Progressives Are Listening to the Wrong People on A.I.

[ancianita]

2. Largely. So far. Like Schmidt, Thiel, Musk, Altman, and maybe even Gates. But there is hope in our paying attention to

Silicon developers, engineers, analysts and small business owners. They, their families and descendants collectively have more to lose in the future than does SV's alleged leadership. Unlike what corporate media tell us, AI builders, not owners, are the group we should pay attention to.

The Guardian (membership owned, not corporate owned) at least tries to list several steps we as a nation should take to protect against AI’s harms.
For me, the main problem is that these actions presuppose that our Govt would enact any part of this quickly -- a dismal prospect.

1. We should guarantee health insurance for everyone. The US overwhelmingly ties health insurance to one’s job, and the fear that AI could displace millions of workers is a strong argument for the US to finally do what every other industrial nation has done: adopt a system of universal health insurance, perhaps through Medicare for All. That way, workers thrown to the curb by AI won’t need to panic about losing health coverage.

2. Wage insurance would be a smart, targeted program to help workers displaced by AI. Many of those workers will move to new jobs that pay significantly less than their old jobs, and wage insurance would be an important wage supplement, perhaps $10,000 a year. It would help offset workers’ lower wages and encourage the unemployed to search for new jobs. Beyond that, the US should make its deeply flawed unemployment insurance system more generous. Mississippi’s maximum jobless benefit is just $235 a week; in Florida, it’s just $275.

3. In the event that AI does eliminate millions of jobs, the US should put in place a New Deal-like Works Progress Administration that would create millions of jobs for the unemployed. Perhaps they would repair the nation’s infrastructure or work in childcare centers. Amid predictions that AI could incinerate millions of jobs, it would be unwise to rely on the market to create enough jobs for all the workers displaced by AI.

4. Before AI wipes out a wide swath of jobs, we should vastly improve the nation’s less-than-stellar job training programs to prepare workers for whatever the jobs of the future will be, whether in healthcare, construction, green energy or other fields.

5. We should share the productivity gains from AI by legislating a 32-hour workweek at the old 40 hours’ pay – a move that should help reduce layoffs. What’s more, if AI means that our economy can thrive with the labor force working far fewer hours, then the US should finally enact a law mandating paid vacations for all workers: perhaps two weeks for new hires, three weeks after two years, and four weeks after four years. (Every worker in the 27 nations of the European Union is guaranteed four weeks’ paid vacation.)

6. Universal basic capital would give Americans some funds that would enable them to share in the wealth created by AI. This grant of capital – perhaps in the form of shares in a universal investment fund – could be given to every American or to all workers or just to people at birth. This, unlike universal basic income, would not only allow people to share in the profits and rising stock values, but would give people corporate voting rights. It would give the public a voice in running the nation’s corporations, and hopefully in running AI companies, too.

Seeing all the public anger at AI datacenters, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have called for halting construction of all new datacenters nationwide until Congress enacts some basic protections against AI...

To be sure, AI companies and many billionaires will vigorously oppose such a moratorium along with any meaningful limits on AI. That’s why we need a powerful people’s movement to fight for the strong safeguards that American workers, the American public and the world will need to protect against the vast potential dangers of AI.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/19/billionaires-ai-complacency-resistance

At least one news medium is paying attending to solutions to the AI assault on our paycheck workers of all classes. The Guardian's is a start, but more pro-worker media, politicians and think tanks have to see themselves as stakeholders in dealing with AI.

Has the world been ambushed by the stealth rollout of AI? We won't know until we try everything to resist its negative effects on economies and humans. Whatever we find out, good or bad, will require that we unite and persevere in the fight, not give up.