The AfD’s AI Delusion: How Germany’s Far Right Fantasizes About AI Replacing Migrants

Just like JD Vance speech in Munich, the AfD’s electoral program is not just inhumane – it’s completely incoherent. This is not a bug, it's a feature.

Let me start by stating the obvious: you don’t need to read the AfD’s program to understand its ideology. German courts have rightfully labeled aspects of the AfD’s ideology (and leadership) violent, inhumane, and fascist. Even engaging with their platform at the level of policy, risks lending it undue legitimacy. That’s why initially, I had no intention of delving into their political program.

Yet reading it proved revealing. Because the AfD’s position on tech is paradigmatic of the party’s broader agenda: not just cruel, but utterly nonsensical. Just like JD Vance’s ideologically incoherent speeches in Munich and Paris this week, this incoherence isn’t an oversight – it’s a strategy.

The AfD’s position on AI is a striking example.

AI features prominently in almost every party’s platform this German election, and the AfD is no exception. Unsurprisingly, the AfD’s desire to leave the European Union, the party opposes any form of tech regulation at the European level. It rejects the European AI Act outright and dismisses EU-led industrial policy aimed at stimulating growth and innovation as bureaucratic overreach. The party does envision world-leading AI, but “made in Germany,” and fueled by cheap energy (a nod to climate denialism). In line with its neoliberal wing, the AfD opposes subsidies for technology (especially microchips), claiming innovations like the internet emerged spontaneously and without government funding. True to its anti-immigration core, the AfD sees AI as a way to reduce Germany’s reliance on non-EU migrants, using automation to address the skilled labor shortage. Strangely, the platform also includes a nod to AI’s risks to civil liberties—perhaps thrown in for good measure.

None of this makes any sense! Different AI regulation in every EU country would be a bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention the economic cost and turmoil of a German Brexit. No amount of cheap energy will change the fact that almost all German AI companies buy their chips from US tech giant Nvidia, who outsource their chip production to Taiwan. The Internet was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense to create a resilient communication network for military purposes - a textbook example for state investment in frontier technology and fundamental research. And whether AI can precisely replace those kinds of workers the AfD wants to keep out of the country (while keeping the jobs of their voter base) is highly dubious (and racist).

Political pundits and mainstream political parties often fall into the trap of trying to make sense of what was never meant to be coherent. Pointing out such contradictions won’t dissuade anyone from voting for the AfD—and that’s exactly the point.

Reading the AfD’s program reminded me of Umberto Eco’s famous essay on “ur-fascism,” where he argues that contradiction isn’t incidental to fascism but central to its nature. Fascism thrives not on consistent ideological principles but on emotional appeal and myth. Contradictions become a strength, enabling it to adapt to different contexts and co-opt diverse groups by promising everything to everyone: Global AI leadership and isolationism. AI automation for skilled migrants and job security for unskilled Germans.

When someone like JD Vance or Elon Musk endorses the AfD or provides them with a free platform, we tend to fixate on the contradictions: the electric car tsar meets the combustion engine party. But that misses the point. He’s not endorsing them for their policy positions. He’s endorsing them for their contradictions. He’s betting on a more fragmented EU, a weaker state, and dysfunctional institutions that can be exploited, and that won’t stand in the way of his business interests. There’s profit to be made in chaos.

This column originally appeared in MIT Tech Review Germany on February 14, 2025