Member-only story
The Marx Algorithm: Artificial General Intellect
On Marx’s most neglected idea, its Silicon Valley rebrand, and the alienation nobody noticed
Superhuman level. The biggest lever ever on human willfulness. The greatest leap since electricity. Perhaps since fire. It will cure cancer. It will end poverty. It will discover new physics and make you wonder what you are still needed for. That is the latest from Silicon Valley’s trillion-dollar revolution. The CEOs of the three most powerful AI companies on Earth have each promised this future. They do not agree on the exact definition or when it will arrive. But the pitch is unanimous. A new paradigm.
The uncomfortable part is that someone already got there. In 1858, in a private notebook, a philosopher who died broke in London wrote the most precise description of what Silicon Valley is now building and gave it almost the same name.
Karl Marx called it the General Intellect. The prophets of Silicon Valley call it Artificial General Intelligence.
The coincidence is a diagnosis prescribed 168 years ago. Communist in its origins, capitalist in its capture, the most expensive corporate bet in the history of capitalism was described, almost to the letter, by its most famous critic. He also saw where it leads. The industry would…
