Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry

ISBN-13: 9783030716882 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 245 str.

James Steinhoff

Recenzje

"The author is very clear and concise in showing the reader what his objectives are and are not, and in guiding the reader through the arguments and evidence. He is explicit in reviewing what he has completed and what the next steps will be. The reader should be aware that this book is basically a philosophical treatise. ... It is worth the effort to read this book." (Anthony J. Duben, Computing Reviews, August 1, 2022)

Spis treści

 1. Introduction: Automation, Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence

Your Means of Production

Revolutions

AI in the Real World

Machinery and Marxists

The Central Argument

Computing Machinery

Recursion

What this Book is Not

Chapter Outline

2. Labour, Capital, Machine: Marxist Theory and Technology

Introduction

Political Economy

Marx on Value and Labour

Marx on Machines

The Fragment on Machines

Marxism(s)

Soviet Marxism

Western Marxism

Labour Process Theory

The New Reading of Marx

Cybernetic Capitalism

Conclusion

3. Post-Operaismo and the New Autonomy of Immaterial Labour

Introduction

From Operaismo to Post-operaismo

Post-operaismo

Immaterial Labour Theory

Human-Machine Hybridization

Abstract Cooperation

New Autonomy from Capital

The Technological Argument for New Autonomy

Conclusion

4. Industrializing Intelligence: A Political Economic History of the AI Industry

Introduction

The Historical Context

The Advent of AI Research

The AI Winter

Expert Systems: The First Era of the AI Industry

Strategic Computing: AI and the State Part I

The Decline of Expert Systems

The Rise of Machine Learning

Deep Learning: The Second Era of the AI Industry

Conclusion

5. Machine Learning and Fixed Capital: The Contemporary AI Industry

Introduction

Charting the AI Industry

AI Capital Composition

            AI Tech Giants

            AI Dinosaurs

            AI Startups

            AI Think Tanks

            National AI Strategies: AI and the State Part II

AI Capital Concentration

Open Source AI, Clouds, AI Chips

Labour in the AI Industry

Labour Composition: Race and Gender

AI Labour Organization

Conclusion

6. A Dark Art: The Machine Learning Labour Process

Introduction

The Machine Learning Labour Process

            Stage 1: Data Processing

            Stage 2: Model Building

            Stage 3: Deployment

The Commodity Form of AI

Empirical Control

AI as Automation

The Automation of AI Work

Automated Machine Learning

Synthetic Automation

Other Forms of Automation in Machine Learning

Conclusion

7.New Autonomy and Work in the AI Industry

Introduction

AI Work and Human-Machine Hybridization

AI Work and Abstract Cooperation

AI Work and New Autonomy

Autonomy for What?

Conclusion

8. Conclusion: Harry Braverman Overdrive

Introduction

Theoretical Synthesis

Automation on Steroids

Optimism and Agency

Conclusion

O autorze

James Steinhoff is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Blurb

This book argues that Marxist theory is essential for understanding the contemporary industrialization of the form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning. It includes a political economic history of AI, tracking how it went from a fringe research interest for a handful of scientists in the 1950s to a centerpiece of cybernetic capital fifty years later. It also includes a political economic study of the scale, scope and dynamics of the contemporary AI industry as well as a labour process analysis of commercial machine learning software production, based on interviews with workers and management in AI companies around the world, ranging from tiny startups to giant technology firms. On the basis of this study, Steinhoff develops a Marxist analysis to argue that the popular theory of immaterial labour, which holds that information technologies increase the autonomy of workers from capital, tending towards a post-capitalist economy, does not adequately describe the situation of high-tech digital labour today. In the AI industry, digital labour remains firmly under the control of capital. Steinhoff argues that theories discerning therein an emergent autonomy of labour are in fact witnessing labour’s increasing automation.

James Steinhoff is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, Canada