Karl Marx’ technologiekritiek in tijden van AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming the world of work. Especially for knowledge workers, the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) constitutes an imminent threat to their livelihoods. However, debates over automation and cognitive deskilling are not new. The rapid industrialization of British manufacturing in the 19th century had already stirred social unrest and academic debate about these topics. In response, Karl Marx formulated a conflict-based institutionalist theory of technological development that can inform our understanding of AI’s impact on work today. According to Marx, technological innovation is the product of power struggles between managers and workers over the coordination of the labour process. In his view, capital investments tendentially flow to those technological innovations that promise to undercut the bargaining power of workers. Technological development is a tactic for managers to cut labour costs by replacing workers with machines, increase labour productivity, and deskill the remaining workforce. However, viewing technological development as an arena of social struggle also reveals emancipatory potentialities. Rather than rejecting technological innovation completely, Marx argued that strengthening the collective power of workers influences the course of technological development in workers’ favour. By granting workers more control over the financing, design and implementation of new technologies, a novel technological apparatus could emerge that supports human development rather than subsuming humankind under the control of unaccountable machines.