Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry
()
About this ebook
This book argues that Marxist theory is essential for understanding the contemporary industrialization of the form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning. It includes a political economic history of AI, tracking how it went from a fringe research interest for a handful of scientists in the 1950s to a centerpiece of cybernetic capital fifty years later. It also includes a political economic study of the scale, scope and dynamics of the contemporary AI industry as well as a labour process analysis of commercial machine learning software production, based on interviews with workers and management in AI companies around the world, ranging from tiny startups to giant technology firms. On the basis of this study, Steinhoff develops a Marxist analysis to argue that the popular theory of immaterial labour, which holds that information technologies increase the autonomy of workers from capital, tending towards a post-capitalist economy, does not adequately describe the situation of high-tech digital labour today. In the AI industry, digital labour remains firmly under the control of capital. Steinhoff argues that theories discerning therein an emergent autonomy of labour are in fact witnessing labour’s increasing automation.
James Steinhoff
James Steinhoff is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. His dissertation is about work in the artificial intelligence industry, and he has published on the philosophical connections between Marxism and transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and media theory. He is the co-author of Inhuman Power (Pluto, 2019).
Related to Automation and Autonomy
Related ebooks
Karl Marx's Writings on Alienation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism, Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarxism versus Liberalism: Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClass Struggle: A Political and Philosophical History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Do You Know About Karl Marx?: What Do You Know?, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Communist Manifesto (SparkNotes Philosophy Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnderstanding Marxism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marx: A Beginner's Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Political Thought of C.B. Macpherson: Contemporary Applications Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory and Human Existence—From Marx to Merleau-Ponty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magical Marxism: Subversive Politics and the Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History, Power, Ideology: Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marxisms in the 21st Century: Crisis, critique and struggle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Specter of Democracy: What Marx and Marxists Haven't Understood and Why Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCritique of the Gotha Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Between Utopia and Tyranny - Fascination and Terror of Communism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvolutionary Sociology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing: Nature and Revolution in Marcuse's Philosophy of Praxis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarxism and Anarchism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Introducing Marxism: A Graphic Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marxism: A Graphic Guide: A Graphic Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Critical theory and demagogic populism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Brazilian Left in the 21st Century: Conflict and Conciliation in Peripheral Capitalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBook Review: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The founding text of communism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPatriarchy of the Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anarchism: A Beginner's Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
History & Theory For You
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reconstruction Updated Edition: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-18 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Origins Of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prince: Second Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary Guide: The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene | The Mindset Warrior Summary Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Minds for the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wretched of the Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/59/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, 5th edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Reason Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Is Administrative Law Unlawful? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On War: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Socialism . . . Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bloodbath Nation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Automation and Autonomy
0 ratings0 reviews