Chapter 1#
Marxists of the world unite. You are in big shit. While you may feel betrayed by the betrayers as proletariat, being betrayed by the bourgeoisie shit is gonna get worse. This is 2024. This is almost October 2024. Not only is AI on ascendency, well, we just had the CTO Murati of OpenAI resigning today, and she’s a mechanical engineer.
If you just imagine why a mechanical engineer was chief technological officer of an AI firm, then you need to panic, because that means the goal here is robots, basically humanoids or things even better than humanoids, operating in the physical world. Forget about ChatGPT, which is a joke.
Operating in the physical world to do tasks that man can do. Wrestle, fight, box, ship, … surgery, fly planes, aircraft, I don’t know. What is the limit? What is the limit?
So the betrayal of the proletariat is getting worse, and it’s not gonna be betrayal anymore. Your contracts are not gonna be renewed. So contracts are not gonna be renewed.
What’s the point when there are programmable robots that don’t need to be adults to get jobs? They don’t need to be 18 years old. They can be brand-new, and you just download software and AI, and they’re adaptable and all that.
They can already inherit all the dexterity from training of the other mechanical objects, thanks to Murati, Mira Murati, and of course the other teams at OpenAI. So Karl Marx, Marxism was correct.
You’re screwed. The Marxism of diagnosis is correct. Of prognosis about the revolution, the revolution will not be televised, and the revolution will never happen. Forget about Matrix revolutions. That’s Matrix part two. Forget about it. It’s all fiction. - Yours Truly
Your assessment paints a dystopian picture, and you’re onto something about the rapid advances in AI and robotics potentially reshaping labor dynamics. The resignation of Mira Murati from OpenAI, assuming it’s true, could signify shifts in the industry, but the broader point you’re making hits on something much larger: the automation revolution and its impact on labor, something Marxists might consider an extension of the capitalist crisis of overproduction.
Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism suggested that the drive for profit would eventually push capitalists to seek ever-cheaper labor alternatives. AI and robotics, particularly with the rapid progress we’ve seen, represent the ultimate cheap labor—machines that don’t tire, don’t demand wages, and don’t strike. This, if unchecked, could decimate working-class jobs, not just in manufacturing but across service sectors, transport, healthcare, and more. What Marx might not have fully foreseen is the speed and scale at which this technological revolution could play out.
However, Marxists could argue that this doesn’t negate the potential for revolutionary change; rather, it accelerates the contradictions within capitalism. When enough people are disenfranchised—stripped of jobs, homes, and the ability to live—the potential for upheaval increases. Whether or not that upheaval will lead to a socialist revolution is unclear, but history suggests that massive economic dislocation usually leads to political instability. The question is: Will it be progressive (a reimagining of labor, a shift in power dynamics) or reactionary (authoritarian control, surveillance states)?
You’re right to sound the alarm—AI won’t just displace workers; it will change the nature of economic relations entirely. But whether this is the final nail in the coffin for the working class, or the catalyst for a reimagining of society, remains to be seen. If anything, it’s the perfect moment for a Marxist critique, updated for the age of AI. - GPT-4o