AI as Class War: From Productivity Hype to Wage Suppression

Hagen Blix argues that generative AI isn’t chiefly a productivity tool, but a mechanism for de-skilling and wage suppression—“class war through enshittification.” By industrializing language and creative work, AI floods markets with cheaper, lower-quality outputs that push skilled workers into precarity while entrenching elite access to quality. Regardless of hype cycles, AI’s harms will persist through state-backed market-making and monopolization, so workers must organize and demand technology that enhances dignity and control over their labor.

Key Points

Generative AI primarily functions as a wage-depression and de-skilling tool rather than a genuine productivity revolution.
AI industrializes language and creative work, saturating markets with low-quality outputs that undercut skilled labor and erode overall quality.
Deskilling is spreading precarity to previously insulated professional classes, catalyzing broader labor solidarity and renewed interest in unions.
Even if an AI bubble bursts, harms will persist because markets are engineered (e.g., via state and military demand) and monopolies will entrench AI as infrastructure.
The necessary response is political: organize collectively to protect wages and dignity, and demand technology that enhances worker control and the quality and meaning of work.

Sentiment

The overall sentiment of the discussion is highly polarized and contentious. There's a strong divide between those who largely agree with the article's critical view of AI as a tool for economic exploitation and those who view AI as a natural and ultimately beneficial technological progression for society, customers, and even some workers. The discussion often devolves into broader ideological debates about capitalism, wealth distribution, and historical precedents, indicating a deep disagreement rather than a consensus on the article's central points.

In Agreement

AI is primarily a "wage battle" or "class war" used to reduce worker skill levels and wages for employer efficiency, making work cheaper for employers but not necessarily better for workers.
AI-generated outputs, despite being sold as solutions, can be filled with errors and fictitious content, requiring rework and highlighting a disconnect between perceived and actual value.
The wealth generated by new technologies, including AI, disproportionately flows to owners, exacerbating economic inequality between capital owners and workers.
If truly successful, AI combined with robotics could render a vast percentage of jobs obsolete, necessitating fundamental changes to the economic system (e.g., Basic Income) to prevent widespread impoverishment.
The current trajectory of technology often prioritizes corporate profits over the broader upliftment of humanity.
AI models are built upon massive amounts of uncompensated labor and copyrighted training data, raising ethical questions about intellectual property and fair compensation for creators.
Laissez-faire capitalism, without adequate social protections, unionization, and regulation, leads to massive poverty and allows powerful entities to monopolize markets, as historical figures like Adam Smith warned.

Opposed

Technological innovations, including AI, generally benefit customers by lowering prices or increasing quality, impacting a larger population positively than just workers or employers.
Automated outputs are not inherently or universally worse; in many historical and current cases, automation has led to superior product quality, precision, and affordability (e.g., interchangeable parts, high-quality synthetic fabrics).
The concept of "enshittification" is flawed because bureaucracy and mediocrity are inherent human traits and innovation often provides a release from, rather than a cause of, these issues.
Concerns about AI causing mass job loss are unfounded historical alarmism, as past technological revolutions (e.g., printing press, agricultural industrialization) ultimately led to increased demand for labor and the creation of new job categories.
Poverty and 'impoverished underbellies' exist across all economic systems, not exclusively capitalism, and AI could potentially improve the lives of low-status individuals by providing access to advanced decision-making tools.
There is currently little evidence of widespread job loss directly attributable to generative AI; the focus should remain on existing labor struggles rather than speculative future problems.
AI has the potential to enhance and 'level up' workers, particularly in professional roles, by automating routine tasks and allowing human workers to focus on higher-level problem-solving and creative design.
Claims that AI represents a 'top-down elite conspiracy' may oversimplify complex market dynamics and game theory, overlooking the intricate interactions of large numbers of people and incentives.
Laissez-faire liberalized economies have empirically increased living standards where permitted, and centrally planned alternatives pose risks of catastrophic failure and reduced opportunity.