Free Labor and Active Leisure in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Leisure is the free time beyond necessary labor. Recreation is the autonomous activity within free time. Labor for a livelihood, due to its external purposiveness, occupational division of labor, and proceduralization, causes the laborer to exhibit a natural state of fatigue, making restorative rest a life need that the laborer urgently requires to be satisfied. Although “restorative rest” attempts to incorporate “recreation” into the normal life of the laborer, this balancing and compensatory mechanism is mostly classified as a culture of passive recreation. Moreover, the fatigue intensified by “accelerationism” in the age of artificial intelligence makes passive recreation prone to devolving into consumerism and hedonism, which cannot fundamentally change the defects of labor for a livelihood.

闲暇，是必要劳动之外的自由时间。休闲，是自由时间中的自主行为。谋生劳动，由于其外在目的性、职业分工与工序化，使得劳动者呈现出疲劳的自然状态，恢复性休息成为劳动者亟须被满足的生活需要。虽然“恢复性休息”尝试将“休闲”纳入劳动者的生活常态中，但这一平衡补偿机制更多被归类为消极休闲文化。并且，人工智能时代“加速主义”强化的疲劳，促使消极休闲容易演变为消费主义与享乐主义，无法从根本上改变谋生劳动的缺陷。

But we should see that the age of artificial intelligence also provides the possibility for transforming labor for a livelihood into the concept of free labor. The datafication of information promotes the unification of occupational divisions of labor; proceduralized holistic operations replace the functioning of single work processes. The application of artificial intelligence technology shares with humanity the negative impact of the fatigue mechanism of labor for a livelihood, bringing us a large amount of free time. Laborers freed from the constraints of labor for a livelihood are no longer limited to passive recreation but can, in a human-machine complementary manner with artificial intelligence that acts as a proxy for necessary labor, practice free labor. People’s free time is no longer used for passive recreation but is redirected toward the active recreation of practicing free activities. Active recreation becomes the vanguard of free labor that renews the mode of livelihood.

但我们应看到，人工智能时代也为变革谋生劳动的自由劳动理念提供了可能。信息数据化助推了统一职业分工，程序化的整体性操作代替了单一工序的运行，人工智能技术的运用为人类分担了谋生劳动疲劳机制的负面影响，给我们带来了大量自由时间。摆脱谋生劳动限制的劳动者不再受限于消极休闲，而可以与代理必要劳动的人工智能人机互补地实践自由劳动。人们的自由时间不再用于消极休闲，而是转向实践自由活动的积极休闲。积极休闲成为更新谋生方式的自由劳动先驱。

Necessary Labor and Passive Recreation

必要劳动与消极休闲

Marx affirmed the anthropological natural necessity of labor. In his view, labor “is purposeful activity aimed at the production of use-values. It is an appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the general condition for the metabolic interaction between man and nature, and the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 7, Section 1. Labor thus becomes necessary labor. The surplus value produced by necessary labor corresponds to the free time surplus from labor time, thereby establishing the foundation of recreation.

马克思肯定了劳动的人类学自然必要性，在他看来，劳动“是制造使用价值的有目的的活动，是为了人类的需要而占有自然物，是人和自然之间的物质变换的一般条件，是人类生活的永恒的自然条件”。劳动从而成为必要劳动。必要劳动生产的剩余价值对应于劳动时间所盈余的自由时间，由此确立了休闲的根基。

“The constant tendency of capital, on the one hand, is to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labor,” [2]2 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook VII. but this includes at least a link of rest. The principle of division of labor revealed by Smith manifests as increasingly single work processes to maintain high production efficiency, so whether physical or mental labor, it inevitably tends toward simplified operations, leading to physical and mental fatigue. Rest is a compensatory and balancing functional link that restores labor capacity to sustain the labor process. Intermittent sitting, workplace exercises, shift breaks and holidays, and sleep are direct forms of rest. In the modern urban layout centered on production enterprises, community residences, cinemas and theaters, parks, etc., are extended spaces for rest. These spaces for consumption activities have from the start been necessary rest places for necessary labor. The rich and varied recreational culture thus produced does not change its nature as rest subordinate to necessary labor. Therefore, recreation with rest as its prototype is passive recreation.

“资本的不变趋势一方面是创造可以自由支配的时间，另一方面是把这些可以自由支配的时间变为剩余劳动”，但其中包含着起码的休息环节。斯密所揭示的分工原理则呈现为愈渐单一的工序以保持生产高效率，因此无论体力或脑力劳动，都势必趋于简单化操作，而导致身心疲劳。休息是恢复劳动能力以维持劳动过程的补偿与平衡的功能环节。间歇静坐、工间操、换班休假与睡眠是直接的休息，在以生产企业为中心的近代城市布局中，社区住所、影剧院、公园等，则是休息的延伸空间。这些消费活动空间自始即是必要劳动必需的休息场所。由此产生的丰富多彩的休闲文化并不改变其从属于必要劳动的休息性质。因此，以休息为原型的休闲是消极休闲。

The external purposiveness of necessary labor inevitably entails passivity and instrumentality. Under the Western capitalist system of competition and profit, the instrumentality of labor tends toward single, repetitive tool effectiveness, which is internalized into the physical and mental response patterns of the laborer, reversing the complete Gestalt natural behavior of the laboring subject and causing fatigue and boredom. Passive recreation, which bears alienated labor, is thereby alienated: “As soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague… The result is that man (the worker) feels that he is acting freely only in his animal functions – eating, drinking, and procreating, or at most in his dwelling and adornment – while in his human functions he feels no more than an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal… Eating, drinking, and procreating are certainly also genuine human functions. But in the abstraction that separates them from the round of other human activities and turns them into final and sole ends, they are animal functions.” [3]3 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, “Estranged Labor.”

必要劳动的外在目的性必然具有受动性与手段性。在西方资本主义的竞争与利润制度下，劳动的手段性趋向单一重复的工具有效性，它内化为劳动者的身心反应模式，逆反了劳动主体的完整格式塔自然行为而造成疲劳与厌倦。承受异化劳动的消极休闲由此异化：“只要肉体的强制或其他强制一停止，人们就会像逃避鼠疫那样逃避劳动……结果，人（工人）只有在运用自己的动物机能——吃、喝、性行为，至多还有居住、修饰等等的时候，才觉得自己是自由活动，而在运用人的机能时，却觉得自己不过是动物。动物的东西成为人的东西，而人的东西成为动物的东西……吃、喝、性行为等等，固然也是真正的人的机能。但是，如果使这些机能脱离了人的其他活动，并使它们成为最后的和唯一的终极目的，那么，在这种抽象中，它们就是动物的机能。”

Marx’s View of Free Labor and Active Recreation

马克思的自由劳动观与积极休闲

Marx held that “time is actually the active existence of man. It is not only the measure of his life but also the space for his development.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63*, “Results of the Direct Production Process.” As a human characteristic, labor extends toward infinite time and space: “Through practical creation of an objective world, the transformation of inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species-being… The animal produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whereas man produces even when he is free from physical need and truly produces only when he is thus free. The animal produces only itself, whereas man reproduces the whole of nature. The animal’s product belongs immediately to its physical body, whereas man freely confronts his product. The animal builds only according to the standard and need of the species to which it belongs, whereas man knows how to produce according to the standard of any species and knows how to apply the inherent standard to the object everywhere. Hence man also builds according to the laws of beauty.” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, “Estranged Labor.” Labor as a human characteristic is free labor that transcends animal-like existence. Free labor is based on necessary labor yet transcends it: “The realm of freedom actually begins only where labor that is determined by necessity and external purposiveness ceases; thus in the nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production… Beyond this realm of necessity, the development of human capacities as an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, begins. But this realm of freedom can flourish only on the basis of the realm of necessity. The shortening of the working day is its fundamental prerequisite.” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, Chapter 48. Although the development of artificial intelligence technology has already provided the preconditions for shortening working hours, it requires the guidance of free labor.

马克思认为，“时间实际上是人的积极存在，它不仅是人的生命的尺度，而且是人的发展的空间”。作为人类特质的劳动延伸向无限时空：“通过实践创造对象世界，改造无机界，人证明自己是有意识的类存在物……动物的生产是片面的，而人的生产是全面的；动物只是在直接的肉体需要的支配下生产，而人甚至不受肉体需要的影响也进行生产，并且只有不受这种需要的影响才进行真正的生产；动物只生产自身，而人再生产整个自然界；动物的产品直接属于它的肉体，而人则自由地面对自己的产品。动物只是按照它所属的那个种的尺度和需要来建造，而人懂得按照任何一个种的尺度来进行生产，并且懂得处处都把内在的尺度运用于对象；因此，人也按照美的规律来构造。”人类特质的劳动是超越动物式生存的自由劳动。自由劳动基于必要劳动却又超越必要劳动：“自由王国只是在必要性和外在目的规定要做的劳动终止的地方才开始；因而按照事物的本性来说，它存在于真正物质生产领域的彼岸……在这个必然王国的彼岸，作为目的本身的人类能力的发挥，真正的自由王国，就开始了。但是，这个自由王国只有建立在必然王国的基础上，才能繁荣起来。工作日的缩短是根本条件。”人工智能技术的发展虽然已经为缩短工作时间提供了前提条件，但它需要自由劳动的引导。

Free labor transcends necessary labor, including transcending the passive recreation that is dependent on necessary labor, and points toward an active recreation corresponding to free labor. Active recreation is also based on free time, but its focus is not on maintaining the reproduction of necessary labor, but on “the development of human capacities as an end in itself,” that is, free labor. The core of Marx’s ideal society is “the free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth.” [7]7 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook I. The ideal of the all-round development of the human person contains three basic meanings: it refers to the full unfolding and realization of the individual’s natural and cultural potentials; the mode of human activity transcends the one-sidedness of modern division of labor to achieve a complete and comprehensive form; and it requires that the individual’s life activities possess as rich a network of social relations as possible. All behaviors that fit these three connotations belong to active recreation. All non-livelihood activities, from amateur personal hobbies to autonomous learning of new skills to volunteer groups, are active recreation that expands the use of free time. Active recreation is profoundly different from a hedonistic outlook on life. Although the “all-round developed” individual shares in the self-cultivation culture of passive recreation, they are not hedonistic consumers who loathe labor, but free laborers who no longer submit to compulsory division of labor or are bound for life to a single occupation for a livelihood. Free laborers are essentially active free agents based on individual endowments. The individualized form of labor inherently contains the diversity of labor forms, fundamentally transforming the single, repetitive form of labor and helping people break free from passive recreation. Passive recreation alleviates single necessary labor, manifesting as constantly shifting modes of behavior and objects of attention. The fundamental transformation of the single division of labor points toward the diversified free labor of the individual. Based on the activity forms of their era, Marx and Engels conceived of free labor as hunting in the morning (but not as a professional hunter), fishing in the afternoon (but not as a professional fisherman), and engaging in philosophical reflection at dusk (but not as a professional philosopher) – the full deployment of individual potentials. [8]8 This is a reference to a well-known passage from *The German Ideology* by Marx and Engels, where they describe communist society as making it possible for one to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. The prerequisite for this individual freedom is not only the free time accumulated by surplus labor but also the transformation of the necessary labor of the division of labor to endow the laborer with free subjectivity.

自由劳动超越必要劳动，包含着超越依附必要劳动的消极休闲，指向一种与自由劳动对应的积极休闲。积极休闲同样基于自由时间，但其重心不是用于维系必要劳动的再生产，而是“作为目的本身的人类能力的发挥”，亦即自由劳动。马克思的理想社会核心，是“建立在个人全面发展和他们共同的社会生产能力成为他们的社会财富这一基础上的自由个性”。人的全面发展理想包含着三项基本含义，它是指个体的自然与文化潜能能够充分施展与实现；人的活动方式超越现代分工片面性，而达到完整全面的形态；同时要求个人的生存活动拥有尽可能丰富的社会交往关系。契合这三项内涵的行为都属于积极休闲。一切非谋生的行为，从业余个性爱好，到自主学习新技能，再到志愿者团体，都是自由时间拓展运用的积极休闲。积极休闲与享乐人生观有深刻区别，“全面发展”的个人虽然分享消极休闲的自我修养文化，却并非厌弃劳动的享乐消费者，而是不再屈从于强制性分工或为谋生而终生束缚于单一职业的自由劳动者。自由劳动者本质上是基于个性禀赋的积极自由行动者。个性化的劳动形态内在地包含着劳动形态的多样性，它从根本上转变了单一化重复的劳动形态，帮助人们摆脱消极休闲。消极休闲缓解单一必要劳动，表现为不断转换行为方式与注意对象。对单一化劳动分工的根本变革则指向个体多样化自由劳动。马克思与恩格斯基于他们时代的活动形态，将自由劳动设想为上午打猎（却不是职业猎人）、下午捕鱼（却不是职业渔夫）、黄昏哲学思考（却不是职业哲学家）的个性潜能全面施展。这一个体自由的前提不仅是剩余劳动所积累的自由时间，而且要求变革分工形态的必要劳动，以赋予劳动者自由主体性。

The Transformation from Passive Recreation to Active Recreation

从消极休闲向积极休闲的转变

The modern economy is based on a historical view of modernity that constantly transcends the status quo. It forms accelerationism with economic globalization and the rapid shortening of socially necessary labor time as its central axis, and radiates from “science-technology-production” to social interaction and daily life, resulting in a fast-paced modern life. Passive leisure thus extends beyond rest breaks during labor to become a necessary mode of regulation in daily life. Accelerationism reinforces the mutually presupposing structure of productivism and consumerism. Passive leisure becomes the largest behavioral carrier of consumerism. As artificial intelligence technology rapidly replaces programmed labor, humans increasingly reduce their labor, causing the purpose and meaning that originated from labor to decline. This gives rise to nihilism, a deep spiritual crisis, that is, a worldview in which life is meaningless.

现代经济基于不断超越现状的现代性历史观，以经济全球化及社会必要劳动时间的快速缩短为中轴而形成加速主义，并从“科技—生产”向社会交往与日常生活产生辐射，导致快节奏现代生活。消极休闲由此超出了劳动工间休息，而成为日常生活中必需的调节方式。加速主义强化着互为前提的生产主义与消费主义结构。消极休闲成为消费主义最大的行为载体。随着人工智能技术快速取代程序化劳动，人类愈渐减少劳动，致使劳动发端的目的与意义衰落。由此催生出深度精神危机的虚无主义，亦即生活无意义的人生观。

What we need to be wary of is that passive leisure becomes a lifestyle for some people. They use the intensity of leisure that fills time and space to alleviate the crisis of the inability to release the energy of passive leisure. Fundamentally, the cultural upsurge of passive leisure beyond its rest function is a manifestation of civilization development driven by the surplus of social productive forces. Tourism steps out of the narrow space of professional labor and broadens the horizon of life. Working women, in the free bodily expression of square dancing, transcend rest and become artistic. Passive leisure culture is developing into a lifestyle that promotes material civilization and refreshes cultural-ethical progress. But the problem is that using various forms of passive leisure to counter accelerationism only causes people to get lost in the appearance of leisure and drift further and further away from leisure in its true sense. Production under accelerationism reinforces the defects of necessary labor, leading to the distortion of passive leisure as its balancing compensation mechanism. This refers not only to the vulgar aestheticism seen in sky-high artworks and cosmetic surgery, but also manifests as the opposition between labor time and leisure time. Labor time is abstract, rational (intellectual), and uniform in pace, thus boring and wearisome; leisure time, on the other hand, is perceptual, varied in pace, thus comfortable and stimulating. They embody a series of splits in modern people: sensibility-reason, body-mind, public life-private life.

我们需要警惕的是，消极休闲成为一些人的生活模式，他们以充溢时间与空间的休闲力度来缓解消极休闲能量无从释放的危机。从根本上说，消极休闲超出休息功能的文化高涨，是社会生产力盈余所带动的文明发展表征。旅游走出了职业劳动的狭小空间而开阔了人生视野，劳动妇女在广场舞的形体自由表达中超出了休息而艺术化。消极休闲文化正在发展为提升物质文明与刷新精神文明的生活方式。但问题在于，以各种消极休闲来抗衡加速主义，只会令人们迷失在休闲的表象中，而与真正意义上的休闲渐行渐远。加速主义下的生产强化了必要劳动的缺陷，导致作为其平衡补偿机制的消极休闲的畸形化。这不仅指天价艺术品与美容整形中出现的庸俗化审美主义，而且体现为劳动时间与闲暇时间的对立。劳动时间是抽象的、理（知）性的、匀速的，从而是乏味的、令人厌倦的；闲暇时间则表现为感性的、速度多样化的，从而是舒适的、刺激的。它们体现着现代人感性—理性、身体—心灵、公共生活—私人生活等一系列的分裂。

Therefore, it is necessary to seek free labor independent of necessary labor, in order to form a behavioral coordinate that gathers free time and transform passive leisure into active leisure.

因而，必须寻找独立于必要劳动的自由劳动，以形成聚集自由时间的行为坐标，将消极休闲转变为积极休闲。

Today, rapidly developing artificial intelligence is continuously achieving the integration and replacement of the division of labor. As Canadian scholar McLuhan wrote, “When electronic technology begins to function, the extremely complex and endless activities of industry and society quickly assume a unified posture.” [9]9 Marshall McLuhan, *Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man* (1964). Only under such circumstances can the measure of wealth, as Marx envisioned, “no longer be labor time, but rather disposable time.” [10]10 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), Notebook VII. The comprehensive development of the human being is itself the fundamental purpose of the individual and humanity in the time-historical process. This is also the meaning of free time and leisure returning to their proper place. It means that production aimed at compulsory division of labor, exchange, and the possession of wealth no longer dominates social time; instead, it will be replaced by time measured by individual choices based on natural differences and diverse forms of activity. Marx’s concept of free time is a dual critique of both productivism and consumerism. On the one hand, it liberates free time from productivism, making it the historical precondition for the comprehensive development of the human being itself. On the other hand, it targets the consumerist worldview, making free time directly manifest as a form of free human labor exemplified by science and art. This is no longer a distant prospect. Taking the example of the end of art in modern times, the 20th century has already seen the rise of a contemporary art theory of “everyone is an artist.” Art as a behavioral verb transforms the contemplative appreciation that separates art from life into an individual action of self-experimentation. The practitioner, while developing the self, also truly changes the world and becomes a free laborer. Artificial intelligence technology, through commands, data unification, and programmatic correspondence, replaces the external purposes, division of labor, and procedures of subsistence labor, becoming a proxy for subsistence labor. The laborers thus liberated no longer rely solely on passive leisure but, in human-machine interaction, practice the exploration of free labor, and active leisure becomes a mechanism for renewing necessary labor.

如今，飞速发展中的人工智能正在不断实现对分工的综合与取代，正如加拿大学者麦克卢汉所写的那样，“当电子技术开始发挥作用时，工业和社会极其繁复和无穷无尽的活动便迅速取得了一种统一的姿态”。也只有在这样的情境下，财富的尺度才会如马克思所设想的“决不再是劳动时间，而是可以自由支配的时间”。人的全面发展本身就是个人与人类在时间—历史进程中的根本目的。这也是自由时间与休闲回归本位的含义。它意味着以强制性分工交换与占有财富为目的的生产不再主宰社会时间，取而代之的将是基于自然差异的个性选择与多样活动形态尺度的时间。马克思的自由时间观是对生产主义与消费主义的双重批判，它一方面将自由时间从生产主义中解放出来，使之成为人自身全面发展的历史前提；另一方面又针对消费主义人生观，使自由时间直接体现为以科学与艺术为典范的人的自由劳动形态。这已不是远景，以近代艺术终结论为例，20世纪已经兴起了“人人都是艺术家”的当代艺术论。作为行为动词的艺术使艺术与生活分离的静观鉴赏转变为个体行动的自我实验，实践者在自我发展的同时真实变革世界而成为自由劳动者。人工智能技术以指令、数据统一与程序对应性取代谋生劳动的外在目的、分工与工序，成为谋生劳动代理体。由此解放出的劳动者不再仅仅依赖于消极休闲，而在人机互动中实践着自由劳动的探索，积极休闲成为必要劳动的更新机制活动。

Free labor, with the comprehensive development of the human being as its content, elevates free-time activities beyond necessary labor beyond the rest mechanism of passive leisure (without excluding it), making them an active leisure that pushes necessary labor to become more humane. Active leisure, insofar as it is independent of necessary labor, can still be regarded as leisure; in the sense of being distinct from necessary labor and passive leisure, it is a matrix that transcends rest and gestates new modes of activity.

以人的全面发展为内涵的自由劳动，使必要劳动之外的自由时间活动超出（却不排除）消极休闲的休息机制，而成为推进必要劳动更加人性化的积极休闲。积极休闲，就其独立于必要劳动而言，它仍然可视为休闲；在与必要劳动及消极休闲相区别的意义上，它是超越休息而酝酿新的活动方式的母体。

The pivot for transforming passive leisure into active leisure is to break the cycle of external purposiveness between passive leisure and necessary labor, gradually develop the intention of autonomous activity with internal purposiveness, and then create modes of activity in the form of free labor. The trend of large AI models acting as proxies for necessary labor makes how the labor subject maintains its position as the source of technology (from technology to humanistic value) a fundamental issue. Transforming passive leisure into active leisure, thereby developing new free labor, is precisely the practical mode of addressing this issue.

消极休闲转变为积极休闲的枢纽，是打破消极休闲与必要劳动的外在目的性循环，而逐渐发育出内在目的性的自主活动意向，进而开创出自由劳动形态的活动方式。人工智能大模型代理必要劳动的趋势，使劳动主体如何保持技术根源地位（从技术到人文价值）成为根本课题。将消极休闲转化为积极休闲，而发展出新的自由劳动，正是这一课题的实践方式。

As an exploration of the self-realization of human nature, active leisure not only endows free time with meaning that passive leisure is powerless to consolidate, thereby eliminating nihilism, but also promotes the internal transformation of necessary labor into new labor. Active leisure and free labor tend to converge; this is the realm of “carrying water and chopping wood are nothing but the wonderful Way.” [11]11 A Chan Buddhist saying, often used to indicate that enlightenment is found in everyday activities, not separate from ordinary life. Marx’s free labor, grounded in socio-historical conditions, differs from private techniques of mental adjustment, because socialized free labor cannot fundamentally be created by individual cultivation of mind and nature; it requires objective technological progress in necessary labor and social freedom.

作为人性自我实现的探索，积极休闲不仅赋予消极休闲无力凝聚的自由时间意义而消除虚无主义，而且推动必要劳动内在地转化为新的劳动。积极休闲与自由劳动趋于一致，此即“担水砍柴，无非妙道”的境界。马克思主张的基于社会历史条件的自由劳动，区别于私人心境调适术，因为社会化的自由劳动根本上并非个体心性修养所能造就，而要求客观的必要劳动技术进步与社会自由。

(Author: You Xilin, Professor, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Shaanxi Normal University)

（作者：尤西林，系陕西师范大学文学院教授）