Capital's new maneuvering space: Artificial intelligence

Since the hunter-gatherer era, the idea of progress by "using one's mind" has been humanity's fundamental "goal"... If you ask how much it has been able to achieve this; as much as it could... Because there are so many things in nature that need to be developed and questioned...

When the human creature, who could stand firmly on two feet during the hunter-gatherer era, first encountered wild fruit trees, they must have eaten until they had a stomachache out of fear that they would never find them again. They questioned; thanks to the ego and then the super-ego, they realized that the tree was not alone in nature. Human nature, which Freud defined with the concept of the id (instinct), attained the questioning of the mind and the development of knowledge (consciousness) much later.

We are experiencing situations similar to the widespread use of steam-powered machines at the beginning of the 19th century (the spinning jenny can also be added), which led to an approximately sevenfold increase in production efficiency and the working class dealing with both wage drops and the scourge of unemployment.

At that time, the working class in Europe tried to respond with "machine-breaking" (Ned Ludd) actions.

Today's artificial intelligence investments show that the pressures on wages and employment continue. This time, workers have no tool at their disposal other than human consciousness. Machine-breaking was not a solution anyway, but this time the situation is more serious.

Because it is a matter of non-productive labor being completely sidelined. Who decides what is non-productive labor? The system, of course..

Because the environment is digital, the programs are from the machine, and the pool is the shadow of the current scientific environment..

However, what can be done for humans to make a difference compared to artificial intelligence is clear.

First, they need to distinguish between information and knowledge, and between correct data and incomplete or incorrect data..

Reaching the knowledge of reality is not easy..

Constant questioning, developing the concrete knowledge reached, and a sense of conscientious responsibility create the necessary and sufficient conditions for the clear superiority of workers and laborers over artificial intelligence..

Ultimately, artificial intelligence can be likened to a pool.

If the knowledge of humanity in that pool is developed with intuition, responsibility, and solidarity, efforts can be made for humans to live in more equal conditions.

THE POWER OF THE WORKING CLASS: PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

It is a fact of life that there are many areas to use leisure time. When we reconfigure today's consumption relationship, the power of the working class actually emerges more in consumption than in production. Because conscious consumption, or selectivity while consuming, can increase productive labor and at the same time reconcile it with nature. Therefore, the "leisure time" that has increased compared to the machine-breaking era will bring consumption to the fore, even if reluctantly. Here, too, the work requires going into such detail that it should not be left to artificial intelligence. People setting aside time for each other can lead to creating a center of power not just through monetary conditions, but by truly wanting this and under appropriate conditions. When this togetherness is realized, artificial intelligence can be a key to productivity for the laborer, not a toy in the hands of capital.

In summary, as capital moves away from the logic of "producing" and "consuming" in its relationship with nature, harmony with nature increases. The issue is to bring the conditions of production and consumption to a level that will ensure human harmony with nature. Then we can grasp the true benefit of artificial intelligence and its historical importance for the working class. This is related to creating new methods in scientific thought. Just as the hunter-gatherer overcame stomachaches with Neanderthal consciousness by creating the conditions, and realized the production revolution through wheat, peas, and corn, today's human can also create equal and free conditions in the productivity increase that artificial intelligence truly adds to production with the consciousness that "borrowed intelligence falls after seven steps."

If we focus on the labor force that capital has entrusted to artificial intelligence for robotization and problem-solving today, we witness that it is not well-intentioned at all and that new conditions of alienation have already begun to form.

Call centers, translation agencies, marketing offices, human resources (whatever that means) departments, and software engineers (at least some of them) are now being shelved very rapidly.

The people in these places will either wait for new lines of business to open up for completely different jobs or they will remain unemployed and resign themselves to their fate.

Aware of the problems brought by this speed, an R&D unit of a white goods manufacturer in Turkey had to fire all its researchers first and then re-hire them. Why? Without humans, the pool has no importance, and there is still a need for those who clean and increase the water rather than those who pollute the pool. Otherwise, surplus value production for capital is no longer a sure thing with artificial intelligence..

The problem is not the development of capital through programs and artificial intelligence tools; it is for humans to benefit from the knowledge pool in more equal conditions and to be happy by creating more equal conditions in the production and consumption relationship. This is possible by meeting the expected productivity increase with artificial intelligence with a more equal distribution of surplus value. (Details in another article.)

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NOTE: AI was not used at all in this article. It should be checked when needed, after all...