Extinction-Level Capitalism

AI is inher­ently polit­ical tech­nology. If AI works as intended, it will grad­u­ally corrode our liberal democ­racy, risking an irre­versible shift into another polit­ical and economic config­u­ra­tion. Among AI risks, this one deserves more consid­er­a­tion, because it requires no addi­tional condi­tions like malign actors or AI malfunc­tion. AI only needs to amplify existing trends, espe­cially around concen­tra­tion of capital. This damage will occur even assuming that in the near term, AI will broadly improve mate­rial well-being.

I’m a self-employed author, designer, programmer, and lawyer. In 2022, I learned that my own works were in the training datasets of gener­a­tive-AI compa­nies. In response, I invented the first set of lawsuits chal­lenging the legality of these prac­tices. I’m currently co-counsel for plain­tiffs in a number of AI cases. Though I discuss certain legal issues below, I am not your lawyer, and nothing here is held out as legal advice. These are my personal views as a citizen and economic actor; I speak only for myself. This piece is typeset in Equity, Advo­cate, and Trip­li­cate, fonts I designed. They can be licensed for your own polemics and pamphlets.

Two billion years ago, the rock layers comprising what is now called the Colorado Plateau began to form: first igneous and meta­mor­phic rocks, followed by many layers of sedi­men­tary rocks. About fifty million years ago, through tectonic action, this plateau gained thou­sands of feet of eleva­tion. About five million years ago, a river began to flow. The river carried silt and debris, scraping out the begin­nings of a canyon. The river deep­ened the canyon, exposing its walls to weather and erosional forces that widened the canyon further. Today the waterway is the Colorado River. The geolog­ical forma­tion is the Grand Canyon.