ai: cultural impacts and impediments to the post–labor

AI: Cultural Impacts and Impediments�to the Post–Labor Society �

Michael Betancourt

Aspen Institute—Germany, Third Annual Berlin AI Conference December 8, 2020 16:55 – 17:55 (CET)

I am going to discuss insights into AI derived �from my analytic work with digital capitalism.�

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This talk is a summary of my book Force Magnifier.

Betancourt | AI: Cultural Impediments and Impacts | Aspen Institute—Germany, December 8, 2020 16:55 – 17:55 (CET)

This talk will discuss seven aspects of AI linked to class distinctions:��[a] Human labor (determinative judgment) ceases to be the foundation of value. ��[b] The model for value production with reflective judgment (design) is fundamentally performative, and so is resistant to automation and increased efficiencies due to both the nature of art/design itself and the socio-cultural role it plays. ��[c] Currency becomes a title to initiate production, rather than a receipt for past production. ��[d] The role of cultural authority held by ‘gate keepers’ increases.��


��[e] The cycle of wages::profits requires social maintenance, as with other elements of the material infrastructure.��[f] The means of production becomes a commodity in itself. ��[g] Traditional cultural ideologies are structural impedimenta to the transition and emergence of a ‘society of leisure’ through their demonization of inactivity, and justification of the historical societal hierarchy that emerged in an agrarian, infopoor society dominated by sustenance production.


What does AI automate?��

Human agency is the simple answer.��


Not all forms of human agency have �the same cultural importance.�

�and��

Not all forms of AI are useful in production,� nor act to displace human agency.


Distinguishing roles for human agency� is a concern of Kantian philosophy:�

�

Determinative Judgment�Reflective Judgment�

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Kant’s distinctions in qualia for human agency�reflects how that type of agency is valued.


DETERMINATIVE JUDGMENT��

Decisions made by following the application of a specific,�a priori rule to achieve a predetermined outcome.�

�This type of human agency is typical of labor�

and is not valued significantly in Kant’s proposal.��

The assembly line (Taylorism) is concerned with �minimizing the role of this type of agency in production.


REFLECTIVE JUDGMENT��

Decisions made by inventing a new rule to achieve an outcome�that is novel or otherwise outside established knowledge. �

�This type of human agency is reserved for the �

management of labor, and is highly valued in Kant’s proposal.��

Creative activity is identical to this type of agency.


AI automates decisions made within carefully predefined rules� (Determinative Judgment).�

�This is what ‘machine learning’ derives and employs:�

the matching of an immanent encounter� to a carefully defined past situation.�

�While it might generate novel recognitions and identifications�

these “discoveries” are implicit in the rules AI uses to produce them.


[AlphaZero] doesn’t play like a human, and it doesn’t play like a program. �It plays in a third, almost alien, way.�

�— Demis Hassabis, the founder and CEO of DeepMind, 2017


The ‘aura of the digital’ enables a fantasy where� the impacts of technology are separated from�

the material operations and requirements of digital technology,�hiding its social dimensions and costs.


Post-labor arises as an affect of this ‘aura of the digital’: ��

the illusion that the digital is a self-productive domain� capable of creating value without expenditure�

separates the physical aspects of production from�their implementation and social impacts.�

�The assumption that AI means there will be no more�

human labor is a reflection of this fantasy.


What is the ‘society of leisure’?��

This concept is a description of those social�relations emergent with the replacement of�rote human labor with AI and automation.�

�It does not mean a cessation of work, �

but rather a change in the kinds of demands �made on labor and the necessity of that labor.


[a] Human labor (determinative judgment) ceases to be the foundation of value. ��Wealth, currency, commodity distribution are all linked as�proxies for class distinctions rendered literal through the�differentials of labor and the valuations of agency.�


In capitalism all value ultimately reduces to human agency.��

Without human action, there is no value produced, distributed, or exchanged.��

This relationship is the historical definition of capitalism:�the exchange of human productive activity as a commodity in itself.


Historically labor has been understood as �unskilled, unintelligent, and only minimally educated. �

�These assumptions are deeply embedded�

in capitalism, even though the actual conditions of labor�and nature of work performed have changed.�

�


Child Laborer in North Carolina photographed by Lewis Hine in 1908.


(1) Productive Labor is Determinative Judgment��(2) Managerial Control is Reflective Judgment

What AI reveals is that much “administrative” labor �is actually a matter of determinative judgment.


There are two general categories of labor �being performed in capitalism:�

The managerial fantasy of total control over production� becomes reified in AI as the direct translation of �

Reflective Judgment into productive action without�the intervening interpretations of labor.�

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This transformation is an accentuation of Taylorist�assembly line fragmentation begun in the 20th century.


The shift in the basis of value that AI suggests is a rupture with �the historical system of capitalism and its productive system.�

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In capitalism, currency provides a medium of exchange that is linked�directly to the conversion of human agency into a commodity:�

�what is exchanged is a receipt for past labor performed that�

allows the distribution of commodity production.


Without human labor as basis exchanges become meaningless, �as well as disruptive of the cycle of wages::profits.�

�By replacing human labor, AI begins a process of shifting the nature�

of value away from past production and towards futurity��

instead of being a title to past production,� currency becomes the right to initiate production.


[b] The model for value production with reflective judgment (design) is fundamentally performative, and so is resistant to automation and increased efficiencies due to both the nature of art/design itself and the socio-cultural role it plays.


The creative process takes place in the mind of the artist;� the final painting is only the artist’s rendition of his mental image.�

�—computer artist A. Michael Noll, 1967


Bart Korsten, The Next Rembrandt, computer generated painting, 2016


The model for value production via �Reflective Judgment (design) is performative,�

and so is functionally resistant to automation and� the increased efficiencies due to both the nature of art/design itself�

and the socio-cultural role it plays. �


One Reflective Judgment is not equivalent to another:��

Creative solutions are not interchangeable.��

One cannot substitute a painting by Theo Van Gogh�for a different painting by his brother, Vincent,�

and expect them to be equivalent.


Robbie Barret, AI Nude 01, 2018


Reflective judgments are subject to Baumol’s Cost Disease:��

the generative production of “creative” works�remains dependent on the human selection of the result�

which constrains the capacity of profit generation.��

The “Monkey selfie” provides an interesting example for�considering the role of human agency in autonomous production.�


“Selfie” selected by nature photographer David Slater, 2011.


[c] Currency becomes a title to initiate production, rather than a receipt for past production. ��


Access to commodities (distribution) is�and always has been�

a signifier of class position. ��

The democratic aspects of mass production�are being attenuated by the shift �

to bespoke and on-demand production.


Wealth is a proxy for class.��

Commodity access is a proxy for class.��

Changes in the nature of currency do not disrupt,�but accentuate existing class structures.


Currency acts in capitalist societies as a �mechanism controlling commodity distribution.�

�The post-labor economy replaces human labor with the unpaid�operations of digital computers, eliminating the costs of wages.�

�


This replacement of human labor with AI is an example� of how the aura of the digital enables the fantasy that�

an infinite amount of wealth can be� extracted from a finite resource, �

suggesting magical production without consumption.


[d] The role of cultural authority held by ‘gate keepers’ increases.�


Microsoft Windows operating system error message from 2013.


The idea of a pluralistic, horizontal mass communications system �challenges the stability of the dominant political and ideological power�

in any given society.��

—video artist Francesc Torres, 1990


The internet and social media are �horizontal communication systems.�

�What these have done is allow more people�

with more divergent viewpoints to assert themselves,� but in the process it has also revealed that the systems �distributing that information have an extraordinary level �

of influence over what information propagates.


The automation of the selection and dispersal of information �by AI systems has revealed itself to be problematic:�

�maximizing attention (value generation) is not compatible with �

maximizing social cohesion and public good��

The structural demand for profit generation �is not compatible with any other demands.


Facebook user surveys giving only limited options, March 5, 2018


Autonomous editorial control and censorship have �become a normal feature of AI systems.�

�The problem with attempting to address this control�

is immanent: it is difficult to correct what you cannot see.��

The use of AI makes challenging these controls impossible�except through formal, legal interventions by government.�


Hunter Scully, Snapchat censorship revealed on October 23, 2019.


[e] The cycle of wages::profits requires social maintenance, as with other elements of the material infrastructure.��This is not an issue of centrally planned production, but of enabled consumption that allows existing systems of distribution to continue to function.


Without wages, human labor cannot purchase commodities, �disrupting the economic cycle.�

�The proposed solution to the loss of wages is their replacement�

with “Universal Basic Income.”��


The aura of the digital reconceives �wages paid to labor as lost profits. �

�The invention and progressive shifts to automation�

and AI enable the replacement of human labor� with the fixed cost of a machine.


The automation of “low status” jobs becomes �an immediate concern when human labor is �left completely dependent on social supports.�


The automation of “high status” jobs becomes �a concern when the capacity of the middle classes�

to support the economy through consumption� is compromised by their financial insecurity.


Joseph Schumpeter observed that in capitalist societies: ��

There is an element of truth in the brutal slogan of �the typical bourgeois which many worthy men find� so irritating, viz., that those who cannot climb by�

these ladders [of success] are not worth troubling about.��

This high social dominance justifies the deprivation of all lower classes.�


[f] The means of production becomes a commodity in itself. �


The shift to on demand and ‘just-in-time’ production,�along with the elimination of standing reserves, �

are dimensions of the same process.��

The are attempts to a pathological slowing of the rate of profit.��

This elimination of stored value (production) happens because� past production is no longer source of value, �but an expense that slows the rate of profit.�


AI systems and their productive capacity (independent of human labor)�allow the bespoke production of singular commodities on demand.�

�We can already see this shift underway with the small scale�

production of “custom” products now readily available.��

This productive capacity is a new commodity that elides�the labor required to operate it in the generation of value.


Universal Basic Income (UBI)�has been proposed as a solution to�

the disruption of the cycle of wages::profits.


Consumption (thus wages) is a proxy for social position.


Gargantua by Honoré Daumier, 1832.


�1. Income provided via direct governmental payments (financed through taxation).��2. Income provided through capital that is never repaid (grants or via periodic jubilee that abolishes debt).��3. Income provided through obligations for future repayment (debt).

Three general models for “Universal Basic Income”:�


How to finance UBI is an issue of monetary policy, �but its implementation is not simply a question of finance.�

�The implementation of any “Universal Basic Income” �

is constrained by social factors.�


The goal to eliminate all human labor as a necessity� is the precondition for the success of UBI.�

�The necessity arises from the social role of wealth:�

�If wealth remains a social marker for class, �

Universal Basic Income will increase social strife� and accentuate divisions within society,�

thus it will ultimately fail to preserve the social.


[g] Traditional cultural ideologies are structural impedimenta to the transition and emergence of a ‘society of leisure’ through their demonization of inactivity, and justification of the historical societal hierarchy that emerged in an agrarian society dominated by subsistence production.


2 Thessalonians 3��

“Those unwilling to work shall not eat.”


The belief that labor is a necessary precondition for�survival and existence opposes easy solutions�

to the extended furlough and demobilization of labor.��

These social factors are already apparent �from the on-going impacts of Covid-19.�

�The pandemic has highlighted these problems �

via the differential national responses.


The cultural rejection of idleness, at least for the lower classes�has a variety of secular analogues to the religious demand, evident in the �

limitations on providing social support for the poor and unemployed, �or imposing conditions on that support. �


Lessons from the Pandemic:��

Automation has not solved our problems.��

Social class remains a primary dimension of labor.��

It takes very little to destabilize society.


There is no easy or simply solution to these challenges since �they emerge from deep foundations of social organization,�developed during another period when conditions were�

radically different from what confronts us today.��

Changing these entrenched values is a precondition to �addressing the challenges posed by AI and automation.


For any short term solutions to successfully resolve �the challenges and problems promised by AI,�they need to be uniformly implemented and �

have a consistent program of support and promotion�from social and religious leaders. �

�The problem posed by AI is not primarily financial, but social,�

a product of how economics, religion, and education�act in concert to affirm the existing social hierarchy.


thank you


ai: cultural impacts and impediments to the post–labor

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