It is only the function of a product as means of labour in the production process that makes it fixed capital. It is in no way fixed capital itself, just as it emerges from the process. A machine that is the product and thus the commodity of a machine-builder is part of his commodity capital. It only becomes fixed capital in the hands of its buyer, the capitalist who employs it productively. (1992: 240)
The argument that Marx makes here is important for our investigation of AGI for a couple of reasons. First, it points out that the being and social function of, in this case, a machine depends on how its respective owners treat it. Second, it indicates that things, like a potential future AGI, do change social forms and, therefore, that it is possible that a machine could potentially negate its own existence as fixed capital by appearing in another social form. Third, it forces us to consider what the modes of existence of AGI would be in the capitalist mode of production after AGI’s emergence. Indeed, the ontological trajectory of the machine described in the quotation above might be traced by AGIs (Kjøsen 2018).
Going by Baum’s (2017) survey of AGI projects, it is most likely that AGI would first be invented by, and therefore be the private property of, a corporation and/or an academic institution. For the sake of argument, we assume that soon after the emergence of AGI it would be mass produced because it could be put to so many different uses by either capitalists or consumers. It would, in other words, be a highly profitable commodity. Hence, what we envisage would first happen with AGI is similar to the world depicted in the TV show Äkta Människor/Humans where generally intelligent androids (‘hubots’/‘synths’) are widely available for purchase as home servants or replacement workers. This setting is merely a different version of the world in the ur-text for all android and AI narratives, Karel Čapek’s 1920 science fiction play R.U.R. (2004). In the play, the company ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ produces their highly profitable roboti by the thousands in their many factories, which makes them widely available as cheap commodities. These artificial people can think and act by themselves and therefore have become necessary in all kinds of production and can produce commodities at a fifth of the previous cost.
perfect machines, inhuman labour
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