AI Under Capitalism: The Quiet Machinery of Digital Control

AI is often presented as a neutral tool for productivity, innovation, and convenience. But what happens when it is designed, owned, and deployed within systems that prioritize profit, surveillance, engagement, and market power?
In this discussion-based event we’ll use the article AI Under Capitalism: The Quiet Machinery of Digital Control as a starting point to examine a forceful critique of AI’s political economy. The article argues that AI can reinforce corporate power through behavioral data collection, algorithmic content control, workplace pressure to adopt AI, cognitive offloading, and dependence on systems controlled by major companies and states.
This is not a debate about whether AI is simply “good” or “bad.” We’ll ask the governance questions underneath it:
• Who owns the models, data, compute, and platforms that increasingly shape work and public life?
• When AI raises productivity, who captures the economic gains—workers, customers, communities, or shareholders?
• How can algorithmic systems influence what people see, buy, believe, and do without meaningful transparency or consent?
• Where should governance draw lines around surveillance, manipulation, automated decision-making, labor displacement, and accountability?
• What would democratic oversight of AI look like in practice?
• Can regulation, antitrust, labor protections, transparency rules, and public-interest technology meaningfully rebalance power?
Come ready to engage critically, disagree respectfully, and connect big questions about capitalism and technology to concrete governance tools: impact assessments, auditability, human oversight, data rights, procurement rules, competition policy, and worker voice.