On Automation and Free Time

Essay, No Density, Superhumanity, Technology and fabrication, Urban Paradigms, Yuk Hui

Algorithms, Artificial intelligence, Autonomy, Collaborative work, Collective city, Digital era, Economy, Essay, Human Resources, Humanities, Industrial revolution, Knowledge, Labor, Machine, Network, New paradigms, New technologies, Philosophy, Politics, Production, Psychology, Social dynamics, Social Media, Society, Sociology, Technology, Utopia

Originally published in Superhumanity: Post-Labor, Psychopathology, Plasticity (2018) and e-flux Architecture.
Excerpt from: Superhumanity, 2018 -- https://actar.com/product/superhumanity/

1. Dialectics of Living and Dead Labor
In “Fragment on Machines,” Marx made the case that with investment in automated technology, which he called fixed capital, capitalism is able to reduce necessary labor time and increase both surplus labor and value. Marx then speaks of the possibility of sublating surplus labor to free time, which he understood as “both idle time and time for higher activity.” This speculation, in which the type of labor corresponding to a capitalist mode of production disappears, is predicated on new technological developments.