electrical grid, waterworks, and telecommunication workers and assorted citizens who are unemployed and caregivers. This oversight will have the power to turn off or contain any A.I. expressions that are perceived as threatening to human life and the ecology.
All transitional demands imply reforms even where we want a social revolution. But the key is how we build coalitions so toilers and commoners not only extract economic relief from the state and capital, but self-directed control of the decisions that impact their lives. It is by these means (the guarantee of the necessities of life plus direct decision making) that labor can become self-emancipating and humanized instead of constant alienation and drudgery. Bernie Sanders and his ‘progressive’ capitalist coalition will try and promise higher wages (or try to minimally guarantee them as he retreats) and lower cost utilities. But Sanders will always offer dependent participation and thin consultation, while in fact the oligarchs keep the power for themselves.
Self-Management to Sabotage?
These toilers have the tools and experience to sabotage production of these data centers and the ability to reroute electrical power, and water flows. They can even re-route sewage, through tinkering with gauges and hydraulic systems, toward those whose political and economic practices already stink. This is the best way to offer the A.I. super-rich a fit welcome as they silently collaborate with the state to break down the doors of the world community.
The language of self-regulation, like the autonomy of so-called super-intelligence, can muddle minds trying to break out of the progressive mindset that leads a triumph of conservatism. Instead of a tone of ‘people’s planning’ associated with institutes who increasingly speak of how to design a society but not overthrow rulers, when we speak about self-management, it compels those with less historical and philosophical knowledge to inquire, ‘but this seems like a break with our bosses who normally tell us what to do?’
Yes, that is what is required; a rupture with any proposals that separate economic production from government (by workers and citizens who must directly hold the reins, so they can steer society where it must go.)
History and Culture that Popularizes Grassroots ‘Regulation’
In Hip Hop culture and certain country music, ‘regulate’ actually suggests to take control of a situation, handle business, maintain order, or retaliate against a threat — often with the peasant-farmer, unemployed, and street force taking initiative. It was not meant for state planners to identify with these anthems.
One hundred years apart, there are two different groups of activists who have called themselves ‘regulators’ in US history. One 18th century workers-farmers movement confronted corrupt local officials in the early colonial era for their imposing high taxes and abusive land speculation. Not animated by a racial ideology, they saw themselves as taking back their labor and even destroyed property. In the late 19th century another group calling themselves ‘regulators’ were white supremacists who spread lynch law, and carried out terrorist attacks against Blacks exercising their citizenship.
These remind in the US a politics of popular committees can push toward class struggle against oppressive property relations, or racist and fascist attacks, depending on how it is organized. Sometimes historical populist movements uneasily have forged racial unity around economic grievances only to fracture. This is crucial to consider when alert that the revolt against (or fear of) A.I. may rally a neither left nor right rotten block coalition. This is not ideologically preferred but deep crisis in society can draw out these conflicting tendencies who have grievances around the same issue.
A new popular culture, stirred by radical artists including creators of musical vibrations, can find the anthems to bring together the impending confrontation around A.I. in search of direct democracy, workers self-management, and social ecology.
The Fight Against A.I. Cannot Reconstruct the State and Capital
Where we understand the threat is not simply A.I., but the state, capitalism, and the progressives who claim to lead a revolt against corporate hierarchies but only wish to civilize and reconstruct the oligarchy, then we can begin to decide together what terms of order we wish to preserve and break up, and how we will strike back or retaliate against those few above society who will not heed our power and popular self-management. It is remarkable, if not profound, that the way we can contain or defeat automation or artificial intelligence, is by taking matters into our own hands as the gathering forces of the grassroots democratic majority.
