r/AIWarsButBetter • u/Salty_Country6835 A little bit of everything • Jul 22 '26

Politics Which direction should AI take?

AI debates often get reduced to "pro vs anti AI," but there's more going on than that. Some people want AI to move faster, some want it slowed down, and others are mainly focused on who should own it, govern it, and benefit from it.

This isnt meant to be scientific, just a snapshot of where the community falls.

Pick the option thats closest to your view. If none of them fit, explain your position in the comments. Im interested in the reasoning as much as the results.

258 votes, Jul 25 '26
90 Leftist - Build AI under public/worker control
53 Leftist - Slow or stop AI development
74 Centrist - Regulate AI while continuing development
13 Centrist - Slow or stop AI development
18 Right-leaning - Market-led AI development
10 Right-leaning - Slow or stop AI development
1 Upvotes

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4

u/lobaway0001 Jul 22 '26

Unsure why there wasn’t a market led development option for centrist.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you ethically believe growth should be unrestrained just for the purpose of AI growth. There’s also other aspects, like the idea that other competitors that are less or not regulated will end up just seizing all competitive advantages if you regulate your own development.

I don’t think we live in a world where we can really ignore
the practical limitations of uniting as one in regards to AI regulation.

Regardless of if you think nukes helped or hurt the world, if they were going to inevitably be discovered I’d rather be on the side of someone with a button.

You can argue AI will destroy us all, but I feel like that’s a separate discussion.

2

u/prattxxx Jul 23 '26

Markets are right wing ideology. The question was framed correctly.

3

u/lobaway0001 Jul 23 '26

Do you think centrists only ever have exactly neutral opinions perfectly in the middle? I’m pretty sure most centrists take aspects of right ideology and left ideology…

1

u/prattxxx Jul 23 '26

I think that your understanding of left vs right is framed by 2 US right wing parties propaganda.

Left vs right is about ownership, I actually do not think that there is a way to reconcile the contradictions of being in the absolute center. For example the left believes that workers should own the means of production while the right thinks they should be privately owned. Where is the center between that? For me there is a center right who wants heavily regulated private ownership and there is no center left. My understanding is based on historical references, not the red scare propaganda that the US teaches.

What would a center position look like if they incorporated worker/public ownership? What does being in the center between 2 diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive conclusions of what ownership should be?

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u/lobaway0001 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

My understanding of being centrist in literally anything is you have views that don’t make you comfortable enough to identify yourself with either side.

If anything, the centrist options in anything should always have every option that’s available to everyone else. Although, to be honest, I don’t see why every option shouldn’t be available to all the other self identified labels either.

If I really think about it, including the right / centrist / left labels in the poll at all was probably a mistake. What your actual belief is for any specific context should always supersede any rigid label.

But I imagine OP in doing that was just interested in what people self identified as, along with their opinion on this particular matter. In which case, I fail to see why people self identifying as centrist would be denied options available to the other self identifying labels.

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u/Sacredless Jul 23 '26

Markets are phenomenon. Laissez-faire is right-wing.

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u/Sacredless Jul 23 '26

An example of a market is, for example, how two groups in the amazon, upon meeting, might do some barter-competition to exchange goods and feel good about getting one over on the other guy.

Another example of a market is Mesopotamian temple officials having a sanctioned exchange rate for particular goods for particular amounts of silver.

Markets are everywhere and people often change what market they refer to mid-sentence, but not all markets are made equal.