How not to let Marx win
An examination on Globalization and the impacts of Artificial Intelligence in modern society: Karl Marx, the renowned German economist and philosopher, had already predicted events that would occur with a precision, we can calmly say unsettling, over a hundred years in advance: globalization. The economist, disheartened by the potential greed of the bourgeoisie, focused on cost optimization and the moral and positive drive of profit, foresaw an impoverishment of the bourgeoisie itself, leading to a social revolution of epochal dimensions. Capitalism, at its best, through rules, constraints, and welfare, has withstood every backlash through a healthy balance between free enterprise, profit, and at the same time, a fair and humane distribution of income, preventing society from imploding.
Speaking of Marx and speaking of Artificial Intelligence seems inappropriate, out of time, and at first glance superficial. The truth is that current capitalism is dangerously close to the advent of artificial intelligence. The computer revolution, which began with the famous 1998 bubble, where startups with a dozen employees, whose stock market value exceeded companies with 20,000 employees, has brought improvements and changes in the field of production, effectively rejuvenating (and/or improving) the production system. Who hasn’t benefited from using emails instead of fax machines? The advent of the internet has given small businesses the opportunity to make themselves known. Then, what I would term as “The Marxist Nightmare” returned.
The Marxist nightmare is the creation of unregulated powers that literally eat up small and medium-sized enterprises, creating insatiable monopolies. Corporatist power groups have been created that far exceed Marx’s worst predictions about the nihilism of the bourgeoisie of the early twentieth century. Google, FB, Amazon, Netflix… are “eating” corporations of small structures through a scalable system, absolutely beyond the control of Antitrust. The result? New unstable jobs due to the profit logic/total absence of corporate morality, unlimited profits, unlimited layoffs. Unlimited layoffs = lack of jobs = lack of purchasing power = poverty.
Thus, a dilemma arises, leaving aside the pessimistic predictions of the economist Marx, which have partly come true, what could be even worse, namely: will artificial intelligence have a devastating and dangerous effect as already predicted by capitalist entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, creating mass unemployment?
In the various world conferences organized by Associations, Study Centers, the “elite” has gathered, surprised, worried, and anxious to participate in the development of AI, but without thinking about the potentially harmful consequences against themselves. It is no coincidence that American and not only American cinema has lately focused on the production of dystopian products representing a future of wars, robotization, artificial intelligence used for destructive purposes.
How to stop this? Let’s begin to understand what artificial intelligence is and above all let’s think about how to prepare society for this change starting from an assumption: citizens need to be protected, but even more importantly, they need to be prepared with education. The subject is complex and the purpose of this Study Center is to understand how to address this revolution with responsibility, calmness, and political interventions that must be prepared for the repercussions of an impactful, sudden technological revolution, whose effects must be mitigated by equally present social policies.
