Actually, the left is winning the AI debate

Last week, I wrote a bit about how and why the AI discourse has become particularly unhinged lately. Right as I published that piece, another AI discourse generator started making the rounds; an article by Dan Kagan-Kans in the effective altruist AI newsletter Transformer, that argued that “the left is missing out on AI.” I’d already briefly addressed this notion in the post on the AI zeitgeist, and at first I thought that would probably be sufficient. But it kept nagging at me, and I do think it’s worth engaging this notion, and why I think it’s wrong, in full.

In fact, I’m going to argue that not only is the left not “missing out” on AI, but that it would be more accurate to say that it is “currently winning the debate” over AI in American hearts and minds. Polls routinely show that Americans are more concerned than enthusiastic about AI. Coalitions are organizing opposition to data centers across the country, often successfully. Where they have been proposed, in states like New York, Colorado, and California, laws to regulate or rein in AI have found majority support. When actors and screenwriters went on strike in 2023, and foregrounding a demand to stop executives from using AI to undermine their jobs, they were widely cheered. And so on.

Much of this is driven by left-liberal critique of AI systems: Of the impact AI would have on labor when administered by management (the union-led screen actor and writer strikes, California’s No Robo Bosses Act), of the resource and energy costs of data centers (articulated by progressive environmental groups), of the practice of nonconsensually exploiting works in training models (shouted from the rooftops by leftist artists like Molly Crabapple from the first days of Midjourney), and so on. Left-liberals can’t claim full credit for the concern piece—the AI CEOs themselves have been doing their best to ensure everyone knows they intend to automate the world’s jobs and think that there’s a chance they might create Skynet in the process.

In fact, the left appears to be so successfully engaged in matters related to AI that one can’t help but wonder if allegations about its supposed ignorance of the technology are motivated by a desire to change the very terms of the debate.

To wit: The Kagan-Kans piece articulates a position that I think is pretty widely shared, especially among ...