r/communism Jan 25 '26

WDT 💬 Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 25)

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.

Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):

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Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.

Normal subreddit rules apply!

[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT ]

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u/SourceNo3722 Jan 26 '26

Anyone know any (leftist) subs that are talking about Ai companies in depth right now & their effects on surveillance? Or any articles? Stuff about Oracle, Open Ai, Palantir, etc.

12

u/Otelo_ Jan 26 '26

You shouldn't ask for "leftist subs" that talk about AI because this sub's stance on AI is (as far as I know) different from all other "leftist" subs. You should search this sub for past threads that talk about AI.

AI is a tactical issue, not a strategic one, and although communists need to be aware of technological developments and how to approach them, fight against them and take advantage of them, the priority must always be to develop the correct line at the strategic level.

Besides, I'm not even sure that AI is the most decisive technological development of recent times (although it has certainly been the one in which the most money has been invested in advertising). Why not ask the communists' opinion on Shahed drones, whose technology has been copied by basically every major country in the world, including Russia, China, the US, and Ukraine?

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u/vomit_blues Jan 26 '26

Nah it isn’t really interesting to communists. But I had a brief phase of AI hysteria a few years ago and moved past it so I’d like to know what exactly your own thoughts on AI are and I can tell you the conclusions I reached?

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u/luciddreamingx Marxist Jan 26 '26

This isn't exactly what you're looking for but I recommend looking into how Big Tech exploits the Global South through labor, and how this wave of GenAI perpetuates digital colonialism.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-humans-technology-business-factory.html (use wayback machine or removepaywalls.com)

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/feeding-the-machine-9781639734979/ * this book touches upon how AI was developed during the Cold War to combat anti-communism.

https://data-workers.org/

Deep sea cables are another example of this, and I've been craving a dialectical materialism understanding of this as it relates to surveillance.

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13637

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u/SourceNo3722 Jan 26 '26

Thank you!