Scientifically and Comprehensively Understanding the Labor Theory of Value in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Marx’s labor theory of value is the theoretical foundation of Marxist political economy. Based on the labor theory of value, Marx not only scientifically analyzed the operational logic of capitalism, but also profoundly criticized the existential logic of capitalism, and rationally envisioned a communist society of universal human emancipation. Artificial intelligence, as a breakthrough technology defining the current era, has both changed the organizational form of labor and altered the mode of its functioning, raising the question of the applicability of the labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence. Therefore, against the backdrop of AI restructuring the logic of social production, reshaping the forms of labor, and generating new socio-historical impacts, it is necessary to adopt a dialectical materialist and historical materialist perspective to comprehensively and scientifically understand the new changes confronting Marx’s labor theory of value, and to reflect on the restructuring logic of value creation in the sphere of intelligent production. By dialectically examining phenomena such as the continuous expansion of commodity forms, the constant transformation of production methods, and the ongoing changes in value forms, we must interrogate the structural crisis of labor alienation within the conditions of capitalist modernity, and reveal the “crisis of life” engendered by the logic of capital. This is a new question that must be addressed in order to uphold fundamental principles and break new ground for Marx’s labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence, to ideologize and conceptualize practical wisdom, and to systematize and theorize the Party’s innovative theories.

马克思劳动价值论是马克思主义政治经济学的理论基础。基于劳动价值论，马克思不仅科学地分析了资本主义的运行逻辑，而且深刻地批判了资本主义的存在逻辑，并合理地憧憬了全人类解放的共产主义社会。人工智能作为当下定义时代的突破性技术，既改变了劳动的组织形式，又改变了劳动的作用方式，提出了人工智能时代劳动价值论的适用性问题。因此，在人工智能重构社会生产逻辑、重塑劳动形态、产生新的社会历史影响的背景下，需要以辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的眼光全面科学地认识马克思劳动价值论面临的新变化，思考智能化生产领域劳动价值创造的重构逻辑；通过辩证地看待商品形态不断扩张、生产方式不断变革、价值形式不断变化等现象，追问资本现代性境遇中劳动异化现实的结构性危机，揭示资本逻辑造就的“生活危机”。这是在人工智能时代推动马克思劳动价值论守正创新、推动实践智慧的思想化与观念化、推进党的创新理论体系化与学理化必须要回答的新问题。

Grounded in dialectical materialism and historical materialism, confronting the epochal challenges posed by artificial intelligence to the labor theory of value

立足辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义，直面人工智能对劳动价值论的时代挑战

At present, artificial intelligence technology is developing rapidly, increasingly integrating its characteristics of virtualization, automation, and digitalization into the processes of transformation and upgrading of labor methods and modes of production and daily life. While promoting a technological revolution and driving an industrial revolution, artificial intelligence has redefined the existential significance of labor, its socio-historical logic, and its value to actual society, raising a series of new questions. The rise of artificial intelligence technology has led to “various criticisms and misinterpretations of the labor theory of value, the root of which lies in the failure to accurately and comprehensively grasp the scientific nature of Marx’s labor theory of value.” [1]1 This is a quotation from a Chinese scholarly source, likely referencing a critique of misunderstandings of Marx’s labor theory of value in the context of AI. Therefore, in the face of new epochal problems, only by consistently adhering to the scientific methods and principled positions of Marxism, and by acknowledging the active role of labor, can the theoretical value of Marx’s labor theory of value for the critique of contemporary capitalist modernity be demonstrated, and its value and theoretical先进性 in the age of artificial intelligence be revealed.

当前，人工智能技术飞速发展，并将自身的虚拟化、自动化、数字化等特征日益融入劳动方式、生产生活方式的转型升级过程。在促进科技革命、推动产业革命的同时，人工智能重新定义了劳动的存在意义、社会历史逻辑及其对现实社会的价值，并提出了一系列新问题。人工智能技术的兴起，导致了“对劳动价值论的种种责难与误读，其根源在于没有准确而全面地把握马克思劳动价值论的科学性”。因此，面对新的时代问题，只有始终坚持马克思主义的科学方法和原则立场，承认劳动主体作用，方能彰显出马克思劳动价值论对当代资本主义现代性批判的理论价值，展现其在人工智能时代的价值和理论先进性。

The unmanned production enabled by artificial intelligence has led to the “exit” of the modern worker, reshaped the relationship between commodity production and labor, and raised the epochal question of “whether artificial intelligence, like humans, can create value.” What must be made clear is that the core tenet of Marx’s labor theory of value is that human living labor is the sole source of commodity value; the magnitude of a commodity’s value is determined by the socially necessary labor time required for its production. As an objectified product of human labor, artificial intelligence essentially only enhances labor efficiency through “imitation and augmentation,” achieving a holistic reactivation of human intellectual capabilities. Its data processing and computational capacities are affirmations of the human labor value accumulated through technology. The value created by artificial intelligence fundamentally still belongs to the workers who develop and use it. Thus, the illusion of “living labor” flow formed by AI through the “self-growth” of algorithms is merely a form of “technical externalization” of human intelligence, not a source of “living labor” for value creation by artificial intelligence itself.

人工智能的无人化生产，导致了现代工人的“退场”、重塑了商品生产与劳动的关系，提出了“人工智能是否和人一样可以创造价值”的时代问题。需要明确的是，马克思劳动价值论的核心要义是，人的活劳动是商品价值的唯一源泉；商品的价值量是由生产该商品的社会必要劳动时间决定的。作为人类劳动的对象化产物，人工智能本质上只是以“模仿与增强”的方式提升了劳动效率、实现了人类智能能力的整体性复活，其数据处理和计算能力是对技术积累的人类劳动价值的肯定。人工智能创造的价值从根本上而言，依然属于研发和使用它的工人。由此，人工智能以算法的“自我成长”形成“活劳动”流动假象，只不过是人类智能的“技术外化”形式，而非人工智能创造价值的“活劳动”来源。

From the standpoint of critiquing the capitalist mode of production, Marx argued that the capitalist application of the machine system renders workers “superfluous.” In the age of artificial intelligence, the labor process of AI technology achieves an extension of human physical and intellectual capabilities, leading to a separation of labor processes from material production. However, in another form, capital, by borrowing information technology and digital logic permeating people’s daily lives, has opened up new models of profit-making. On the one hand, the capitalist application of artificial intelligence, under the pretext of the contribution of unmanned factories, appropriates the surplus value created by other producers, thereby obtaining super-profits, amplifying capital’s profit-seeking and monopolistic nature in a broader sphere. On the other hand, the development of artificial intelligence, through the encoding and control of daily life, strengthens capital’s power of domination and its claim on surplus value, while weakening human subjectivity. Nevertheless, within the perspective of Marx’s labor theory of value, “the essence of humanity determines that artificial intelligence can never possess the dual subjective status of human social producers and consumers.” [2]2 This is a quotation from a Chinese scholarly source, arguing that AI cannot replace humans as subjects in production and consumption. This is because labor capacity, as a mode of human existence and development, is acquired by humans through socialized practice, whereas the labor of artificial intelligence is merely system-generated. Therefore, artificial intelligence is not a new labor subject, but rather originates from human labor, adopting entirely new organizational forms and generating entirely new technical forms based on the accumulation of existing labor.

马克思站在批判资本主义生产方式的立场，认为机器体系的资本主义应用使工人成为“多余的人”。在人工智能时代，人工智能技术的劳动过程实现了人的体能和智力的延展，导致了劳动环节与物质生产的分离。但在另一种形式上，资本借用弥漫于人们生活之中的信息技术与数字逻辑又开创了盈利的新模式。一方面，人工智能的资本主义应用以无人工厂的贡献为由分割了其他生产者创造的剩余价值，从而获得高额利润，在更广阔的领域放大了资本的逐利性和垄断性；另一方面，人工智能的发展又在日常生活的编码与控制中，强化了资本的支配权和剩余价值的索取权，弱化了人的主体性。但是，在马克思劳动价值论的视域中，“人的本质决定了人工智能永远不可能具备人的社会生产者和消费者的双重主体地位”。因为劳动能力作为人的存在和发展方式，是人通过社会化实践习得的，而人工智能的劳动只是系统生成的。因此，人工智能并非全新的劳动主体，而是源于人类劳动在既有劳动的积淀之上采用了全新的组织形态、产生了全新的技术形式。

The capitalist application of artificial intelligence endows capital, labor, and products and services with extremely high flexibility, alleviating problems such as the sluggishness of capital valorization and the slowdown of economic growth. However, it cannot change the historical transience of the existence and development of capitalism. Marx’s labor theory of value, as a scientific theory for critiquing capitalism, elucidates the capitalist relations of production and the process of generating capital’s power, reveals the mechanism of capitalists’ exploitation of workers, and thereby exposes the irreconcilable contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In the age of artificial intelligence, on the one hand, AI labor liberates people from heavy and dangerous labor. This liberation is not a deprivation of the human right to labor, but rather allows humans to engage in more creative work and to more greatly stimulate human potential. On the other hand, amidst the dematerialization of value production and the shift in labor forms, contemporary capitalism, by means of artificial intelligence technology, appropriates the subjective value of workers through the abstraction of labor time, and achieves subjective control over workers through the hidden exploitation of labor. Therefore, in the face of capital’s misuse of artificial intelligence technology, we must adhere to the premises upheld by Marx’s labor theory of value—promoting the development of productive forces, affirming labor subjectivity, and serving the free development of humanity—and promote the return of labor to the free, conscious expression of human life.

人工智能的资本主义应用，赋予资本、劳动力和产品服务极高的灵活性，化解了资本增殖的疲软、经济增长的放缓等问题，但是改变不了资本主义存在和发展的历史暂时性。马克思劳动价值论作为批判资本主义的科学理论，阐释了资本主义生产关系以及资本权力生成的过程，揭示了资本家对于工人的剥削机制，从而揭露了无产阶级和资产阶级之间不可调和的矛盾。在人工智能时代，一方面，人工智能劳动将人们从繁重的、危险性的劳动中解放出来，这种解放不是对人类劳动权利的剥夺，而是让人类可以从事更有创意的工作、更大地激发人类潜能；另一方面，在价值生产的非物质化与劳动形态的转向中，当代资本主义借助人工智能技术以劳动时间的抽象化窃取了劳动者的主体价值，以劳动的隐性剥削实现了对劳动者的主体控制。因此，面对资本对人工智能技术的滥用，应当坚持马克思劳动价值论秉承的促进生产力发展、确证劳动主体性、服务人类自由发展的前提，推动劳动向人自由自觉的生命表现复归。

Therefore, the age of artificial intelligence remains the historical epoch indicated by Marxism. Based on the fundamental standpoint of Marx’s labor theory of value, we must deepen our understanding of the process of value creation through labor in the age of artificial intelligence from the perspectives of historical logic, theoretical logic, and practical logic. This can both endow Marx’s labor theory of value with new epochal value and enhance its explanatory power regarding reality.

因此，人工智能时代仍然是马克思主义所指明的历史时代。立足于马克思劳动价值论的基本立场，从历史逻辑、理论逻辑和实践逻辑上深化对人工智能时代劳动创造价值过程的认识。这既能赋予马克思劳动价值论以新的时代价值，又能够增强马克思劳动价值论的现实解释力。

Adhering to the labor theory of value, constructing the practical logic of artificial intelligence’s transformation of production and daily life

坚持劳动价值论，建构人工智能变革生产与生活的实践逻辑

Starting from the origins and essence of Marx’s labor theory of value and its fundamental principles for critiquing capitalism, and in the face of technology’s redefinition of human labor, we must actively construct new relations of production and new socio-economic structures. This will make the contemporized Marx’s labor theory of value an “abstract concrete” for analyzing social production, regulating social production, and guiding social production, thereby promptly and scientifically addressing new epochal questions.

从马克思劳动价值论的源头、本质及其批判资本主义基本原则出发，面对技术对人类劳动的重新定义，积极建构新的生产关系和社会经济结构，使时代化的马克思劳动价值论成为分析社会生产、规范社会生产和引领社会生产的“抽象的具体”，及时科学地解答时代新课题。

In the age of artificial intelligence, the key to value production increasingly lies in human creative activity. Further expanding the connotation of the concept of labor on the basis of traditional labor thus becomes a new topic for the labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence to explore. On the one hand, the large-scale application of artificial intelligence means that human survival activities under capitalist conditions participate in value production. Capital, to ensure the legitimacy of its “seizure of productive forces,” packages artificial intelligence as “living labor,” further dissolving the clear boundaries of social production relations. On the other hand, capitalism, in shaping daily life, achieves the “abolition of living labor,” causing fundamental changes in human value production and creating new forms of exploitation. In this sense, only by analyzing the actualization of labor versus the de-actualization of the worker, the empowerment of capital versus the self-alienation of the laborer, the personification of things versus the reification of persons, and by deeply critiquing the logic of capital from the theoretical perspective of Marx’s labor theory of value, can we actively promote practical changes and theoretical innovations in value creation through labor in the process of understanding and solving new problems.

在人工智能时代，价值生产的关键越发体现在人的创造性活动上。在传统意义劳动的基础上进一步拓展劳动概念的内涵，就成为人工智能时代劳动价值论需要探索的新课题。一方面，人工智能的规模化应用使资本条件下人的生存活动参与了价值生产，资本为保障其“夺取生产力”的正当性而将人工智能包装为“活劳动”，进一步消融了社会生产关系的清晰界限；另一方面，资本主义在对日常生活的塑造中实现了对“活劳动的取缔”，使人类价值生产发生了根本变化，创造了新的剥削形式。在此意义上，以马克思劳动价值论的理论视野分析劳动的现实化与工人的非现实化、资本的权力化与劳动者的自我异化、物的人格化与人格的物化，深入批判资本逻辑，才能在认识和解决新问题的过程中积极推动劳动创造价值的实践变革和理论创新。

The development of labor in the age of artificial intelligence presents a paradox. On the one hand, the liberation of labor, as a diachronic practical process, produces value that can be developed and utilized by humanity through labor empowered by artificial intelligence, providing “the data that for the first time enables us to truly understand ourselves and how society evolves,” and exhibiting positive effects such as the liberation of labor and the development of labor capacity. On the other hand, the development of artificial intelligence has made it so that “life has become a factory, and the factory is not limited to the space of wage labor but extends into daily life,” [3]3 This quotation is attributed to the Italian autonomist Marxist thinker Mario Tronti, reflecting the concept of the “social factory,” where capitalist relations extend beyond the workplace into all aspects of life. leading to a comprehensive expansion of capital’s exploitation. However, whether it is the labor oppression of large-scale machine industry or the “intelligence paradox” of the age of artificial intelligence, both are technological upgrades aimed at extracting surplus value and enhancing productive forces, and neither has departed from the theoretical horizon of Marx’s labor theory of value. Therefore, only by deeply analyzing the practical transformations of contemporary artificial intelligence labor through Marx’s labor theory of value, and by analyzing, regulating, and guiding production with the labor-value thinking of modernity, can we ensure that laborers retain intelligent dominance in the sphere of production.

人工智能时代的劳动发展呈现出一种悖论。一方面，劳动的解放作为一个历时性的实践过程，由人工智能所赋能的劳动生产出了可供人类开发、利用的价值，提供了“使我们第一次获得真正了解我们自身和社会如何演变所需要的数据”，呈现了劳动解放、劳动能力发展等方面的积极效应；另一方面，人工智能的发展又使得“生活已经变成了工厂，工厂不仅限于雇佣劳动的空间，而是延伸到日常生活中”，形成了资本剥削的全面化扩张。但是，无论是机器大工业的劳动压迫，还是人工智能时代的“智能悖论”，都是以攫取剩余价值、提高生产力为目的的技术升级，并没有脱离马克思劳动价值论的理论视野。因此，以马克思劳动价值论深入分析当代人工智能劳动的实践变革，以现代性的劳动价值思维分析生产、规范生产、引领生产，才能始终确保劳动者在生产领域的智能主导权。

The basic value principles and ultimate orientation of Marx’s labor theory of value remain the value guide for the transformation of the logic of production and daily life by artificial intelligence. Marx pointed out: “The associated producers, rationally regulating their material interchange with nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most adequate to their human nature and most worthy of it.” [4]4 This passage is from Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume III, Chapter 48, “The Trinity Formula,” where Marx discusses the conditions for a rationally regulated society under associated producers. It must be made clear that artificial intelligence is a product of the development of productive forces to a certain stage, and labor with artificial intelligence is a new field of labor based on the needs of the times. Therefore, we should base ourselves on the new concepts, new practices, new thinking, and new pursuits of the age of artificial intelligence, use the labor theory of value to examine the present, analyze the problems brought by the development of artificial intelligence, consider the value status of intelligent production, confront the subjective presence of laborers, and rationally distribute the economic fruits of the age of artificial intelligence.

马克思劳动价值论的基本价值原则和最终指向，依然是人工智能变革生产与生活实践逻辑的价值遵循。马克思指出：“社会化的人，联合起来的生产者，将合理地调节他们和自然之间的物质变换，把它置于他们的共同控制之下，而不让它作为一种盲目的力量来统治自己；靠消耗最小的力量，在最无愧于和最适合于他们的人类本性的条件下来进行这种物质变换。”需要明确的是，人工智能是生产力发展到一定阶段的产物，人工智能的劳动是基于时代发展需要的劳动新领域。因此，我们应该立足于人工智能时代的新概念、新实践、新思维、新追求，运用劳动价值论审视当下，剖析人工智能发展带来的问题，思量智能化生产的价值地位，正视劳动者的主体在场，合理化分配人工智能时代的经济成果。

Upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, opening up new horizons for Marx’s labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence

坚持守正创新，开拓人工智能时代马克思劳动价值论新境界

General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly proposed and outlined the major proposition of “opening up new horizons in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times” at the 20th National Congress of the CPC. [5]5 The 20th National Congress of the CPC was held in October 2022, where Xi Jinping delivered a report outlining the Party’s This requires not only using Marxism to observe the times, grasp the times, and lead the times, but also strengthening the understanding of the laws of practice and theoretical innovation, so as to open up new horizons for Marx’s labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence.

习近平总书记在党的二十大报告中明确提出并概括阐述了“开辟马克思主义中国化时代化新境界”的重大命题。这既需要用马克思主义观察时代、把握时代、引领时代，也需要加强对实践和理论创新的规律性认识，开创人工智能时代马克思劳动价值论的新境界。

Adhere to the theoretical thinking, practical concepts, and worldview inherent in Marx’s labor theory of value, and directly confront the relationship between automated production and the labor theory of value. Currently, artificial intelligence is integrated into the processes of social material production and spiritual production, triggering changes in traditional forms of labor. Because the value of artificial intelligence is embedded in the products of social labor, through the labor form that transfers its value to the value generation of fixed capital, an illusion is created that the actual labor subject is absent. Since the production process of artificial intelligence involves no living labor, it does not involve the creation of new value or the production of surplus value. Therefore, the inversion of labor by artificial intelligence is not a necessary historical stage in the development of productive forces and relations of production, but rather a “logical contradiction of labor” in which materialized tools overstep the labor subject. From this perspective, high-level automated production cannot falsify the labor theory of value. The so-called “contradiction” between automated production and the labor theory of value is merely a false proposition fabricated by empiricists.

坚持马克思劳动价值论蕴含的理论思维、实践观念和世界观念，直面自动化生产与劳动价值论的关系问题。当前，人工智能融入社会物质生产、精神生产过程，引发传统劳动形态的变化。由于社会劳动产品中蕴含了人工智能的价值，通过将其价值转移到固定资本价值生成的劳动形式，形成了现实的劳动主体不在场的假象。由于人工智能的生产过程不存在活劳动，也就不涉及新价值的创造和剩余价值的生产问题。因此，人工智能的劳动倒置不是生产力与生产关系发展的必然历史性阶段，而是物性化的工具僭越劳动主体的“劳动逻辑悖反”。以此来看，自动化的高阶生产并不能证伪劳动价值论。所谓的自动化生产与劳动价值论“悖反”，不过是经验主义者制造出来的虚假命题。

Based on changes in the socio-historical context, conduct in-depth research on the relationship between immaterial labor and the labor theory of value in the age of artificial intelligence, and develop Marx’s labor theory of value in step with the times. Today, artificial intelligence fully activates humanity’s infinite potential, greatly enhances human production efficiency, forms the contemporary representation of “immaterial labor,” and triggers the technological panic of “artificial intelligence replacing humans.” However, based on Marx’s labor theory of value, as a form of immaterial labor, whether the labor of artificial intelligence can become productive labor or wage labor depends crucially on what role this immaterial labor plays. Therefore, at the current stage, the value creation of immaterial labor essentially remains within the institutional framework of capitalist relations of production, where capital “dominates,” “controls,” and “exploits” people, in the logic of “capital annihilates everything.” In this regard, Marx’s labor theory of value, as a theory of abstract labor value, still has applicability in the field of immaterial labor.

立足于社会历史语境的变化，深入研究人工智能时代非物质劳动与劳动价值论的关系问题，与时俱进地发展马克思劳动价值论。今天，人工智能充分激活了人类的无限潜能，大幅提升了人类的生产效率，形成了“非物质劳动”的时代表征，引发了“人工智能替代人”的技术恐慌。但基于马克思劳动价值论而言，作为一种非物质劳动，人工智能的劳动能否成为一种生产性劳动或雇佣劳动，关键取决于这种非物质劳动发挥何种作用。因此，现阶段非物质劳动的价值创造本质上仍然处于资本“支配人”“控制人”“剥削人”的“资本消灭一切”的资本主义生产关系制度框架之内。就此而言，马克思劳动价值论作为一种抽象劳动价值论，在非物质劳动领域中依然具有适用性。

In the age of artificial intelligence, further uphold fundamental principles and break new ground in Marx’s labor theory of value, strengthen research on the new connotations of important theses such as the theory of surplus value and the theory of capital turnover, and inject new vitality into the development of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. Currently, intelligent labor enriches the forms of labor in modern society and opens up broad prospects for labor to become people’s primary need. Artificial intelligence labor does not negate the Marxist labor value outlook but further enriches and proves it. Using the theoretical wisdom of Marx’s labor theory of value to directly confront issues in the age of artificial intelligence, such as “the independence of abstract labor,” “the ubiquity of surplus labor,” “the virtualization of material production,” and “the absolutization of class separation,” requires continuously enhancing the consciousness, initiative, and creativity in using Marxism to understand and grasp the social essence and historical laws of the age of artificial intelligence.

在人工智能时代进一步守正创新马克思劳动价值论，加强对剩余价值论、资本周转理论等重要论断新内涵的研究，为马克思主义中国化时代化的发展注入新的活力。当前，智能劳动充盈了现代性社会的劳动形态，开辟了劳动成为人的第一需要的广阔前景。人工智能劳动不是对马克思主义劳动价值观的否定，而是进一步的丰富和证明。以马克思劳动价值论的理论智慧，直面人工智能时代“抽象劳动独立化”“剩余劳动泛在化”“物质生产虚拟化”“阶级分离绝对化”等问题，就要不断增强运用马克思主义认识和驾驭人工智能时代社会本质和历史规律的自觉性、主动性和创造性。

In summary, internalizing the epochal questions raised by artificial intelligence into the core provisions and specific content of Marx’s labor theory of value means using the epochal innovation of Marx’s labor theory of value to answer the new questions of labor value brought by artificial intelligence, and moreover, using real problems and the spirit of the times to activate and innovate Marxist theoretical exploration.

总的来说，将人工智能提出的时代问题内化成马克思劳动价值论的核心规定和具体内容，就是以马克思劳动价值论的时代创新，回答人工智能带来的劳动价值新问题，更是以现实问题和时代精神激活并创新马克思主义的理论探索。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗