AI for Good? Please! That's Like Green Capitalism, Electric Cars Powered by Child Labor in Congo, and so on

Aukusti Asikainen

07 Feb 2026 — 1 min read

AI is a tool; it’s a great one, like fire, printing press, and so on. But why do we use it only to create capital? Could there be other, not-so-bullshit ways to enjoy life?

In 2025, AI was cited as a contributing factor in nearly 55,000 U.S. layoffs, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, because our symbolic order is so tightly structured around money.

Every new tool gets captured the second it arrives. The first, and definitely the loudest, most dominant question is “How many people can we cut from the payroll?” What are the savings?” Not “How can we reduce alienation or expand freedom, stop class antagonisms, and so on.

AI for good? Sure, like green capitalism: we destroy the planet faster with electric cars, then feel good because the dashboard says 'zero emissions' while the cobalt mines in Congo laugh in the background.

Capital doesn’t deploy machines or moderns to liberate us; it deploys them to get more capital. This perverse cycle only tightens our symbolic order around capital, not on the problems of society and whatnot.

That’s why AI is mostly taking jobs right now, definitely not some sci-fi shit where the robots win, but because money is the unchallenged master signifier. Every other value tends to fade away; this isn't a side effect.

If our master were different, if we contested and displaced money as the nodal point, AI could be directed towards boring paperwork, shit jobs, maybe resolving world hunger by optimizing crop growth, and so on.

These aren’t fantasies, “AI for good” initiatives already exist (ITU’s AI for Good platform showcases biodiversity tracking, medical diagnostics in low-resource areas, disaster response optimization), but they remain marginal because they don’t feed the hungry discourse of capital.

But right now the loop is closed. Capital’s discourse runs hot and hungry; AI just feeds it faster.

Reference:

Challenger, Gray & Christmas. (2026, February 7). Job Cut Announcement Report: January 2026. https://www.challengergray.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CR126007123.pdf

The Camel through the Eye of the Needle: Or, How American Christianity Learned to Enjoy Its Symptom

In the US, the old Puritan ideals of commitment to faith and “divine favour” through hard work (e.g., the Protestant work ethic) have morphed into modern prosperity gospel teachings, which hold that money is a sign of God’s blessing and so on. This majorly clashes with Jesus’s

Trigger Warnings for the Class Struggle: Or, Why Safe Spaces Are the New Opium of the Left

It’s not a far reach to say that PC (politcal correctness) enforces a subtle totalitarianism through its logic of “I know better what you really want.” It demands internal sincerity, not just external politeness, alongside the social coercion that feels non-authoritarian but is more insidious. As Žižek (1997) argues

Problem with falsifiability, why is psychoanalysis scientific?

I’ve heard now too many times how psychoanalysis is unscientific and I wanted to express my thoughts on the issue. Especially why falsifiability is not a good indicator whether or not a thing is scientific or not. That fucking word (falsifiability) keeps getting thrown around like it's

Read more

The Camel through the Eye of the Needle: Or, How American Christianity Learned to Enjoy Its Symptom

Trigger Warnings for the Class Struggle: Or, Why Safe Spaces Are the New Opium of the Left

Problem with falsifiability, why is psychoanalysis scientific?