This is tech. This is how it has always been. From Archemedes to DaVinci to Edison to Ford, technologists are always captured to serve the interests of those in power. Most modern technologists don't want to believe this. They grew up building an Internet that had a bit of countercultural flair to it and undermined a few subsets of entrenched elites (mass media, taxi cartels, etc.), so they convinced themselves that they could control society under their wise hands. Except the same thing that always happened happened: the powers that be are now treating tech the way tech treats everyone else.
It made sense to ponder given HN attracts people with the hacker mindset (the drive of curiosity to understand how things work and how to improve them, not merely accepting the status quo as gospel like the dry monkeys) and frustration is a good signal that something could be improved.
Wealth of Nations (read past pg 50, unlike most current economists)
Das kapital, as a critique to Smith's writing.
Communist manifesto, to understand the point of the laborer, and not capital.
Read about worker cooperatives and democracy in the workplace, including Mondragon corp in Spain.
(One of the largest problems we have with any economic system is that none can properly model infinites. The cost of creating new is expensive be it art or science. But cost of copying is effectively 0. I can highlight the problem, but I have no good solution. But OpenAI's response is 'let us ignore copyright law' which wrongs creators.)
This is tech. This is how it has always been. From Archemedes to DaVinci to Edison to Ford, technologists are always captured to serve the interests of those in power. Most modern technologists don't want to believe this. They grew up building an Internet that had a bit of countercultural flair to it and undermined a few subsets of entrenched elites (mass media, taxi cartels, etc.), so they convinced themselves that they could control society under their wise hands. Except the same thing that always happened happened: the powers that be are now treating tech the way tech treats everyone else.