1/ I work in automation (Autonomous Driving). Of course, no analysis of technology is complete w/o accounting for the economic & political system in which it's developed & deployed.

When we do this, it is clear Bernie Sanders's politics is the best path for emerging automation

2/ Firstly, it would be unwise to discuss the dolphin that is automation w/o at least mentioning the whales that are trade policies + large scale financialization of the economy - both resulting in capital flight & deindustrialization to a far greater degree than automation.

3/ In both those latter factors, Sanders emerges as the one with policies that are most pro-labor, a topic for another time. Now, onto automation.

4/ It must first be noted that if we were seeing sweeping labor replacement by automation as described by alarmists, we'd see a huge spike in productivity; however, it has dropped compared to a few decades ago. Nonetheless, we must address automation's effects on the labor market

5/ Automation is capitalism's terminal fallacy in full glory. Finally, capitalism can be honest about its disdain for labor & the status of labor as "liabilities" on a balance sheet, while robots are "assets" of course.

No more labor strike beatdowns, just surgical replacement.

6/ However, independently, automation is simply a means. A means of production. Who controls, manages and benefits from it is the pertinent question.

This is the persistent struggle between owners-workers, employers-employees, now in the robot domain.

7/ Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act, Corporate Accountability and Democracy plan are excellent approaches to grow worker power and ownership in companies and spur co-operatives (where employees own and control the wealth created by their own work).

8/ There is only two sources of wealth - nature and labor. Under automation, this remains consistent. The joke in the automation industry is that automation is a very manual process: ...

9/ ... a whole range of companies, their suppliers, indirectly assisting contractors come together to produce automation tech: software engineers/technicians/data labelling/manual annotation/mechanics/writers/drivers transporting the equipment/janitors in the data-centers

10/ The workers must collectively own this wealth distributed through dividends etc. & possibly contribute to a different pool for workers in ancillary industries likely to be affected by automation

Automating under the market's "wisdom" is thoughtless profiteering. Nothing more

11/ Further, in the near-medium term, Sanders' Federal Jobs Guarantee for all projects that the market neglects-infrastructure, home care, teachers etc. is not going to be automated soon. Eg- We are far far off from fully automating rail construction & this work is badly needed

12/ And please don't talk about concerns about General AI. Do you also want to talk about your favorite ice-cream flavor in the Andromeda Galaxy? https://medium.com/discourse/elon-musk-a-i-and-nuclear-weapons-7546e1c34152

13/ In summation, narrow AI tech must emancipate human labor from routine work and free it to pursue other interests, while returning the wealth produced by automated labor to those who work directly, or indirectly, on the robots & adjacent work.

14/ A UBI could be useful here - if it's Universal and UNCONDITIONAL - no Sophie's Choice like that of Andrew Yang's, no regressive VAT; rather, through a wealth tax, or automation fund, drawn from the aforementioned pools and distributed to everyone.

15/ Yang's myopic, superficial UBI (not Unconditional) simply preserves labor exploitation, does not challenge surplus value theft, nor capital empowerment under automation

A "choice" to leave one exploitative employer to another is no choice. A child can see this systemic point

16/ Bernie Sanders is the one to lay the groundwork for these political,economic,legislative shifts. Much of this work will carry on long after a presidency.

Going from humans serving capitalists to robots serving humans must be the goal, and Sanders shows the way.

#NotMeUs