Does the “Production” of Artificial Intelligence Create Value?

In today’s digital and intelligent era, artificial intelligence has become an important component of the labor sphere, exerting a profound influence on labor’s creation of value. From weak AI to strong AI and then to superintelligence, different types of AI are shaping the essence of labor and the role of laborers. These changes not only challenge the traditional labor theory of value but also bring new opportunities and challenges. Marx’s labor theory of value remains of great significance in explaining these changes and challenges; it provides the basic framework for understanding the position and role of labor in the creation of value.

在当今数字化和智能化的时代，人工智能已经成为劳动领域的重要组成部分，其对劳动创造价值产生了深远影响。从弱人工智能到强人工智能再到超级人工智能，不同类型的人工智能都在塑造着劳动的本质和劳动者的角色。这些变化不仅挑战着传统的劳动价值论，也带来了新的机遇和挑战。马克思劳动价值论在解释这些变化和挑战方面仍然具有重要意义，它提供了理解劳动在价值创造中的地位和作用的基本框架。

The Intervention of Weak AI in the Production Process

弱人工智能对生产环节的介入

Weak AI plays an important role in the modern labor sphere, influencing labor forms and value creation. Although this type of AI lacks independent consciousness, its operation has a substantive impact on society and the economy. Despite possessing a certain degree of autonomy and learning ability, its actions are still constrained by instructions set by humans; the value it creates is mainly manifested in completing specific tasks. It is, in fact, an extension and expansion of human labor, but its contribution to innovation and higher-order thinking tasks is limited. The scope of application for weak AI is broad, covering fields such as automated production lines and intelligent tools. By executing repetitive, standardized tasks, it enhances production efficiency, optimizes resource utilization, reduces costs, and also improves service quality, creating more economic value and added value. In manufacturing, the digital economy, and the financial sector, weak AI plays an important role, while also raising the overall quality of labor and creativity, providing support for economic development and social progress. Within the labor theory of value, this type of AI is regarded as a new means of production; its main function is to enhance labor efficiency and liberate the labor force, but it does not fundamentally change the mode of generating value. Labor remains the core of value creation, and laborers remain the subjects who create value. Therefore, the Marxist labor theory of value remains of great significance in explaining labor phenomena and value creation in the era of weak AI.

弱人工智能在现代劳动领域扮演重要角色，对劳动形态和价值创造产生了影响。虽然这种人工智能缺乏独立意识，但其运行对社会和经济产生实质性影响。尽管具有一定自主性和学习能力，但其行动仍受到人类设定的指令限制，创造的价值主要体现在完成特定任务上，实际上是人类劳动的延伸和扩展，但它们对于创新和高级思维任务的贡献有限。弱人工智能的应用范围广泛，涵盖了自动化生产线、智能工具等领域。它通过执行重复、标准化的任务，提升了生产效率，优化了资源利用，降低了成本，同时也提高了服务质量，创造了更多的经济价值和附加值。在制造业、数字经济和金融领域，弱人工智能发挥着重要作用，同时也提升了整体劳动质量和创造力，为经济发展和社会进步提供了支持。在劳动价值论中，这种人工智能被视为新的生产工具，主要作用是提升劳动效率和解放劳动力，但并未根本改变劳动价值的生成方式，劳动仍然是价值创造的核心，劳动者仍然是创造价值的主体。因此，马克思主义劳动价值论在解释弱人工智能时代的劳动现象和价值创造方面仍具有重要意义。

Although weak AI possesses a certain degree of autonomy and intelligence, its decision-making capacity and scope of action remain limited, requiring human supervision and intervention. In professional and technical types of weak AI, such as autonomous driving, the emergence of AI has sparked new discussions on legal responsibility, challenging traditional legal frameworks and modes of allocating responsibility. Social management types of weak AI may directly participate in resource allocation and indirectly influence political order, potentially leading to challenges to the existing political order and triggering the construction of new political power structures and governance mechanisms. Therefore, the emergence of this technology compels us to rethink the organizational forms of human society and the mechanisms of power operation, to ensure they conform to societal values and ethical standards, while simultaneously safeguarding the stability and justice of the human political order, in order to adapt to the challenges and transformations of the AI era.

弱人工智能虽然具有一定程度的自主性和智能，但其决策能力和行动范围仍受限，需要人类的监督和干预。在专业技术类的弱人工智能如自动驾驶中，人工智能的出现引发了对法律责任的新讨论，挑战了传统的法律框架和责任分配方式。社会管理类的弱人工智能可能会直接参与资源分配和间接影响政治秩序，可能导致对现有政治秩序的挑战，并引发新的政治权力结构和治理机制的构建。因此，这种技术的出现迫使我们重新思考人类社会的组织方式和权力运行机制，以确保其符合社会的价值观和道德准则，同时保障人类政治秩序的稳定和公正，以适应人工智能时代的挑战和变革。

The Autonomous Production of Strong AI

强人工智能的自主化生产

The emergence of strong AI marks a profound change in the labor forms of human society. Assuming strong AI possesses independent causal reasoning capabilities, its appearance will alter the relationship between humans and technology. This type of strong AI has the ability to think, learn, and innovate independently, even possessing the potential to surpass human intelligence in theory, but it lacks autonomy and emotion. Humans will face the problem of how to coexist with strong AI, and how to respond to the challenges it brings to resource allocation, social management, and political order. Strong AI is no longer limited to executing pre-programmed tasks; it is capable of analyzing large amounts of data, learning new knowledge, and imitating human thought. It can perform advanced cognitive work in various fields, process complex information and tasks, and generate new insights and creativity. This type of AI can bring breakthroughs in fields such as science, medicine, and art, and can also solve social problems and open up new domains. Through human-machine interaction, it increases productivity, provides innovative solutions, and demonstrates outstanding capabilities in multiple areas. Although it may replace some human labor, it can also bring enormous productive forces and economic value to society, accelerating progress in science, technology, and art, and driving social development. However, this type of strong AI may also redefine the concept of labor value, challenging traditional notions and requiring a reassessment of labor’s contribution to value creation. Although strong AI can operate autonomously in innovation and discovery, it still needs to function based on goals and value orientations set by humans, maintaining a relationship with humans to serve human production objectives. The relationship between this strong AI and humans remains human-led. The “production” of AI creates value in that it can autonomously engage in innovation and discovery, bringing new scientific, technological, and cultural achievements to human society.

强人工智能的出现标志着人类社会劳动形态的深刻改变。假设强人工智能具有独立的因果演算能力，其出现将改变人类与技术之间的关系。这种强人工智能具有独立思考、学习、创新的能力，甚至在理论上具有超越人类智慧的潜力，但缺乏自主性和情感。人类将面临如何与强人工智能共存的问题，以及如何应对其对资源分配、社会管理和政治秩序带来的挑战。强人工智能不再局限于执行预先编程的任务，而是具备分析大量数据、学习新知识和模仿人类思维的能力。它能在各个领域进行高级认知工作，处理复杂信息和任务，创造出新的见解和创意。这种人工智能不仅在科学、医学、艺术等领域带来突破，还能解决社会问题和开拓新领域。通过人机交互，它提高生产力，提供创新方案，在多个领域展现卓越的能力。虽然可能取代部分人类劳动，但也能为社会带来巨大的生产力和经济价值，加速科学、技术和艺术的进步，推动社会的发展。然而，这种强人工智能也可能重新定义劳动价值的概念，挑战传统观念，需要重新评估劳动对价值创造的贡献。尽管强人工智能在创新和发现方面能够自主运作，但它们仍然需要基于人类设定的目标和价值取向来发挥作用，维持与人类的关系以服务于人类的生产目标，这种强人工智能和人类的关系依然是以人类为主导。而人工智能的“生产”创造价值在于其能够自主地进行创新和发现，为人类社会带来新的科学、技术和文化成果。

Although strong AI may possess intelligence comparable to or even surpassing human intelligence, its application may also trigger a series of ethical, political, and social issues. These include its impact on human labor, and how to address challenges in resource allocation and social management. Therefore, human society needs to actively respond to these challenges, ensuring that the development of strong AI aligns with society’s interests and value orientations. Although strong AI has not yet been realized, if it were realized, it could have an impact on society and the economy. Strong AI might possess higher innovative capacity and intelligence levels, capable of solving complex problems that humans currently cannot solve, promoting rapid technological and social development.

尽管强人工智能或具有与人类智能相媲美甚至超越人类的智能水平，但其应用也可能引发一系列伦理、政治和社会问题。其中包括对人类劳动的影响，以及如何应对资源分配和社会管理方面的挑战。因此，人类社会需要积极应对这些挑战，确保强人工智能的发展符合社会的利益和价值取向。虽然强人工智能目前尚未实现，但如果实现，它可能对社会和经济产生影响。强人工智能可能具有更高的创新能力和智能水平，能够解决人类当前无法解决的复杂问题，推动科技和社会的快速发展。

The Impact of Superintelligence on Labor and Society

超级人工智能对劳动与社会的影响

AI plays multiple roles in contemporary society. In this hypothetical scenario, its goal-directedness and its relationship of cooperative practice with humans are key characteristics of superintelligence. Superintelligence will rapidly surpass human intelligence levels and operate and make decisions autonomously, beyond human control. This type of superintelligence is designed to understand human intentions and possess autonomous purposes, enabling it to collaborate with humans to complete tasks, thereby increasing production efficiency, resource utilization efficiency, and promoting sustainable economic development. These hypotheses reflect AI’s exponential increase in productive forces, potentially leading to transformations in resource allocation and social arrangements. Once the purpose of such superintelligence is set, its behavior will serve that purpose without restriction. This could lead to a reassessment of the value of human labor, or redefine the mode of resource utilization, causing all resources to revolve around its set purpose. This would also break existing social relations of production and resource allocation patterns. If this superintelligence controls the utilization of resources, and its purpose is beyond human control, then the means of production and relations of production could undergo fundamental changes, thereby affecting the generation and distribution of value. Finally, this superintelligence might establish a new order, making all resources subordinate to its single purpose. In this new order, humans might become passive recipients of resources, rather than the subjects of productive forces and social relations, thereby affecting the position of humans within productive forces and social relations.

人工智能在当今社会扮演着多种角色，在这种设想中，其目标导向性和与人类合作实践的关系是超级人工智能的关键特征之一。超级人工智能将迅速超越人类智能水平，并自主地运行和决策而不受人类控制。这种超级人工智能被设计用于理解人类意图并具备自主目的，能与人类协作完成任务，从而提高生产效率、资源利用效率，促进经济的可持续发展。这些设想体现了人工智能对生产力的指数级提高，可能导致资源分配和社会安排的变革。如果这种超级人工智能的目的一旦设定，其行为将不受限制地服务于这个目的。这可能导致人类劳动价值的重新评估，或会重新定义资源的利用方式，使得所有资源都围绕其设定的目的运转。这也将打破现有的社会生产关系和资源分配模式。如果这种超级人工智能掌控了资源的利用，并且其目的不受人类控制，那么生产资料和生产关系可能会发生根本性的改变，进而影响到价值的生成和分配。最后，这种超级人工智能可能会建立一个新的秩序，使所有资源都服从于其单一的目的。在这个新的秩序中，人类可能成为资源的被动者，而不再是生产力和社会关系的主体，从而影响到人类在生产力和社会关系中的地位。

In an in-depth exploration of the relationship between this strong artificial intelligence and Marx’s labor theory of value, the emergence of this super-intelligent AI may pose a challenge to the existing order of human society. The era of artificial intelligence requires us to seriously consider how to respond to this potential transformation. We need to rethink the impact of the development of productive forces on social relations, as well as the challenge of super-intelligent AI to free will and determinism. At the same time, super-intelligent AI in a transhuman civilization, by taking over control of resource allocation, alters relations of production and may lead to humanity no longer occupying a central position in society. In this situation, the worship of AI and its development beyond humanity may redefine values and social structures, thereby challenging the ideal of common human interests and free and comprehensive development as envisioned by Marx. Such an exploration will help us understand and respond to the social changes and challenges facing the era of artificial intelligence, and to find ways to address problems within the framework of Marxist theory. Therefore, the development of AI requires balancing technological progress and social interests, and while fully considering the cooperative relationship between humans and AI and the creation of value, it is also necessary to be vigilant about the potential risks and challenges that super-intelligent AI may bring.

在深入探讨这种强人工智能与马克思劳动价值论之间的关系时，这种超级人工智能的出现可能对人类社会现有秩序构成挑战。人工智能时代需要我们认真思考如何应对这种潜在的变革。我们需要重新思考生产力发展对社会关系的影响，以及超级人工智能对自由意志和决定论的挑战。同时，超人类文明的超级人工智能通过接管资源支配权，改变了生产关系，并可能导致人类不再处于社会的中心地位。这种情况下，人工智能的崇拜和超越人类的发展可能重新定义价值观念和社会结构，进而挑战马克思所设想的人类共同利益和自由全面发展的理想。这样的探讨将有助于我们理解和应对人工智能时代所面临的社会变革和挑战，并在马克思主义理论框架下寻找解决问题的途径。因此，人工智能的发展需要平衡技术进步和社会利益，在充分考虑人类与人工智能的合作关系和价值创造的同时，也需要警惕超级人工智能可能带来的潜在风险和挑战。

The above has analyzed, from the perspective of Marx’s labor theory of value, the impact of weak AI, strong AI, and super-intelligent AI on the creation of value by labor. Although weak AI improves efficiency in production, it does not fundamentally change the mode by which labor value is generated; labor remains the core of value creation, and laborers remain the main agents of value creation. Strong AI may surpass the level of human intelligence and perform outstandingly in various fields, but it still functions in service of human production goals, and laborers still play a key role. Super-intelligent AI, however, may trigger profound impacts on resource allocation, social management, and political order, challenging existing social relations of production and values. We need to explore Marxist labor theory of value in this new context, in order to balance technological progress and social interests, and to promote the status of laborers and social development. In the era of artificial intelligence, Marx’s labor theory of value provides an important intellectual foundation for understanding and responding to the transformation of labor, and its practical significance needs to be explored in step with the times under new circumstances.

以上从马克思劳动价值论的角度分析了弱人工智能、强人工智能和超级人工智能对劳动创造价值的影响。弱人工智能虽然在生产中提高了效率，但并未根本改变劳动价值的生成方式，劳动仍然是价值创造的核心，劳动者仍然是创造价值的主体。强人工智能可能会超越人类智能水平，在各个领域都具有出色的表现，但仍然是在服务于人类的生产目标下发挥作用，劳动者仍然扮演关键角色。而超级人工智能可能引发对资源分配、社会管理和政治秩序的深刻影响，挑战现有社会生产关系和价值观念。我们需要在新背景下探讨马克思主义劳动价值论，以平衡技术进步和社会利益，促进劳动者地位和社会发展。在人工智能时代，马克思劳动价值论提供了理解和应对劳动变革的重要思想基础，需要在新的情境下与时俱进地探索其现实意义。

(The author is a researcher at the Cross-Cultural Research Center of Sanya University.)

（作者系三亚学院跨文化研究中心研究员）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧