In the wake of his recent humanitarian visit to Cuba, RICHARD BURGON points to the now urgent need to defend the island’s political sovereignty and its right to self-determination
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AI: Alienating Intelligence
They say that the machines are coming for our jobs, but when we look behind the hype we see the same forces of capitalism that have existed for centuries, writes the FUTURE OF WORK GROUP
The alienation brought about by AI is not only alienation from the satisfying craft of making high-quality products at work, but alienation from society: through perpetuating historical biases as shown above and by undermining our democratic position in that society
Thousands of jobs are at risk across higher education, yet government funding appears only when universities can be linked to military objectives, says JO GRADY, in the run-up to the Stop the War International Conference this Saturday
The Wye, Usk, Arrow and Lugg were once treasured for their clean waters – today, pollution and corporate excess are fuelling demands for a return to public ownership, says MARK SEDDON
The new Employment Rights Act is a step forward, but restoring collective bargaining and union power remains essential to tackling insecurity, outsourcing and low pay, says PAUL WHITEHOUSE
Rising support for Farage’s party reflects Labour’s failure to defend working-class living standards or offer a credible alternative to neoliberal decline, says JOSEPH MILLS
Trade unionists are mobilising to support Cuban workers and public services, amid escalating US pressure on the socialist island. RONAN OGILVY explains
IN many ways, the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems by the capitalist class parallels the adoption of other technologies like machinery and robotics.
The capitalists identify that their business is dependent on the availability of skills that are embodied in the workers and seek to divide the labour, automating the parts they perceive as “skilled” to keep wages down.
Quality is not as important as profit through exploitation: just as the mass-produced industrial commodities were less refined than the artisan-produced work of craft masters, so the knowledge work of a computer is lower quality than that of a skilled expert.
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