No prior reading required, we will look at excerpts together.

The goal of this reading group is to reach a shared understanding that AI is not “unprecedented” when viewed from a sociological lens. We live in SF and likely meet our fair share of accelerationalists (full steam ahead on AI development, it will solve all of our problems), or doomers (AI if misaligned will lead to the end of humanity, thus we must do everything in our capacity to prevent this from happening). With all of the misinformation (and information) floating around, it can be difficult to avoid being reactionary. We hope to foster an educational environment to help each other internalize current events in AI and tech, and better articulate the common thread between these events, and the broader socialist movement.

We will start by reading Sam Altman’s “The Intelligence Age” blog post from 2024, so we are all on the same page in understanding the “opposition” (the viewpoint we will help each other be equipped to refute). Then, we will read an excerpt from “Division of Labor in the Computer Field” by Joan Greenbaum - an article from the 1970s which reflects on the effects of automation. In digesting this piece, we will see that a lot of the struggles back then are the same ones we see nowadays, with AI threatening the tech job market. From there, we will establish a shared understanding of what “imperialism” is, and how it relates to the moment.

We hope to keep running and improving this event in the future. This can be a great way to meet and connect with disillusioned tech workers who don’t feel satisfied with the explanations we hear for why things are the way they are, and feel excited to be part of figuring out where we need to go.

Event is sponsored by the SF chapter of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America).