Assuming that its accomplishments include moving manufacturing back into the US and securing the border, what good could come of a populist movement? The interests of the American labor aristocracy would just be consolidated with Imperialism to an even greater extent, and any conflict against China would see no resistance from organized labor because of the incestuous relation of the MIC and organized labor. Any anti-war movement would have no power at all, there would be no positive argument for stopping the conflict when it keeps everyone employed as contrast to the current state of unemployment and precarious work.
Potential benefits include the cessation of the export of capital, less capacity for the US to project power across the world, and less state repression of anti-imperialist movements. But I can’t help but think that if the US pulled its production out of Asia, South America, Africa, and the Pacific, it would redo Gladio/Bloodstone to prop up fascists to hold down anti-imperialist movements, or create a dozen Israels to keep a way to quickly kill nascent revolutions. Am I wrong?
But that leaves an existing chip industry to be nationalised if needed, having an ongoing hype around AI just helps keeping the necessary investment down.
If you are talking about Lavender that’s hardly a military use. They basically built an elaborate RNG as an ethical fig leaf for their indiscriminate bombing and called it “AI” to gain credibility from the ongoing hype cycle. That’s more of a political use than a military one I would say.
They must knowI hope they know it’s bullshit, so then the only realistic use-case left is justification of their actions towards the growing number of AI believers.