Michael Roberts’s critique of Chandrasekharan Saratchand paper on AGI is spot on for the most part
So the issue is not some existentialist disaster ahead for humanity from ‘out of control’ super intelligent AI machines – an existential crisis is more likely from climate change. The real issue is who controls the means of production (AI). Rather than develop AI to make profits, reduce jobs and the livelihoods of humans, AI under common ownership and planning could reduce the hours of human labour for all and free humans from toil to concentrate on creative work that only human intelligence can deliver.
While the claims of AGI and “Superintelligence” are unfalsifiable, and basically marketing hype by the AI monopoly (Timnit Grebru’s critique for the last ten years https://x.com/timnitgebru/status/2100282339427496170?s=46, also work by AI Now Institute ) there are are real threats to workers being experienced now – rideshare unions reporting loss of income due to Waymo deployment, the fire-rehire cycles https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/09/02/salesforce-ceo-confirms-4000-layoffs-because-i-need-less-heads-with-ai.html (replace thousands of workers with “Agents”, rehire at lower salaries when agentic didn’t work out) that renders work precarious. Capital can “AI” as a weapon against the proletariat.
“Although countless jobs are threatened by AI—the estimates of which vary greatly—work is not so much being displaced overall as being made more contingent and precarious”
But more glaringly, the deep involvement of AI monopolies in genocidal imperialist wars across the earth https://ai-killchain.airwars.org/, and the contribution of unrestrained data center buildout to the “climate catastrophe” referred to by Roberts must also be centered as part of the essential threat posed.
Charles write here 