Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share James Steinhoff, "Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
James Steinhoff, "Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) 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.
Reuben Niewenhuis works as a software developer for a warehouse automation company. He double majored in computer science and philosophy at Calvin University. In addition to philosophical theory, he is interested in interdisciplinary topics.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
View all episodes
By Marshall Poe
4
2626 ratings
Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) 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.
Reuben Niewenhuis works as a software developer for a warehouse automation company. He double majored in computer science and philosophy at Calvin University. In addition to philosophical theory, he is interested in interdisciplinary topics.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
More shows like New Books in Economics
View all
EconTalk
4,223 Listeners
New Books in History
209 Listeners
LSE: Public lectures and events
272 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
193 Listeners
New Books in Military History
162 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
161 Listeners
New Books in Anthropology
49 Listeners
New Books in Environmental Studies
18 Listeners
New Books in Sociology
46 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
110 Listeners
New Books in Native American Studies
104 Listeners
The LRB Podcast
292 Listeners
New Books in Critical Theory
143 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
61 Listeners
Conversations with Tyler
2,388 Listeners
Odd Lots
1,775 Listeners
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
376 Listeners
Hidden Forces
1,436 Listeners
Capitalisn't
526 Listeners
Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer
1,507 Listeners
The Pie: An Economics Podcast
174 Listeners
Ones and Tooze
342 Listeners
The Foreign Affairs Interview
413 Listeners
"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg
145 Listeners
The Economics Show
115 Listeners