These are notes from a panel at Capricon 46. Any mistakes here are mine, not the panelists’. I have amplified my notes with web links for further clarification. Here is the blurb from the convention program:

As the means of production falls into fewer and fewer hands and new technologies like GenAI arrive on our phones with unseen agendas and impacts, the value of thinking about the political dimensions of future tech grows. What political ramifications should we consider in our near future? How has SF commented on the politics of its futuristic technologies? Our panelists explore these and other political questions about the future we’re building now (and the future still to come).

This Machine Kills. Podcast

1984: Surveillance. Brave New World: People kept peaceful by soma drug.

These assume the respective authoritarian systems work as designed. What about something more realistic? Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson. Right wing stories as nightmares

Wrong Way about self-driving cars.

Potemkin AI. Façade for human labor. Waymo uses human (Filipino) backup for its “self-driving” cars.

Will current AI work? Will it cost jobs? Yes. Lots of money is being poured into AI datacenters. What if they don’t work?

People don’t trust AI. BS machines — no relation to truth.

An AI was asked: Who was President in 1620? The answer it gave: King James I.

Artifacts are made by people. Hence they have politics. AI to reduce employment because of decisions made by people.

Corporations (Collections of people) as technology, like AI. Like corporations, AI has a political role. Who is in control of AI? AI is the perfect worker: Never needs a break.

Managing slaves (There were books about that) as a background to managing factories. AI developed by corporations to reduce labor costs, maximize productivity.

AI to watch Ai? Verification.

Fascism: Destruction of fact based arguments.

Chinese social score. A generalization of credit scores.

We need critical media literacy.

This panel reminded me that I need to read The Butlerian Jihad soon.