Will A.I. Bring About Marxist Revolution?

Advice for the future

It appears that we might be wasting our time at university. My generation — which left secondary school in 2022 — was probably the last ignorant of what AI might have in store for us. As we all now sleepwalk through our little degrees with little knowledge of what they might amount to professionally, such a time appears blissfully tranquil.

Our future is much more uncertain than that which our parents anticipated. Lately, however, in a rare bout of optimism, I have clung onto a glimmer of hope: that, in the worst case, Marx might be right.

Now, readers — or might I now say comrades — I must stress that I am not of a woo-woo, Marxist, down-with-capital disposition; had you told me a few years ago that I would come to believe that the advent of socialism was increasingly inevitable, I would have scoffed. Yet now I see us run the risk of falling onto a fatal path which would prove Marx right; let me explain myself.

I do not claim to be an expert on the subject of AI, but as its shadow has grown ever larger, I have tried to keep up with its trajectory, listening to and reading what those in the know have to say about it. There is real debate around the extent to which AI will change the world, whether it is inherently limited in its capacities, and therefore whether the productivity gains it allows will simply increase output or radically slash employment. I recognise all of this, and stress that I am no expert. However, I do hold expertise in one crucial field: pessimism.

We are already seeing the impact which AI is having on the professional market, especially regarding entry-level posts. It has wiped out scores of jobs, from assistants to secretaries to interns. I fail to see how we could avoid it, leaving much of the population, educated or not, with fewer opportunities if they lack a concrete skill (yes, I do fear my degree in Modern History and International Relations might place me in this category).

If one asks what the impact of such a constriction of the job market would be, I only see one: the acceleration of the already-detrimental concentration of wealth into the hands of the few. The few lucky professionals who managed to hold onto their jobs, the already-wealthy, and the new AI-controlling bourgeoisie — with an ever-greater pool of dispossessed people living poorer and poorer lives. In other words, the new AI-powered capitalism will make inequalities reach new peaks.

Therein lies the crux of the problem: inequality, even at historically lower levels, cannot be tolerated by a given economic system. The slightest depression will threaten the stability of a system already flawed.

We very well might arrive at an untenable situation, whereby inequality will lead to resentment and tensions in the general population towards the new oligarchy. The more intelligent and/or democratic systems will either move towards a replacement solution for regular employment (might our future be a mediaevalist agrarian utopia?) or a universal income of sorts. The situation in less flexible and/or more autocratic political systems, unwilling or unable to provide employment and income for the masses, would eventually boil over into revolt, which I can only imagine would be harshly repressed if the beneficiaries of the new status quo have anything to do with it.

Whatever the system or coping mechanism, the majority will always wish to fight against the abject inequality they will experience, and therefore the concentration of production. In the most elementarily-Marxist terms: a class war against the bourgeoisie for the collectivisation of modes of production.

Maybe the socialists of the twentieth century were a bit presumptuous in believing that the final stage of capitalism was that inherited from the robber barons — I don’t think they could have imagined the stage of capitalism we are reaching now, where even (to steal their rhetoric) the exploited masses will be replaced. At least exploitative capitalism gave people something to do; at least it gave them some income.

Now, as I inch closer to thinking Marx was right, my enduring centrism keeps me anchored in the real world and leads me to think there is still hope to prove Marx’s claims wrong. I hope we will not have to put the majority of the world’s population through such suffering before doing anything about it; I hope we have the intelligence to pre-empt all of this by asking ourselves whether individuals — shareholders or CEOs — should be allowed to control a tool as powerful as AI. We don’t allow private individuals or companies to own or develop atomic bombs, so why on Earth would we take the risk of letting them develop a tool as potentially devastating as AI? Well-piloted, in the interest of the public good, it could be a leap forward for humanity; in the hands of voracious business interests, it could devastate us. Maybe the time to think about an ownership solution to guarantee AI’s fair use is now, and maybe it is urgent to do so.

If we are unable to do it now — which, seeing the world’s track record on climate change, is more than probable — it is necessary to prevent those who control AI from exploiting the tools of repression. If the Sam Altmans of the world manage to get our leaders eating out of their hands, protecting them from popular discontent through the means at their disposal, we will be in grave trouble. Given the bleak outlook in that regard (take note of the current American administration’s ties to Big Tech), we must act now while we still can.

I think such an argument can speak to all sides of political thinking, excluding the Musks and Metas. To avoid mass poverty (hello, left), to avoid a revolution which would depossess the wealthy (hello, right), to avoid a bloodbath (hello, anyone with a heart), we must seize the opportunity to regulate AI now before it is too late.

A spectre is haunting humanity — the spectre of AI. All the powers of capitalism have entered into a holy alliance to push AI forward. We have the responsibility to fight for humanity while we can.

 Illustration by Isabelle Holloway