Jacobin | A Wong/Getty
Whether the AI hype deflates or investment keeps pouring in, capital is committed to forcing AI into the workplace, reshaping jobs and lowering labor standards…. the core questions for labor, mass politics, and consumers are: To what ends will AI be deployed, to whose benefit, and under whose control? As things stand, there are plenty of reasons to believe the answer to each question is oligarchs and oligopolists under, perhaps, some nominal control of a technocratic ruling class that will act as, at best, a regulatory rubber stamp — and institutional investor or underwriter. And with the state itself backing the broader AI rollout, that is, as they say, the ball game.