By Ms. S. Mahadevi
1. INTRODUCTION
“The proletarians have nothing to lose but the chains. They have a world to win.”
-KARL MARX
Currently the world is running in a race with the weapon called Artificial intelligence to win the tag of super-star economy. John McCarthy was the person who invented the term of artificial intelligence in 1955 and called as the “Father of artificial intelligence”. Though it was invented in 1955, took its avatar after 1980s. An automated machine with the human intelligence is termed as artificial intelligence. AI is a product which symbolises the cravenness of human towards technology.It is a double-edged sword which can make the things better as well as worse. In this article, the author will discuss as to how AI could suppress the proletarians and the future ahead.
2.ADVERSE EFFECTS OF AI ON PROLETARIANS
Proletarians are the working class of the state whose livelihood depends only on the daily or monthly wages. As we all know, inequality in the society is prevalent particularly with labour class due to the economic imparity and fallacy of Horse and Sparrow theory. To make the things even more worse, comes the AI. Actually,AI will create unemployment in the market because it will replace the labours such as taxi drivers, waiters, factory workers etc. It is palatable that no one before 200 years would have thought about the existence of automated machines and it’s not unpredictable in other 200 years that AI may completely devastate the proletarians by pulling out them from their respected fields. The main reason as to why the bourgeoisie(especially Developed Countries) wants to replace the proletarians with automated machines is that according to them maintaining the labourers is a costly process because they have to pay compensation on any inevitable events, international norms, strike, reinstatement, labour union demands etc. The other reason is that automation is feasible and they can show more productivity with meagre investment as the machine could do more works than an individual and itself-evident that in the end it is all about profit. Eventually, when there is no proletarianism there is no communism and when there is no communism, the society will be handicapped.
3.AI AND ITS ECONOMIC IMPACTS
The fact that AI will create productivity is palatable but when the product arrives at the market there will be no persons to buy the product due to the mitigation in employment and income. However, there will be enhanced job opportunities to the engineers who operate the automated machines. Promulgation of social policies such as Universal Basic Income(UBI), Negative Income Tax(NIT)and other welfare schemes may protect the proletarians from poverty dismay but the governments find such welfare social policies as cumbersome task for intolerable reasons. To run the race with the Developed Nations, all other nations will utilise machine-intelligence by legislating new law to welcome the so called profitable economy. According to economists, inviting over-usage of AI in Developing and Under-Developing nations could crash the economy due to stagnation of employment.
4.AI, A TOOL TO ABOLISH BOURGEOISIE- A MYTH
AI could devastate capitalism is a falsehood because it itself is an avatar to promote capitalism. In present scenario, Corporatocracy is predominant where states are relaxing their red-tape rules for corporate investment. Further, large monopolies like Google, Apple etc. are investing in machine-intelligence by forecasting automation driven trade market. It is undeniable that corporatocracy is not a healthy environment in any state, indeed, now we are hypnotised towards it under the veil of trade liberalisation.Consequently, monopoly increases due to AI and with machine intelligence capitalist become super-power. Subsequently, there will be no one to agitate his activity as its only machines and no more humans. Inevitably, no working class means more capitalist empowerment and job quality will mitigate like even the degree holder will be ready to do caretaker jobs.Slavery would be more prevalent and it could be super-normal at that time. Eventually, anyway capitalism will survive because its ultimate motive is profit.
5. AN ALARM TO INTERNATIONAL LAW
International Labour Organisation has provided various social security schemes and labour standards to improve the condition of working class across the world. Suppression of proletarians through human-intelligence will be in violation of such International Labour Standards. Further, in case of unemployment which have created by the AI will violate their right to livelihood, right to dignity, right to equality, right to work etc. enshrined under international conventions such as UN Charter, ICCPR, UDHR, ILO Conventions etc. Ergo, Developed Countries should look into the alarm set by treaties and conventions of international law before they step into the automation technology propelled trade culture.
6.CONCLUSION
AI can be designed in the way to assist or guide the proletarians rather than replacing them. For example, replacing automation in the place of manual scavengers is appropriate but replacing auditors with automation causes trouble. To limit the usage of AI machine, states can impose taxes on them and as a result export /import will be decreased. It's Glad that Japan has taken an initiative to impose taxes on automated machines. And the author hope that all other states will take this precaution before it is too late. Enacting stringent laws on AI utilisation and violation of such norms may in turn restrict the over-powering of machine-intelligence in lieu of proletarians. Believing in ubijesibiremedium, proletarian will restore their rights anyway alike in 1917s through revolution as once robustly told by the legend Vladimir Lenin.
References:
1. Universal Declaration of human rights, Art.1,3,7 and 23, Dec10,1948;
2. International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights, art.3, 6 and 8, Dec.16, 1966.
3. Charter of United Nation, principle 1, June 26, 1945.
4. Social Security(Minimum Standard) Convention, 1952.
5.Equality of treatment (Minimum Standard) Convention,1962.