Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry
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Marx's theorisation of the development of a 'general intellect' is not about the dissolution of the law of value within capitalism due to the autonomous cooperation of a diffuse mass-intellectuality, but rather about how the increasing organic composition of capital points towards the possibility of overcoming capitalism in a future communist society.
“Marx's theorisation of the development of a 'general intellect' is not about the dissolution of the law of value within capitalism due to the autonomous cooperation of a diffuse mass-intellectuality, but rather about how the increasing organic composition of capital points towards the possibility of overcoming capitalism in a future communist society, which can, however, only be fully realised th”
From Value and Productive Labour in the Era of Digital Technologies (2024) · cites this paper as Steinhoff 2021
Capital is actively employing new digital technologies such as AI-driven monitoring software to subsume the type of labour termed 'immaterial' by the Autonomist Marxist tradition under the imperative to valorise capital.
“On the contrary, capital, as Steinhoff has demonstrated, is actively employing new digital technologies such as AIdriven monitoring software to subsume the type of labour termed 'immaterial' by the Autonomist Marxist tradition under the imperative to valorise capital (Steinhoff 2021, 187f).”
From Value and Productive Labour in the Era of Digital Technologies (2024) · cites this paper as Steinhoff 2021
The fact that the product of surplus labour is not realised as value on the market does not change the character of work already done within a relation of exploitation; it simply means that valorization has been aborted.
“the circumstance that the product of surplus labour is not realised as value on the market 'does not change the character of work that has already been done within a relation of exploitation' but 'simply means that valorization has been aborted'”
From Value and Productive Labour in the Era of Digital Technologies (2024) · cites this paper as Steinhoff 2021, 58
Digital innovation has been driven to a significant extent by attempts at winning economic competition and increasing profit through usual capitalist methods.
“Digital innovation has been driven to a significant extent by the attempts at winning the economic competition and increasing profit through the usual methods that are used in capitalistic economics”
From Artificial intelligence and work: a critical review of recent research from the social sciences (2024) · cites this paper as Steinhoff 2021
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Chowdhury, S., Budhwar, P., & Wood, G. (2024) · British Journal of Management · doi:10.1111/1467-8551.12824 · Cited by 221 · see citing works
Artificial intelligence and work: a critical review of recent research from the social sciences
Deranty, J.-P., & Corbin, T. (2024) · AI & SOCIETY · doi:10.1007/s00146-022-01496-x · Cited by 118 · see citing works
“…innovation has been driven to a significant extent by the attempts at winning the economic competition and increasing profit through the usual methods that are used in capitalistic economics (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014 for a candid version; Steinhoff 2021 for a critical, Marx-inspired take).”
Data infrastructure studies on an unequal planet
Brodie, P. (2023) · Big Data & Society · doi:10.1177/20539517231182402 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
“…be helpfully related to struggles defined by daily interactions with algorithms, screen media, social media content, and/or labor struggles connected to big tech’s dynamics of just-in-time production, outsourcing of content moderation, and AI labor (see Andrijasevic et al., 2021; Steinhoff, 2021).”
BackgroundNot “what”, but “where is creativity?”: towards a relational-materialist approach to generative AI
Bueno, C. C., Chow, P.-S., & Popowicz, A. (2024) · AI & Society · doi:10.1007/s00146-024-01921-3 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
“(2021, p. 5) This means that automation is not simply a “a choice made by individual managers, but results from the competition inherent in capitalism” (Steinhoff 2021, p. 16).”
InfluentialSteinhoff, J. (2022) · New Media & Society · doi:10.1177/14614448221099217 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Self-citationAI ethics as subordinated innovation network
Steinhoff, J. (2023) · AI & Society · doi:10.1007/s00146-023-01658-5 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
“The inadequacies of the post-operaismo approach have been demonstrated both theoretically and empirically (Pitts 2017) and particularly in the context of the AI industry (Steinhoff 2021), so there is little reason to pursue this interpretation further.”
Self-citationThe impacts of AI futurism: an unfiltered look at AI's true effects on the climate crisis
Schütze, P. (2024) · Ethics and Information Technology · doi:10.1007/s10676-024-09758-6 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“In the U.S., major tech players are Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft (so called ‘GAMAM’), but also older firms such as IBM along with newer startups are growing into the AI sector (Steinhoff, 2021, p. 136).”
InfluentialSimulation and the reality gap: Moments in a prehistory of synthetic data
Steinhoff, J., & Hind, S. (2025) · Big Data & Society · doi:10.1177/20539517241309884 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“…the sale of AI and data commodities, intercapitalist competition and the increased ef fi ciency of, and control over, labor through discipline and the development of automation technologies (Dyer-Witheford et al., 2019; Pasquinelli, 2023; Sadowski, 2019; Steinhoff, 2021; Van der Vlist et al., 2024).”
Self-citationPitts, F. H. (2022) · Capital & Class · doi:10.1177/03098168221139284 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“As a strand of autonomist Marxism, operaists (see Steinhoff 2021: 75–97) have traditionally been interested in ‘the laws of development’ that govern the relationship between two modalities of the composition of the working class, and the ‘forms of behaviour’ that are produced by their interaction…”
BackgroundSteinhoff, J. (2024) · Work in the Global Economy · doi:10.1332/27324176y2024d000000025 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citationArtificial intelligence as primitive accumulation: enclosure, extraction, exploitation
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“There is a rapidly a growing literature in this area (see for example Dyer-Witherford et al. 2019; Healy, 2020; Steinhoff, 2021; Buttolo and Nuss 2022).”
Paci, B. (2024) · Thesis Eleven · doi:10.1177/07255136241292366 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“…processing, especially through the increasing development of automatic machine learning and the gradual shift from the use of historical data to the use of synthetic data (Floridi, 2022: 69 – 77; Steinhoff, 2021: 193 – 200) for machine learning itself, is far from being a solution in this sense.”
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“Although there is an ongoing scholarly debate on how to understand the fragment from Marx’s unpublished notes (e.g. Dyer-Witheford et al. 2019; Fuchs 2016; Hardt & Negri 2000; Steinhoff 2021; Virno 2006; Wendling 2009), I take its main message to be as follows.”
InfluentialPerspectives for a human-centric industry: understanding the social critique of the utopian proposal
Pugnaletto, M. (2024) · AI & Society · doi:10.1007/s00146-024-02085-w · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“…in particular, constitutes an inherently fascinating 1 Notable contributions include analyses by Brynjolfsson and McA-fee (2014), Ford (2015), Srnicek and Williams (2015), Susskind (2020), and Steinhoff (2021), which collectively elucidate the evolving landscape of work in the age of automation.”
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“As Ramtin (1991) suggests, the ‘purpose and aim behind the whole AI industry’ was to ‘reduce the role and quantity of “intellectual” labour’ (65–66) (quoted in Steinhoff 2021, 63).”
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“Steinhoff (2021) utilizes immanentization to understand the political economy of synthetic data.”
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- Authors
- Steinhoff, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Steinhoff, James
- ORCID
- Steinhoff, James
- Venue
- Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Published
- 2021
- ISSN
- 2524-7123 (ISSN-L)
- 2524-7131
- OpenAlex
- W4249096624
- Cited by
- 49
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 7
- FWCI
- 9.90
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Marx, Engels, and Marxisms (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Economy and Marxism
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Marxism and Critical Theory
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
- Keywords
- automation, autonomy, Karl Marx, Marxist theory
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