From “Technological Empowerment” to “Human-Machine Integration”: Large Artificial Intelligence Models and the Reconstruction of the Knowledge-Based Living Labor Subject

Abstract

The formidable capabilities of large artificial intelligence (AI) models are profoundly reconfiguring human society, establishing them as a critical locus of contemporary academic inquiry and, unequivocally, a vital domain for Marxist theoretical investigation. Drawing on Marx’s theory of the living labor subject, this article argues that large AI models exhibit characteristics of intentionality, autonomy, and the capacity for valorization, thereby manifesting key features of the general intellect and the essential powers of humans. The integration of large models and the knowledge-based living labor subject is expressed as a synthesis of antithetical pairs: “passivity” and “agency,” the “static” and the “dynamic,” and “value transfer” and “value creation.” This trend toward human-machine integration not only profoundly reconstructs the knowledge-based living labor subject but also necessitates a new development and enrichment of Marx’s theory of the knowledge-based living knowledge labor subject.

Keywords

living labor subject / large models / knowledge production / value creation

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Higher Education Press