automation

In the Introduction to Augmented Exploitation, co-editors Phoebe Moore and Jamie Woodcock point up two main problems with how automation and artificial intelligence are being discussed as the end of the first quarter of the 21st century draws near. Number one is the claim that Al is changing the labor process in new and unprecedented ways. But capitalists have always introduced machines in order to increase the amount of what each worker can produce in a given period of time. This is where the second problem comes in—either a certain process will be automated, or it will not—a binary that focuses on machines and not on the workers who operate them. Rather than the prospects of automation and interpretive learning replacing workers, we need rather to see that these are augmentations of the labor process. Also discussed will be two of the many vital essays from this year's Socialist Register—Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living.