Artificial campaign and the intelligence of capitalism

During and soon after the UK general election of 2024 social media users expressed their disdain for the outgoing Conservative government by using the newly available image creation AI apps Shutterstock, Midjourney and Chatbot.
Notwithstanding the plethora of comments on the Conservatives’ mismanaged and at times disastrous campaign, a series of artificially generated images were posted on social media platforms mainly on X, Reddit and Instagram depicting prominent Conservative politicians doing jobs and performing tasks generally associated with low paid and migrant labour.
Under the titles “AI Re-imagines Tory Politicians in Regular Life”, “AI has the created the politician as an immigrant”, and “Tories without the privilege” this series of images show former ministers and senior Conservatives as Deliveroo riders, janitors, bar staff, street cleaners, and refugees among other recognisable social roles and professions allegedly below the high status of a politician.
By deploying cultural and media sociology (Alexander, 2003) as a distinctive method of analysis and drawing on the theoretical elaborations of Marx’s “division of labour” and Hayek’s “connectionism” the paper makes three distinctive yet interconnected arguments. First, this series of AI generated images communicates in a strong and dismissive manner the low social status associated with employment in the gig economy. Second, the ethnic background of Conservative politicians reinforces the dominant political thinking and popular belief that essential service jobs are and should only be performed by immigrants. Third, AI is not designed to imitate biological intelligence but the intelligence of labour and social relations.