In January, a Chinese computer program shook the foundations of US capitalism. The stock market plummeted. The chipmaker Nvidia alone lost more than half a trillion dollars.
The program was DeepSeek R1. It rivals the best ChatGPT applications, but what shook the foundations was its cost. It took $6 million to develop and train, whereas its rivals each required about $100 million plus lots of expensive Nvidia chips. DeepSeek’s rivals now can’t compete, and China arguably is ahead in imperialism’s AI (artificial intelligence) race.
AI is now important technology. It used to be a laughingstock in computer science. Its translations were barbaric. It barely got on top of chess. It was hopeless at the ancient Chinese board game Go.
What is known as GOFAI – Good Old Fashioned AI – was hopeless because it relied on formal logic, operating on facts and rules – relatively small sets (hundreds). This technology dates to the 1960s.
All this changed with the switch to “neural networks” about ten years ago. The translations are exceptional, a computer is the world Go champion, and it drafts astounding articles.
Many writers disparage AI, but it really works. When ChatGPT was asked, for example, to write an outline for an introductory course on logic, the result was flawless.
The AI tool Stable Diffusion, given the right prompts, can produce beautiful images. If you want, they’ll look like photographs. But you can also ask for them as paintings in the style of a specific painter, say Klimt. Then you can get large numbers of genuine looking “Klimts.”
For those of us used to the limitations of GOFAI, the new AI is truly mind-boggling.
Neural networks have been around since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until massive computer power was applied, using large numbers of Nvidia chips, that the results became impressive. A perfect example of a quantitative change leading to a qualitative change.
Will the New AI Make Workers’ Lives Easier?
Not under capitalism! Under capitalism there is technological progress but no social progress. Innovative technologies enable capitalists to produce more with fewer workers and to undercut competitors by selling products more cheaply. The new technology becomes the norm.
Workers are forced to compete with each other for fewer jobs at lower wages. Ironically, the capitalists’ rate of profit also declines, since only workers’ labor produces the surplus value that is realized as profit. Under capitalism technological progress benefits no one in the long run, not even the bosses. In the worst case it contributes to overproduction and the resulting trade wars and even shooting wars.
AI, together with accelerating developments in robotics, threatens the jobs of workers in manufacturing, transportation, and even agriculture. Tractors and combine harvesters have long been guided by GPS. Industrial agriculture monopolies will turn increasingly to robotics to solve labor shortages created by anti-immigration and anti-worker policies.
White-collar workers used to think they were immune to automation. But graphic designers, copywriters, sound engineers, and many others are already losing jobs to AI. More will, as it becomes cheaper. It’s harder for AI to replace a carpenter or a plumber.
Short of a revolution it’s capitalism today, tomorrow, and the day after. To improve workers’ lives we need, not new technology, but a new society – communism.
Communism is based on cooperation, not competition. Workers will develop innovative technologies, motivated not by financial gain but by the aim of improving the lives of their comrade workers.
The communist party – the ICWP – is the “technology” that makes communist revolution and communism possible. Join us!