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Comment by sigmoid10 | Hacker News Reader

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While as argument, it may work, it does not seem to be conservatives that are afraid of AI ( at least in public fora ). But that is separate from your point on class type ( the rich ), which seems to be reason why it does not land well ( for me at least ).

I have seen maga types screaming against data centers claiming it will be used for "AI" and "surveillance". Also a lot of overlap with people who tie in AI with the usual smorgasbord of "anti christ", "NWO", etc etc. I don't know how representative that is, but from my perspective the current right doesn't seem to like AI at all.

The reason why this seems weird to you (and many other people for sure) is that current "conservative" politicians are actually more neoliberals than conservatives. So of course they will push cheap labour, offshoring, outsourcing and eventually AI. But it shouldn't be hard to understand actual conservative ideology here, since, like, it's already in the word.

You're right about conservatism as long as you take a nearly archaic definition of the word (and I lament how the definition has changed, but it is what it is).

You're wrong about the other side of the aisle, though. People who are otherwise pro immigration, pro social change, pro downwards wealth redistribution, etc. (in other words, not at all conservative), are typically against AI.

>as long as you take a nearly archaic definition of the word

This is not a question of definition. Conservatism is what I wrote, period. See e.g.: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/

The issue here is that most Americans no longer have any clue what it actually means, because they only associate party politics with it that are by now completely disconnected. But the definition itself has never changed.

>People who are otherwise pro immigration, pro social change, pro downwards wealth redistribution, etc. are typically against AI.

Are they? This is a pretty rigorous statement mixing in a lot of smaller ones and thus would need some actual data to back it up. I know many people I would classify as traditional "liberals" by the virtues you describe, but who are very much pro new tech and by extension, pro-AI. They are only against if they fall for the usual social media doomsayers, but from my experience they are more likely to do so the less they know or care about new technology (which in some sense directly translates to higher conservatism too I suppose).

This is a weird take to me. The current "conservative" movement has gone to great lengths to push out neoliberals and enact protectionist policy.

Maybe you mean "conservative" voters? Though, these are more likely the "moderates" everyone is on about. Those are the neoliberals on both sides.

> is that current "conservative" politicians are actually more neoliberals than conservatives.

I suppose "neoliberal" means whatever anyone wants it too, but perhaps you were looking for "postliberal". From the AI summary:

> Postliberalism is a political and social philosophy that rejects the core tenets of traditional liberalism. It argues that liberalism’s hyper-focus on individual autonomy, free-market capitalism, and secularism has eroded social cohesion and community.

"Conservative" is used to describe the current US administration, and I suppose they imagine they're conserving _something_, but they seem very eager to attack the liberal foundation of the Republic.

"Postliberalism" is a really flowery way to say fascist/corporatist. I guess it is less likely to shut down the conversation though.

Conservatives loves AI because they see it as it is: not a technology, but a political framework to force their ideology on everyone

AI is first and foremost a political artefact: https://tante.cc/2026/04/21/ai-as-a-fascist-artifact/

If by “conservatives” you mean the Vance/Thiel/Yarvan crowd, sure.

Yes, the new face of conservatism

A literal network of child traffickers, fraudsters, traitors, religious lunatics, and foreign agents brought to us by rich assholes like Eric Schmidt.

I am no fan of the tech bros, but this is a trash heap of an article.

First of all, it's ultra ironic that someone who is supposedly critical of big tech uses woke terminology ("marginalized people"). Big corpos basically created wokism: Thousands of Employee Resource Groups busy with "marginalized people-issues" are far more preferable to unions.

And this example of western "fascism" is peak hypocrisy:

"Ask an image generator for a picture of two people kissing and you most often get a heterosexual couple, often white. Because that’s what the training data looks like. That makes “AI” perfect for creating the form of idealized, fictional “past” that fascists love to allude to"

Ask anyone on the street in a "non-white" country to draw a couple, and your chances to get a picture of a heterosexual one would be probably greater than what ChatGPT would put out. AI generators regularly putting out pictures of what a typical CCC-lecturer looks like today, THAT would be pure western imperialism.

"People in power, people with money – most of them men – get to make the decisions."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIBgrM4WAAAoqDw.jpg

Today's fighters against big tech are themselves completely enshrouded in the worldview that big corpos created in the first place.

okay bro, perhaps open a book and learn a bit. The "woke" terminology was coined by researchers. Studying actual subjects. Backed by research.

Political conservatives are generally all in on AI. There is some resistance from the “crunchy momma” wings of the conservative movement, but overall political liberals are putting up far more resistance to AI.

This isn't true, there is a massive bipartisan consensus against AI that is shared between both parties. Please stop taking the views of a small minority of people, electeds, versus what the electorate actually prefers.

This is like saying the entire democratic party is pro-crypto because of Kirsten Gillibrand is a crypto shill.

Political conservatives (at least in the US) have very little left in common with actual conservatism. They are more like neoliberals, primarily catering to the rich for accumulating wealth. So of course they are in on yet another scheme for cutting costs by screwing over normal workers.

Fair enough, but we must take the real world into account and in this real world the "conservatives-by-name" are the topic of the discussion. If you choose to use another name, even if completely appropriate, you will risk being misunderstood (which is unrelated to downvoting). It's a whole meta-discussion by itself...

If you wish to be understood, please use common speech. Political conservatism (keep things the same) and economic conservatism aka liberalism (government should submit to the market) have been dead for many years. What we have are populists of different stripes who are advocating radical change to suit their specific agenda.

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