Have you noticed a trend emerging whenever a socialist or working-class message is shared online? Instead of engaging with its content, liberals dismiss it immediately for being generated by AI. This blanket reaction to all AI reveals a contradiction that we should not ignore.
By the way, this is not a hypothetical debate for us. We are raising it also because we have recently experienced it directly. The first example was to do with a poster that had already been generated and widely shared online. We did not create it, but we thought its message was spot on. We printed it for a placard because we agreed with its political message and used it as demo material. It has Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu together in a frame, with Bibi pulling the strings of his Zionist puppets, Trump and Epstein. It has been our best received placard on the streets of Dublin so far. In fact, other activists have asked we print some more for them.
However, there’s always one. Rather than discussing the Epstein network, or ruling class politics expressed in the placard, one contrarian claiming to be a socialist (god help us all), fixated on the fact that it had been AI-generated. The content became secondary, even irrelevant to him, to the method of production.
The second time we experienced criticism for sharing an already made AI message was when an AI-generated animation depicting a white English working-class man coming to realise that the system deliberately divides workers by encouraging them to blame migrants for declining public services, low wages, and social problems, instead of recognising the role of capitalism and austerity. Again, instead of engaging with the anti-racist and class-conscious message, 2 people focused exclusively on the fact that AI had been used, and had nowt to say about the class message.
These experiences, while seemingly petty, raise an important question all the same. Why is the form provoking more outrage than the politics amongst the self-identified left, and what does it tell us about their understanding, or lack thereof?
First of all, sharing an AI-generated message is not the same as surrendering political thought to a machine. We regularly share articles, speeches, memes, videos, and posters created by others because we agree with their analysis. The question has always been whether the ideas are correct, not whether we personally authored every word or image.
More importantly, those who condemn AI in principle completely overlook the fact that they interact with AI every day. The social media platforms they use to criticise us on are driven by sophisticated AI systems that determine what content they see, which posts are promoted, which are buried or shadowbanned, and what advertisements are served up to them. Recommendation algorithms, moderation systems, facial recognition, targeted advertising, and data collection are all powered by artificial intelligence. Yet there is not the same level of outrage directed at these capitalist applications of AI. And if AI is to be boycotted, then we must all surrender our devices, and where then will we share our alternative or revolutionary media?
This is where the contradiction becomes clear. When AI is used by monopoly capital to maximise profit, manipulate our attention, collect personal data, suppress online visibility, or intensify exploitation, it is accepted as an unavoidable feature of modern life. But when AI produces or helps circulate a message encouraging workers to organise, think collectively, reject racism, or develop class consciousness, suddenly the technology itself becomes the problem.
Many critics come from environmental or degrowth perspectives, raising legitimate concerns about AI’s energy consumption and ecological impact. These concerns deserve discussion. However, ecology cannot be separated from political economy. The central question is not whether a technology consumes resources, but who owns it, who benefits from it, and who bears its costs.
Environmental politics that focuses primarily on reducing technological development, and simulataneously fails to confront capitalism, imperialism, and the geopolitical earthquakes of the day, only concerns itself with treating the symptoms and not the root of the disease. The greatest drivers of ecological destruction are not workers sharing socialist ideas online, but the Epstein network which is organised around endless Zionist controlled capital and finance.
We are working class people, not paid to be activists. We are not in the business of judging a productive force by its existence alone. Instead, our job is to ask who controls it, whose interests it serves, and what social purpose it advances. Under capitalism, AI is undoubtedly overwhelmingly developed to increase profits and strengthen corporate power. That deserves criticism. And we agree, AI should not be used to replace thought. But sharing AI-generated material that spreads working-class solidarity, anti-racism, and socialist ideas does not strengthen capitalist exploitation, it actually attempts to challenge it.
This is not an argument for uncritical enthusiasm for AI. We absolutely should remain critical of its ownership, environmental costs, labour practices, and ideological biases. But pointing the finger and ignoring a political message solely because it originated from an AI system substitutes moralism for material analysis.
The irony is that many critics of AI happily consume content filtered by AI, shop through AI-driven recommendation systems, navigate with AI, and communicate on platforms whose algorithms shape public discourse, yet object when the working class uses the same technological developments to communicate its own ideas. We have to challenge this inconsistency. We neither worship technology nor fear it. As socialists we must analyse technology materially.
The real struggle is not against AI. It is against the capitalist ownership of AI, the imperialist system that concentrates its benefits, and the social relations that subordinate scientific progress to private accumulation. Instead of asking, “Was this made by AI?” we should ask, “Does this advance the interests of the working class? Does it deepen class consciousness? Does it expose exploitation? Does it oppose racism, and encourage collective action?” Those are the questions that matter.
To focus on the tool while ignoring the politics is to lose sight of the fundamental principle: it is not the form that determines the class character of an idea, but the social interests it serves.
To dismiss a working-class message because it was AI generated is to mistake the finger for the moon. Instead, we ought to concern ourselves with the class interests that the idea serves, and not with the tool that carries an idea. Afterall, we would never interrupt an activist on the megaphone to ask if the megaphone was ethically sourced, would we?