I have always seen myself as ‘progressive’ – but with AI it’s time to hit the brakes | Peter Lewis
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/02/australia-ai-artificial-intelligence-productivity-progress
I have always seen myself as ‘progressive’ – but with AI it’s time to hit the brakes | Peter Lewis
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/02/australia-ai-artificial-intelligence-productivity-progress
28 Comments
I have always seen myself as someone who lets animals be ‘free range’ – but with this horse it’s time to close the gate.
What brakes? We have no control over people in other countries developing AI systems.
AI is a tool invented by oligarchs based on the blatant theft of human creativity. It’s pushed down everyone’s throats as a necessity while their product rips apart objective truth, accelerates public polarity, increases the power of tyrants, makes workers redundant, diminishes human learning, causes psychosis and even death in its users, and ravages the environment with heat-island data centers.
Are memes worth it?
Futures not looking too bright. Hasn’t been for decades, for the folks paying attention. Rather than an inevitable march towards a better tomprrow with some bumps in the road, I forsee massive turbulence before things once again reach equilibrium.
Lot of people will be lost in that turbulence, though. And if there isn’t effective leadership to look after them, if the suits in Canberra continue to look after themselves, and the top end of town, then people will turn to populists promising a return to “the good old days”. Happened in Germany in the 30’s, the US in 2016, and if Labor keeps their heads in the sand it’ll happen here too.
One of my fears of AI is that it will totally kill creativity.
They could have saved money on robots and keep the workers and replaced the CEOs and upper management.
With AI, we’re enthusiastically embracing the loss of our humanness.
As our population ages we will need machines to replace retiring workers. We can’t saddle our proportionally smaller working age population with ever increasing amounts of work to provide the products and services out growing retired population requires.
If we cannot maintain the overall balance of supply/demand we will face higher inflation pressure and therefore interest rates.
I am so ready for AI to be the ultimate test of capitalism. Never ending growth at the expense of human employment will be an interesting test.
I’m excited for AI
Why would rampant AI use be a “progressive” value? Progressivism has never just been a full libertarian “let anyone do anything they want”, it’s always been pursuing goals and ideals that uplift the future of humanity and the planet, and we’ve known for long enough how environmentally destructive the systems needed to power these AI agents are, and how much they developmentally set us back by training away people from using their minds. The progressive position on AI *is* to say “This shit is bad for all of us except the ones at the very top lining their pockets and it needs to stop”.
# “Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune
Exactly how ?
And what financial result would there be for Australian business that fall behind ?
My biggest concern is the cultlike rapture of AI devotees. The absolute faith in demonstrably evil tech bros to reshape the world in our favour is breathtaking.
I disagree for two reasons.
First, I dont think its practical. AI is out there and doing things. Its not going back in the box.
Second, the things we need to do in order to make a social system capable of surviving AI are all things we should probably just do anyway? UBI, a tax system that recognises the difference between rents and productivity and decreasing barriers/increasing support for people transitioning into new careers (both midlife changes and young people entering their first job). None of them are new ideas, AI just makes them more urgent.
I have found ai to be wildly inaccurate and often just makes things up or flat out lies. I can’t see how useful or trustworthy it could be in its current state.
I think that the idea of automation in general replacing shitty jobs (which is most of them) is a great thing. The problem isn’t the tech, it’s the economic structures meaning that the benefits are captured by a few and not shared by humanity
The best we can seem to do as consumers is not buy or subscribe to anything that involves AI.
I do not want AI imposed on apps and software that I use.
Billionaires and oligarchs are pushing AI, not progressives
”Now that it’s threatening MY job, we need to slow it down a little.”
I genuinely wonder if the guy is pro immigration, I had a quick peak at his article history and it does appear so.
Welcome to what that deplorable working class you probably look down on is dealing with in a different way.
Deal with it like everyone else you elitist (insert any expletive here).
AI is, like many of modern lifes creations, a Pandoras Box.
It is open, it will NOT be closed, what horrors come next is entirely our ‘fault’. Humans rarely learn other than by observing the end result, and it is often impossible to reverse it.
AI is like any technology – it can and will be used for both ‘good’ and ‘evil’, because people.
There is no turning back now – you can’t ban a technology: prohibition has never worked, because people.
We CAN tax the fuck out of individuals and companies exploiting the technology for obscene profits, and use the proceeds to fund a universal basic income, ensuring that the technology benefits everyone, not just oligarchs. That is the progressive response to AI
Interesting responses. Regardless of the presumed evil intentions of the creators, it’s shocking how good the latest AI models are. It takes a while to learn how to use it. It’s not the same as google.
It reads to me like people saying they will never use computers in the mid 90’s. Maybe you won’t but it’s taking over the world whether you like it or not. Not because it’s evil, but because that much better.
The real problems with AI are going to be it being too good. People will form relationships with it and put it ahead of their real relationships. Including romantic relationships. It’s already happening. If you’re not using it multiple times a day you’re not really aware of what it is. You don’t understand it. Just like if you’re predicting the future of the internet when you’ve only ever read about it in the newspaper and never even used a computer, you don’t know it.
All those cooker neighbourhood watch Facebook groups are heavy users of AI image generation
What makes me sad is that AI is one of the most amazing things humanity has ever created.
We ‘could’ do amazing things with it.
We won’t.
But we could.
There’s nothing progressive about surrendering our higher cognitive functions to corporations.
Ai should be banned globally.
The end of humanity is not something i want. The technology needs to be outlawed Just stop,it. Replacing all our cognitive thought and creativity with a machine will make us extinct.
AI is more about libertarianism and authoritarianism than progressivism and conservatism.