The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism

Abstract

‘The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism’ expands on the historical episodes outlined in the article by Engster and Moore in the current Special Issue, to develop the historical materialist critique of the history of ideas leading up to and during the eras of artificial intelligence, but also as a way to critique the contemporary moment where machines are ascribed autonomous intelligence. Specifically, the history of the ideational manufacturing of human intelligence demonstrates a pattern of interest in calculation and computation, intelligent human and machinic behaviours that are, not surprisingly, ideologically aligned with capitalism. The simultaneous series of machinic and technological invention and related experiments shows how machines not only facilitate the processes of normalisation of what is considered intelligent behaviours, via both human and machinic intelligence, but also facilitate and enable the integration of capitalism into everyday work and life. Intelligent behaviours are identified as the capacity for quantification and measure and are limited to aspects of thinking and reasoning that can provide solutions to, for example, obstacles in the production and extraction of surplus value, based on the specific postulations and assumptions highlighted in this piece. Today, ideas of autonomous machinic intelligence, seen in the ways artificial intelligence is incorporated into workplaces outlined in the sections below, facilitate workplace relations via intelligent behaviours that are assistive, prescriptive, descriptive, collaborative, predictive and affective. The question is, given these now autonomous forms of intelligence attributed to machines, who/what is looking in the mirror at whose/which reflection?