Matt Bruenig is a socialist lawyer who loves using AI. You might even say he’s the prototypical example of a lefty who takes the contrarian position on AI among those he’s allied with politically. Earlier this year, he told Transformer’s Dan Kagan-Kans, for a piece titled “The left is missing out on AI,” that he was worried about “the left-wing abstaining from using the tools when the right-wing does not.” But it wasn’t abundantly clear to me at the time how it follows that leftist goals like unionizing workplaces, building a working-class movement, or getting leftist politicians elected were supposed to benefit from AI. I still wouldn’t say it’s abundantly clear, but Bruenig has certainly made an intriguing YouTube video about putting Claude Code to leftist uses. He’s a policy wonk, so the video is not for anyone who might be squeamish about watching a 51-minute video about statistical weighting, but if you can get over that hump, I recommend it:
The background is that a recent Wall Street Journal article profiled young people moving in with their parents. It framed the idea not as the hardship it once was, but almost as a frugal no-brainer, and a strategy smart young people are employing to, perhaps, regroup following a breakup, or “save money for a starter home.” I heard some drive time DJs talking about this viral article on the radio earlier this month, and while part of it was about the undeniably true fact that housing is too expensive in America, the part about a cultural change just didn’t feel accurate.
