Bosses use AI to lay off workers: Workers will turn mass unemployment into revolutionary anger to fight for communism
LOS ANGELES (USA), May 1—“AI is going to be used to lay off millions of workers worldwide. They are all potential revolutionary fighters to end capitalism’s wage slavery,” said a comrade to an auto worker at the May Day march in LA.
He shook the comrade’s hand and gladly took Red Flag. He said, “I remember you from last year when you came to our strike.” One of his friends took the paper too.
The comrade said, “Yes, you told us that McDonald’s would automate and lay off most of its workers. You were right!”
Last year, when comrades took Red Flag/Bandera Roja to their picket line, he and others told us, “They will use AI to lay off so many of us! This is a big threat to all of us. They’re coming after all our jobs. We have to fight it, but how?”
We said the only solution is to fight for a communist society run by and for the workers.
In the hands of the capitalists and imperialists, AI is used for mass layoffs, genocide, and fascism. The bosses use this technology to lay off millions. This means growing mass unemployment, and greater poverty. Workers can’t buy the many products AI helps generate.
The rulers’ politicians and union leaders push passivity and tell workers nothing can be done in the face of technology’s “progress.”
In communism, without profits or competition, in the hands of the working class, technology will be a tool only to help make the masses’ lives better. It will enhance medical care, be a tool in cancer research and other positive uses.
Masses of workers around the world won’t take this attack lying down. They will be forced to fight for food and survival. These workers have great revolutionary potential. ICWP can grow by recruiting many angry workers to become communist fighters to get rid of capitalism and its wage slavery. To lead communist class struggles to build for communist revolution. Then we will build communism, where there will be plenty of useful vital work for all.
The fight over which version of AI will dominate the market is part of the sharpening struggle between US and Chinese imperialists, who are using AI to produce even more lethal weapons.
During the capitalist crisis of the Great Depression of the 1930’s, hundreds of millions were unemployed worldwide. In the US, about a third of the workforce was unemployed. Hundreds of thousands had lost their farms.
The US Communist Party (CPUSA) had tens of thousands of members. They influenced millions of industrial workers. They mobilized, building soup kitchens and unemployment councils demanding unemployment insurance and social security. They won these demands. But they did not mobilize the masses for revolution. Capitalism was left intact.
Today, the bosses’ use of AI technology is accelerating the capitalist crisis. Workers fighting layoffs and unemployment today need communist ideas and communist class struggle to win the fight for communism.. Workers organizing soup kitchens today can make them centers to build ICWP.
The rulers’ use of AI technology to spy on the masses can’t stop the workers. The rulers will still depend on workers to make their weapons, and soldiers to use them. Those workers and soldiers can become fighters for communism.
AI won’t tell workers that only communism will end this capitalist nightmare. But ICWP will.
ICWP calls on Red Flag readers to join us to organize employed and unemployed workers to fight—not for reforms like CPUSA did – but for communism. Communism will have no unemployment or wage-slavery. Everyone will be needed to help produce what our class needs.
When the masses destroy capitalism and run society, we will collectively design and use technology only to help make workers’ lives and the earth safe and healthy for all. It will never again be used for profit, exploitation, or genocide.