By Gordon Hull
“Factory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost; at the same time, it does away with the many-sided play of the muscles, and confiscates every atom of freedom, both in bodily and in intellectual activity” (Marx, Capital I [Penguin Ed.], 548).
A recent piece by Josh Dzieza in the Verge about the working conditions of those subject to discipline by AI in the workplace is wrenching. It tells the story of Amazon workers and call center employees and others whose work lives have become an exhausting monotony of ever-intensifying robot-like demands. The “AI boss” becomes ever more demanding, filling every moment at work with the requirement to be more productive and with absurd metrics for deciding when its demands are met. Amazon workers report that they are basically ground down by the unsustainability of the pace of productivity; they are either fired or forced to quit, often with injuries. Call center employees are subject to Orwellian monitoring by a machine that purports (often laughably inaccurately) to monitor and tweak their affect when speaking to customers. Folks working from home find it impossible to go to the bathroom, because they are forced to sit in front of their computer all the time, which takes frequent pictures of them and reports on their productivity, as measured by lines of code or keystrokes per unit time.
All of this optimized misery reminds us of something important: AI systems are being deployed under capitalism. A worker subject to an “AI Boss” is not some sort of new-fangled social form; they are fundamentally a worker subject to capitalist exploitation. What AI has done is enable capitalism to be more intensively exploitative. The stories in the article echo the stories Marx reports in Capital in his discussion of machinery, as does a lot of the logic. This suggests that two popular narratives about AI need to be displaced. First, it may be that AI will someday swoop in and take away everyone’s jobs. As Dzieza notes, this narrative deflects attention from the pressing reality of deteriorating workplace conditions under AI supervision. Second, Marx’s work on machines and technology is frequently read (as by the autonomists) through the Grundrisse “Fragment on Machines,” and in a way that emphasizes affective labor and cognitive capital. The reality of AI today serves as an important reminder that the treatment in Capital is still very important. Let me explain.
Continue reading "Marx explains how AI systems exploit workers (Part 1)" »
Recent Comments