Technological development and innovation have been the driving force of human civilisation. With change in technologies, the production process, labour process and measurement of human contribution to social product undergoes change. The current phase of digital technology with AI as the emerging general-purpose technology is also going to radically alter the production process. Technological innovations either reduce the cost of production of existing goods and services, innovate new products or create new use values which didn’t exist earlier and can reduce the circulation time of goods and services by reducing transaction or transportation costs. All these in some way or the other reduce direct human effort or labour in the world of production and distribution.

In the recent phase of technological development, we experience a change in technology which was envisaged by Marx as a logical progression of technological development. In the context of large-scale industries, in Grundrisse, Marx discussed the possibility of drastic decline in direct human labour in the process of production, when human beings act as observers and supervisors of a mechanised process and direct human labour seizes to be the measure of human contribution in the social product. Instead of specific skills and learning by producing, it is science and knowledge in general or the ‘general intellect’ that assumes the role of key productive power in capitalism. Marx in Grundrisse argues ‘Real wealth manifests itself, rather—and large industry reveals this—in the monstrous disproportion between the labour time applied, and its product, as well as in the qualitative imbalance between labour, reduced to a pure abstraction, and the power of the production process it superintends. . . . In this transformation, it is neither the direct human labour he [the worker] himself performs, nor the time during which he works, but rather the appropriation of his own general productive power . . . which appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth. The theft of alien labour time, on which the present wealth is based, appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by large-scale industry itself.’

Knowledge Economy

The current wave of new technology with AI emerging as the general-purpose technology is knowledge based. This does not imply earlier technologies didn’t require knowledge to be produced. The point is the changed contribution of knowledge in the production process. Earlier technologies substituted physical labour by machines. New intelligent machines not only replace physical labour but also internalise part of mental labour. Most importantly, transformation of use-values involves a process which is much less related to the physicality of the product, that is change in materials and components, and is rather on imparting additional features that involve mental processes. Marx in Grundrisse argued that over time the product of knowledge such as tools, chemicals or machines becomes less important, it is science and the general intellect itself that becomes the most important productive power. In this process, capital not only controls machines and resources but subordinates science and knowledge by way of having control over its key resource, data. In the era of digital technology, data emerges as the new oil of human civilisation. The flow of data is largely produced by human interactions including those in digital platforms. People interact in social media and create large amounts of data free of cost which is appropriated as raw material to identify patterns of choices of consumers. Control over big data hence is all about establishing control over human choices both present and future. Therefore, colonising the human mind to serve the interest of capital is the ultimate purpose of new technology under capitalism.

Cognitive labour involved in the production of knowledge goods is sometimes considered to be different from traditional labour as it produces knowledge products which are ‘immaterial’ goods. But this labour is not immaterial as it also involves expenditure of muscles, nerves and brain. Knowledge is not produced out of thin air. But the distinctive feature of cognitive labour is that its contribution cannot be comprehended by crude measures of employed labour time. As mental processes become relatively more important in the production of new use values, the distinction between work time and non-work time is increasingly blurred. A designer, a software programme or an AI expert cannot stop thinking beyond working hours. In fact, the skill related to such work is nurtured in non-work time through a separate process of thinking and learning. More importantly as the intensity of knowledge in the process of production increases, the dependence of production on the ‘general intellect’ rises. Knowledge increasingly becomes social. Using the internet, one can get access to an infinite flow of data and ideas produced from across the world. Production gets increasingly socialised. Digital platforms mediate an infinite space of human interactions which is used in producing knowledge goods. However, the profits and rents marshalled through knowledge production are being appropriated by a few tech giants who own the massive flow of data. Resources such as coal, oil or iron ore or other minerals are in specific geography and establishing control over that space or region was enough to have monopoly control over those resources. But data flows worldwide and that requires planetary control. Hence concentration and centralisation of capital reaches unprecedented levels in the current phase of technological development.

Towards a New Society

Knowledge is non-rival in nature. It is different from all other resources because it does not deplete by its use. The content of the book does not decrease if one reads it. Rather the reader may add some more dimensions to the existing book and interpret it in a way which was not considered in the existing text. Hence knowledge thrives through sharing and interacting. New technology also depends on a feedback mechanism that adds users’ contribution of new data to the process. This involves greater socialisation of production which cuts across the conventional divisions of work and non-work time. Production becomes increasingly collaborative and instead of depending on individual skills it is becoming more dependent on the appropriation of the general productive power and collective knowledge. Also, use of technology is expected to drastically reduce use of direct human labour. This is the purpose of technology. But reducing human effort does not necessarily reduce employment. In fact, it simply ensures that the same output can be produced with less direct human effort. Such change should actually reduce necessary work time and increase ‘free time’. Working hours in a day or working days in a week may be reduced by deploying a new technology that works faster.

But this hardly happens with the use of new technology under capitalism. Capital relations give rise to an altogether different outcome: a smaller number of workers would be working the same or more working hours while many workers lose jobs in the process. This is because the capitalist who owns the technology is in the race of realising the value of investment as fast as possible with a fear that a new vintage of technology may emerge that would be outcompeting the existing ones. Therefore, to extract the surplus as fast as possible working hours hardly decrease rather may be extended with the introduction of new technology. On the other hand, if the technology and resources are socially owned the use of general intellect would not be subordinated to narrow interests of profit making. Necessary working hours would decline, and free time of human beings would increase. Liberating knowledge-based technologies from the pursuit of private profit will ensure faster progress of such technology. Also reducing direct human effort in the process of production under socialised ownership would not lead to unemployment and misery of the majority but give rise to increased space for free time that facilitates creative power. Knowledge based production therefore is consistent with a production relation that relies more on collaboration and sharing. Such a society should retain the autonomy of direct producers to democratically decide what is to be produced and what not and organise distribution of gains through the principles of solidarity. Technologies, however, do not change societies. They only create the need for such change. Social change can be achieved only through radically altering the capital relation based on private property, replacing it by socialised production and distribution which gradually gives rise to a community of associated producers who determine their own future.