What if imperialism no longer needs humans in the age of AI?

In last week's article, we discussed the historical development of imperialism, the new power struggle between the US and China, and the potential power struggle between traditional financial capital and the rising technology capital.

The tools of imperialism have changed throughout history. Territorial occupations, colonies, financial dependency, debt, technology monopolies...

Now, artificial intelligence and robots could change not only these tools but also the economic logic of imperialism. For the first time in history, we are on the threshold of a production order where the need for human labor could be significantly reduced.

In such a world, what will happen to the need for the countries and people that imperialism exploits?

AFRICA'S MINES, AFRICA'S POVERTY

I do not want to squeeze Turkey, which is in the grip of imperialism, into this article. I will address Turkey's anti-imperialist struggle, how it later fell into the grip of imperialism, and a manifesto attempt for Turkey in the transition to the age of artificial intelligence under a separate heading.

For now, let's look at Africa. A significant portion of the world's strategic minerals is located on the African continent. Africa is extremely rich in cobalt, copper, manganese, platinum group metals, gold, and various critical minerals.

These minerals are used in electric cars, batteries, energy systems, electronic devices, and advanced technologies. But the countries where these minerals are extracted have very limited say in the development and marketing of the high value-added technologies produced from these raw materials.

If one could become rich by selling minerals as raw materials, African countries would be among the richest in the world today.

In the age of artificial intelligence, this inequality could grow even further. In the twenty-first century, economic independence means not just owning the mine, but having a say in the value chain that extends from the mine to the algorithm.

The dependency of countries that own their own mines but cannot process them, cannot develop the technology, and cannot receive a sufficient share of the economic return of the final product will continue. For this reason, it is of great importance to process natural resources in the countries where they are found, transform them into advanced technology, establish local research infrastructure, and develop partnerships that provide technology transfer.

Now let's look at the most expensive link in this chain.

HOW MANY COUNTRIES CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RACE?

In a Bloomberg report dated October 12, 2026, it is calculated that a 1-gigawatt artificial intelligence data center in the US state of Texas would cost approximately 30 billion dollars, including advanced chips and other hardware.

According to the same research, more than 60 gigawatts of new data center capacity is expected to be built in the US over the next four years. With a simple calculation: 60 gigawatts × 30 billion dollars = we are talking about an investment of 1.8 trillion dollars.

Of course, this is an approximate calculation based on the assumption that every gigawatt will be built at the same cost. But it shows the scale of the race. Moreover, sufficient energy production capacity, electrical transmission grids, and trained human resources are also required for investments of this scale to be realized.

Elon Musk has a prediction: Running artificial intelligence data centers in space using solar energy... If such a technology becomes a reality, a new power struggle could emerge over access to space, orbital infrastructure, and energy technologies.

How many countries in the world have the capital, technology, and energy infrastructure to participate in the race for the most advanced technology and infrastructure?

We are talking about a limited group of countries led by the US and China, with a few other major economies potentially joining. Maybe five, maybe ten countries...

What will the countries left out of the race do? What will be the situation of the countries that finish last in the artificial intelligence race, or even those that cannot participate at all?

They will use artificial intelligence. They will benefit from models developed by companies from other countries. They will purchase services by paying subscription fees. But using is one thing, producing and controlling is another...

If a country's economic planning, health system, education, industrial production, and public administration become increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence systems developed by foreign companies, how much freedom of economic and political decision-making will remain?

Let's also look at the economic logic of the matter.

The US and Chinese states, along with the world's largest technology companies, are making trillions of dollars in investments in the artificial intelligence race. So why should they share the wealth these investments will create with the rest of the world, especially for free?

These companies are not charities. A significant portion of the large technology companies, especially in the US, are publicly traded. Shareholders want to see the return on their investments as higher profits and company values.

Indeed, in October 2026, there were sharp sell-offs in artificial intelligence companies and technology stocks on American stock exchanges. Investors are questioning whether massive data center and artificial intelligence spending can provide sufficient returns. Although the profits of some companies are increasing, there are serious concerns about the size of the investments, borrowing costs, and future cash flows.

Now let's return to Elon Musk's prediction.

Musk says that artificial intelligence and robots will increase production so much that people will not have to work and will be able to meet their needs easily. He even talks about a future where money might lose its importance. But what is the equivalent of this in today's capitalist economy?

We are already paying subscription fees to use artificial intelligence applications. Those who want to access more powerful models, higher usage capacity, and advanced features are asked to pay more.

When even the services offered by artificial intelligence today are not free, why should we assume that the automobiles, housing, food, and other necessities produced by robots tomorrow will be distributed free of charge?

Will the owners of trillions of dollars in investments voluntarily give up the returns on these investments? Will shareholders agree to have the economic wealth generated distributed to all of humanity for free?

Of course, as technology develops, production costs may fall. Many products and services that are expensive today may become very cheap tomorrow. But becoming cheap is one thing, and being free and accessible to everyone is another.

Abundance of production does not automatically mean social abundance. The decisive question in between is ownership. In whose hands will the production power created by artificial intelligence and robots be? Who will decide how the produced wealth will be shared?

Is the world of abundance painted by Musk a future that will happen spontaneously through the functioning of capitalism itself? Or will it be necessary to radically change the ownership of the means of production, income distribution, and economic decision-making mechanisms for such a future to be realized?

Let's ask an even more provocative question: Could this abundance promised to humanity also serve as a candy apple to legitimize today's extraordinary concentration of capital and to cover up the potential problems that artificial intelligence will cause?

We discussed this in previous articles under the headings of social ownership and public ownership. Artificial intelligence rises on the accumulation of scientific and technological knowledge created by all of humanity over centuries. The accumulation of knowledge is the common work of humanity... But the ownership of the massive infrastructure that can transform this knowledge into production power can be concentrated in the hands of a few countries and companies.

One of the new imperialist dependency relationships of the artificial intelligence age is born here.

CAN CAPITALISM DESTROY ITS OWN CONSUMER?

We emphasized this in the first parts of the Utopia and Essays series. We are entering a new era where the share of human labor in production may gradually decrease with the development of artificial intelligence and robots.

Workers are not just an element of the production process. They are also consumers. They buy housing, food, clothing, automobiles, and services with their wages. Capitalist production is not completed only by producing goods. The produced goods must be sold and capital must realize its profit.

If people are excluded from the production process and lose their wage income, who will buy the produced goods? Robots can produce automobiles, but they do not buy them. Artificial intelligence systems can manage factories, but they do not receive wages and go to the market. While trying to get rid of the cost of human labor, capitalism may face the contradiction of weakening, or even going further and eliminating, its own consumer base.

Imperialism needs colonial countries for raw materials and cheap labor. The struggle over strategic minerals, energy, chips, data centers, algorithms, and technological infrastructure may become even fiercer.

Imperialism also uses the countries it exploits as markets. If the purchasing power of billions of people falls, where will the traditional market-sharing struggle of imperialism, which causes wars, evolve in the new era?

The economic logic of imperialism's traditional raw material and market relations may change.

WHAT IF IMPERIALISM NO LONGER NEEDS EVEN HUMANS TO EXPLOIT?

Let's imagine a world where a country's minerals and energy are extremely valuable, but human labor is no longer needed as much as it used to be to extract and process those resources. Moreover, the purchasing power of that country's people is also extremely low.

In such a world, wouldn't the resources of those lands become more valuable to powerful countries and companies than the people living on them?

What will happen if imperialism no longer needs even humans to exploit?

I am asking this question not as a realized fact of today, but as a historical danger that could emerge if artificial intelligence and robots radically change production relations.

Because such an order could increase the danger of exclusion and people being seen as economically unnecessary, beyond exploitation.

Yuval Noah Harari discusses this danger from a different perspective in his book Homo Deus.

According to Harari, the reason states invested in the education, health, and living conditions of the broad masses of people in the twentieth century was not just for humanitarian reasons. Industrial economies needed a trained and healthy workforce. Armies also needed millions of healthy, educated soldiers...

So what if artificial intelligence and robots significantly reduce the need for human labor in production? What if wars are increasingly conducted with unmanned systems?

If the need for a country's people in production and military fields is gradually decreasing, why should the elites who do not need them and the powers that have taken over the state care about their education and health, and why should they spend money on them?

THE US AND CHINA ARE LEADING IN THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RACE

The American state can provide free services and unconditional income to its own citizens who are outside the production process with the taxes it collects from technology companies. American voters may also support such a social policy in their own country.

But would the same voters agree to the transfer of resources to the people of Africa and Latin America who have been excluded from the production process? Can American politicians convince their voters of this?

We can ask the same question for China. Can one country's utopia be built on the exploitation of another country? In the age of artificial intelligence, we are not only facing the problem of income distribution within countries.

We are facing a global distribution problem.

A country providing high prosperity to its own people thanks to artificial intelligence does not mean that the people of other countries will also benefit from this prosperity.

WILL CAPITALISM AND IMPERIALISM DISAPPEAR ON THEIR OWN?

There is one thing history has taught us: In imperialist relations, economic interests and human rights do not develop in the same direction. Technological abundance does not automatically create social equality. It does not eliminate imperialism either. A process is necessary to reach utopia.

Let's assume that artificial intelligence + robots provide a massive increase in production, as Elon Musk predicts. If needs are to be met without people having to work, wouldn't this mean the end of the capitalist mode of production and imperialism? Could it be possible for capitalism and, therefore, imperialism to withdraw from the historical stage so quietly?

Yuval Noah Harari asks a very important question in his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century:

The historical political program of communism was based on a working-class revolution. So, how will this program work in a world of masses who have lost their economic importance in production and are facing being rendered dysfunctional rather than being exploited? How will a working-class revolution take place without a working class?

This question is also important in terms of the utopian communism idea we have been discussing from the beginning. If artificial intelligence and robots create a production order where people do not have to work, some of the basic assumptions of the classic capitalism and socialism debates will need to be rethought.

If capitalism and imperialism no longer need humans as producers and consumers, will the concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat have any meaning? We must develop new economic and social models against the economic and social ruptures that the great technological revolution will cause.

Two different paths are emerging before us.

The first is the danger of a digital fascism where the massive production power created by artificial intelligence and robots is concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies and states, and people are excluded from economic and political decision-making processes.

The second is a new order where the prosperity created by this technological development is used for the benefit of society, where democratic planning and market mechanisms work together, and where economic decisions are opened to social control.

Utopian Communism is perhaps a discussion for a much later stage...

But before reaching that stage, there are much more current questions we need to answer:

The contradictions of capitalism in the age of artificial intelligence...

Searches for alternatives to neoliberalism...

What will we put in place of neoliberalism?

We will discuss these first, and then we will look for what Turkey should do in the age of artificial intelligence, reminding ourselves of the stages of Turkey's salvation, development, and surrender to imperialism.

And then we will enter into the utopia and dystopia scenarios awaiting humanity.