On social democracy in the age of increasingly intelligent machines

Our founder Tom Darling recently wrote an essay for Renewal staking out a social democratic position on the AI transition.

The piece argues that what is leading the left down a political cul-de-sac of AI denialism is mostly just vibes, which need to be resisted despite stemming from sympathetic impulse to resent the idea we’re all going to have to talk about this issue a lot more.

It goes on to argue problem is those concerned with AI safety have been a lot more right than they have been wrong in the last few years about the trajectory of the capability of this tech.

It asks what, then, should be the progressive political project, making the case for progressives to make arguments that start with a recognition of AI as a transformative general-purpose-technology. It sets out a number of these, including:

• Anti-monopoly arguments that seek to prevent anti-competitive behaviour taking hold with respect to AI models and ‘harnesses’

• Supporting an AI industrial strategy with a more capacious understanding of the public good, and a willingness to work with middle powers to break from US Big Tech

• Critiques of and safeguards to defend against AI wealth, which is likely to continue to grow to distort public life in the coming years

• The need to defend work against automation, through further strengthening employment rights for the AI age.