Frank Engster and Phoebe V Moore

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is being touted as a new wave of machinic processing and productive potential. Building on concepts starting with the invention of the term artificial intelligence in the 1950s, now, machines can supposedly not only see, hear, and think, but also solve problems and learn, and in this way, it seems that actually there is a new form of humiliation for humans. This article starts with a historical overview of the forerunners of artificial intelligence, where ideas of how intelligence can be formulated according to philosophers and social theorists begin to enter the work sphere and are inextricably linked to capitalist production. However, there always already has been an artificial intelligence in power in, on the one hand, technical machines and the social machine money, and on the other, humans, making both sides (machines and humans), an interface of their mutual capitalist socialisation. The question this piece addresses is, then, what kind of capitalist socialisation will the actual forms of artificial intelligence bring?

Keywords

Artificial intelligence, capitalism, Hegel, Marx, technology, work

From: Capital & Class 2020 44 (2)

Editor: Wang Yi