> And like the communists of old, AI scientists believe in their
revolution; the old myths of tragic hubris don’t trouble them at all.
What an utterly bullsh*t way to say I don't know anything about history nor how world works.
What an utterly bullsh*t way to say I don't know anything about history nor how world works.
Here's the full context:
1 Overview
The culture of AI is imperialist and seeks to expand the kingdom of the machine. The AI community is well organized and well funded, and its culture fits its dreams: it has high priests, its greedy businessmen, its canny politicians. The U.S. Department of Defense is behind it all the way. And like the communists of old, AI scientists believe in their revolution; the old myths of tragic hubris don’t trouble them at all.
Tony Solomonides and Les Levidow (1985, pp. 13–14)
This paper sets out our expert position on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies permeating the higher education sector, demonstrating how this directly erodes our ability to function (see also our Open Letter, Guest, van Rooij, et al. 2025).
(the rest elided)
Other's also voiced their concerns at the time:
Sherry Turkle https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Turkle_Sherry_The_Second_Se...
Tom Athanasiou ghostwrote Hubert Dreyfus's book 'Mind over Machine' (1986) https://www.ecoequity.org/about/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus%27s_views_on_ar...
Athanasiou, Tom (1985). “Artificial intelligence: cleverly disguised politics”. In: Compulsive technology: computers as culture. Ed. by Tony Solomonides and Les Levidow. Free Association Books, pp. 13–35
Carl Mitcham https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222771271_Computers...
Other articles citing these early critics:
Special Issue Artificial intelligence through the lenses of Marxism and critical thinking https://periodicos.ufs.br/eptic/article/download/21789/16168...
Artificial intelligence and the ideology of capitalist reconstruction https://ouci.dntb.gov.ua/en/works/lRaVX6M4/
If I wanted to be cheeky, that's your privilege showing :) There are likely some people in your proximity (if you are American, then mostly Cubans and some Russians) who have lost some family member to actual Communism.
AI can probably produce better propaganda than mediocre party hacks.
b. "felt the stick", what an euphemism for large-scale human rights violations, and not limited to "landlords".
Friends, from a survivor (a favorite word of the American left, ain't it?): actual Communist rule is very bad, most nations abandoned it in the very moment that it was possible to do so, and in the places where it can't be done, people at least try to flee.
That is why you have so many Cubans and Venezuelans in that horrible capitalist America, but not one American risks his/her life trying to swim or sail into those working class paradises.
Even in Europe the old Iron Curtain worked in one way only, to prevent people from escaping their working class paradises, although in the GDR it was called "anti-fascist protective wall".