CONTROL AT WORK in the Age of AI

You are warmly invited to join us for the 2025 edition of the Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education’s annual winter lecture! We are overjoyed to be welcoming Nicole Aschoff to deliver this year’s lecture.  This event marks the third edition of the school’s annual winter lecture, held in the memory of the late Leo Panitch. 

Artificial intelligence will bring the final destruction of good jobs. Soon all jobs will be subject to elimination or degradation! Or so we are told. This technologically determinist vision, while pervasive, ignores the power of working people to shape the future.   

What exactly is artificial intelligence? And how is it being used to restructure work? More importantly, how can ordinary people fight for, and win, control in the workplace? 

This wide-ranging discussion will examine the modern landscape of work, drawing on the lessons from the past to better prepare for the struggles over automation and artificial intelligence ahead.  

When - Saturday March 1 - Doors: 7:15pm, Start: 7:30pm.

Where - Gymnasium, Trinity St. Paul’s United Church, Toronto. 

How - Register for free via tickettailor.

Nicole Aschoff is an educator, writer, and editor. She is author of The Smartphone Society: Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age and is currently Publishing Director of Verso Books. Her work can be found at nicoleaschoff.com

Discussants

Sam Gindin was research director of the Canadian Auto Workers from 1974–2000 and is a member of the Socialist Project. He is co-author (with Leo Panitch) of The Making of Global Capitalism (Verso), and co-author with Leo Panitch and Steve Maher of The Socialist Challenge Today, the expanded and updated American edition (Haymarket).

Tori Fleming is a PhD student at York University as well as a member of the Socialist Project and Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903. Her research focuses on Amazon's infrastructures of surveillance where she analyzes the ways in which the surveillance of workers informs the surveillance of customers.

Accessibility

Trinity St. Paul’s United Church is located next to Spadina Station in downtown Toronto. All main floor rooms and washrooms are wheel-chair accessible via an entry ramp.

 We kindly ask all attendees to refrain from wearing scented products. Wearing a mask is optional but encouraged at Leo Panitch School events. Masks will be made available for all who may need one. 

Any questions regarding accessibility, participation, or programming can be directed to info@leopanitchschool.ca.