Lan Yang: Historical Materialist Reflections on the Development of Artificial Intelligence
On April 25, 2015, while presiding over the 20th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "As a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing human modes of production and life." This tells us that the development of AI is not merely a simple technical issue, but a social issue with far-reaching influence. AI has created an unprecedentedly vast space for the development of productive forces, while simultaneously exerting a major impact on social structures, governance systems, and cultural psychology. Therefore, we need to conduct a scientific reflection [1] on the nature, effects, and future development trends of AI. In this regard, the dual-scale theory of historical materialism serves as a key; it provides us with a powerful weapon to correctly analyze the basic characteristics and development trends of AI, helping to promote the R&D and upgrading of AI while fostering the organic unity of its economic benefits, social benefits, and ethical values.
I. The Dual Scales of Technological Development from the Perspective of Historical Materialism
The 19th century witnessed two industrial revolutions that profoundly influenced the course of human history. Marx observed that the development of science and technology created enormous social wealth, and he thus attached great importance to the role of technology in the development of human civilization. On one hand, Marx evaluated the evolution of technology from the perspective of material production, emphasizing the material dimension of technology and regarding it as an important indicator of productive forces. On the other hand, Marx analyzed the essence of technology through the scale of human relations, emphasizing the subjective dimension of technology and regarding it as the externalization of the essential powers [2] of human beings as subjects. Consequently, Marx proposed two scales of technological development—the material scale and the scale of human relations—which together constitute the inherent definition of science and technology.
1. The material scale of technological development
The material scale is the objective standard for measuring technological development. Marx believed that technological development, especially the emergence of machinery systems, is the result of the evolution of the instruments of labor [3] and the mediation through which humans utilize natural forces and transform them into productive forces. For humans to survive and develop, they must transform nature and appropriate natural forces in forms useful to themselves. However, to employ natural forces, humans must rely on certain material-technical media. During the era of hand tools, people acted directly upon the objects of labor primarily using hands, feet, and simple tools, with the human body serving as the power source, supplemented by animal, wind, and water power. In modern society, the application of large-scale machinery provided a powerful means for transforming natural forces into actual productive forces. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels elucidated the tremendous role of material-technical innovation in promoting social production: "Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground as if by magic—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?" Marx further pointed out in Capital that technological innovation catalyzes a new social division of labor, generates entirely new sectors of social production, and drives the industrial division of labor toward refinement. "Modern industry, by means of machinery, chemical processes and other methods, is continually causing changes not only in the technical basis of production, but also in the functions of the labourer, and in the social combinations of the labour-process."
In short, Marx viewed technology as the prerequisite, basic content, and important indicator of the development of productive forces. The evolution of human productive activity from manual labor to mechanization and then to "a system of machinery with an automatic prime mover" is an inevitability of the development of productive forces; it promotes the optimization of laborers, instruments of labor, objects of labor, and their modes of combination. New inventions, processes, and methods can comprehensively enhance the skills of laborers and drive the emergence of new materials of labor, thereby increasing labor productivity and promoting rapid economic development. On this basis, Marx also analyzed the prominent characteristics of the material scale. In his view, on one hand, technology is a product of historical accumulation and thus possesses inheritance. "Every productive force is an acquired force, the product of former activity." On the other hand, technology can undergo leaps under certain historical conditions, creating unprecedented productive forces, and thus technology possesses breakthrough potential. This combination of inheritance and breakthrough gives technological development distinct stage-like characteristics. Marx pointed out that human society has passed through the era of hand tools, dominated by stone, bronze, and iron, as well as the age of steam represented by the steam engine. Since the late 19th century, human material productive forces have undergone several more qualitative leaps, from the Second Industrial Revolution represented by the internal combustion engine to the information technology revolution beginning in the 1970s, and now to the intelligent era represented by AI, virtual reality, and big data. The stage-like nature of technological development reflects the gradual enhancement of human capacity to transform nature, marking the leap of productive force levels from lower to higher stages. It can be said that without the elevation of material-technology, the development of productive forces becomes a tree without roots. Relying on its material attributes, technological development drives changes in the social division of labor, facilitates the flow of production factors and labor between sectors, and promotes the continuous development of material productive forces.
2. The scale of human relations in technological development
It must be noted that the emphasis on the material scale of technological development was not Marx's original creation. Before Marx, classical economists like Smith and Ricardo, and utopian socialists like Saint-Simon, had emphasized the importance of technology for developing productive forces from different angles. Marx refined the theory of productive forces based on his predecessors and studied technology within that framework. At the same time, Marx opposed a purely naturalistic understanding of technology solely within the context of productive forces; instead, he emphasized the human relations scale of technological development, which constitutes the unique core of the technological outlook within the perspective of historical materialism.
First, in terms of essence, technology is the externalization of the essential powers of human beings as subjects. Marx noted: "Nature builds no machines... They are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified." The emergence and development of technology is a process in which humans project their own essential powers onto the external world. Through labor, humans manufacture tools and create technology, condensing their own purposes, wisdom, and abilities into material fruits, transforming the power that originally existed in human consciousness into objective, perceptible technological forms (such as tools, machinery, and processes). Therefore, the human essence is the inherent prescription of the essence of technology; the application of technology further enhances the human capacity to understand and transform the world, confirming the subjective status of humanity.
Second, in terms of nature, technology possesses both natural and social attributes. As a medium for humans to transform the world, every leap in technology has a profound impact on the instruments and modes of labor, serving as an active factor in constructing new relations of production and even social relations. Just as capital is not a thing but a relation of production belonging to a certain social formation, though technology manifests as a thing, when it influences human society in the form of a thing, it always embodies certain relations of production. This means that technology and the realization of its effects express both the active relationship between humans and nature and the process of human production and life and social relations of production. That is to say, there is no such thing as "pure" technology; technology always develops under specific social relations. Marx noted: "A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital." Only when placed within certain social relations can technology reveal itself. Technological development is fundamentally constrained by social relations of production; the relations of production exert a significant influence on the direction, scope, and speed of technological development.
Third, in terms of judging criteria, the free and well-rounded development of individuals is the ultimate goal of technological development. Marx believed that the ultimate scale for judging technological development lies not in technical indicators themselves, but in whether it serves to enhance human subjectivity, whether it allows humans more freedom of choice, and whether it promotes the full exertion of human essential powers. In a word: whether it is conducive to the free and well-rounded development of the individual. If one sets judging criteria based only on technical logic while ignoring the free and well-rounded development of humans, technological development will inevitably move toward its opposite. In short, technological development must be linked to real human activities; the fruits of technological development must be reflected through human development, and its significance must be judged and measured by the degree of the free and well-rounded development of the individual.
3. Incoherence between the material scale and the scale of human relations
Marx believed that there is an incoherence between the dual scales of technological development. On one hand, by improving production conditions, changing relations of production, increasing productive forces, and influencing social structure, technology enables humanity to gradually escape dependence on nature, greatly expanding the boundaries of human freedom. Therefore, Marx regarded technological development as a necessary condition for the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. On the other hand, although technology possesses the potential to create free time for humanity, human history shows that technological development has not automatically brought about the free and well-rounded development of the individual. On the contrary, Marx and Engels pointed out that technology, as our own product, "establishes itself as an objective power above us, eluding our control, thwarting our expectations, and bringing to naught our calculations." The phenomenon of technological alienation occurs because, under conditions of private property, the application of technology seriously deviates from human survival and development. Particularly under the dominance of the logic of capital, the savings in socially necessary labor time brought by technology are not converted into leisure and free time for members of society; rather, they extend relative surplus labor time and, catalyzed by the relative surplus population, exacerbate worker unemployment.
It can be said that viewing technology and its social application dialectically is a major insight of the dual-scale theory of historical materialism. Marx criticized the distorted development caused by the capitalist application of technology. Technology becomes an external, alien, and hostile power that in turn disciplines humans, making human needs and values subservient to the valorization of capital and the maximization of technical efficiency; the human being as subject is reduced to a tool within the technical system. Technological dividends primarily flow to the owners of capital, leading to the displacement of humans by machines and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. This paradox of technological development is a significant manifestation of the inherent contradictions of capitalism and one of the practical dilemmas facing the free and well-rounded development of the individual.
In Marx's view, "the supersession of self-alienation follows the same path as self-alienation." To change the reality of technological alienation is not to completely negate technology, but to break through the paradoxes produced by the capitalist application of technology while developing it, thereby achieving the unity of the dual scales. In terms of philosophical significance, the unity proposed by Marx transcends the barriers of modern rationalist philosophy by examining the process of human social development starting from the process of material production for the first time, while also breaking through the theoretical defects of technological determinism to deeply explore the value basis and practical possibilities of a future society. In terms of the practical path, pursuing material-technical transformation while eliminating irrational modes of production constitutes the necessary road toward the future society envisioned by Marx. The relationship between humans and technology is not just a scientific question but a social one; technological development is closely linked with new relations of production. Marx explicitly stated, "In communist society, the scope for the use of machinery would be quite different from that in bourgeois society," and "Only under communist relations can the truths already attained in technology be realized in practice." Engels also noted in The Condition of the Working Class in England that "under a reasonably organized social system, all these improvements would be only welcome." The development of technology itself cannot dissolve the series of problems brought about by its capitalist application, such as social polarization and ecological deterioration. To eliminate the ill effects of the capitalist application of technology, one must establish relations of production compatible with the level of productive forces, and through the transformation of relations of production and social systems, ensure technology is applied reasonably, prevent technology from being monopolized by a few for exploitative purposes, and make technology a power for promoting social fairness and justice and realizing the free and well-rounded development of the individual. The dual-scale theory of historical materialism reveals the dialectical relationship between humans and technology: without a material-technical foundation, the free and well-rounded development of the individual is an empty phrase; yet a one-sided emphasis on technological development only leads to human alienation. Under socialist conditions, technological development finally possesses the practical possibility of achieving the true unity of the dual scales, embodying the distinct characteristic of historical materialism in organically combining scientific endeavor with humanistic concern.
II. The Generative Logic and Value Implication of Artificial Intelligence
Currently, the development of AI is changing with each passing day, and its rapid iteration is triggering a global economic and social transformation and a new round of international competition. How should we view the essence of AI...
How should we lead the development of artificial intelligence (AI)? How should we respond to the social effects of AI? These questions undoubtedly carry significant weight in our current era. Historical materialism’s theory of the "dual measure" [4] provides us with a scientific key to grasping AI. Proceeding from this basis, we can avoid one-sided interpretations of AI and correctly recognize its generative logic and axiological significance. At the same time, the development of AI presents new propositions for upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground in historical materialism, serving as an opportunity for theoretical innovation in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism.
First, within the material measure, AI represents yet another breakthrough and transformation of the productive forces. As a frontier technology leading a new round of technological revolution and industrial upgrading, AI is consistent with the nature of the "machines" discussed by Marx; its direct value lies in driving another major leap in the level of human productive forces. From the perspective of technological continuity, AI did not appear out of thin air; it is the result of long-term human technological accumulation. From neural networks that simulate human thinking to genetic algorithms that mimic evolutionary laws, and then to swarm intelligence algorithms inspired by the foraging behavior of bees, AI designers have constantly sought wisdom from nature and society. They laid the groundwork for the key core technologies of AI—machine learning, robotic voice recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision—through early theoretical innovation and technical preparation. Meanwhile, the emergence of AI, especially General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), represents a revolutionary leap in technology. It has brought about a brand-new combination of factors of production and a deep transformation of industry, creating a higher-order form of productive forces.
According to Marx’s analysis of the material measure of technological development, one can grasp the immense value of AI through the lenses of laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor [5], as well as the optimized combination of these three elements. First, AI allows the complex and creative labor of high-quality laborers to be better applied within the sphere of social production. As early as the 19th century, Marx pointed out that machines function as "prosthetics" for laborers; they help laborers transform the imaginary pictures constructed in the human brain into organ-like extensions in the real world, liberating humanity from heavy and complex physical labor. As advanced machinery, AI's empowerment effect on laborers is unprecedented. On one hand, AI helps laborers break through capacity boundaries and collaboration barriers, integrating the professional advantages of different high-quality laborers. By optimizing collaboration processes through algorithms, it allows originally dispersed complex labor to form a synergy where "1+1>2." On the other hand, AI prompts the division of labor to shift from traditional person-to-person division to a person-machine division. This requires laborers to possess the ability for man-machine collaboration and gives rise to a cohort of application-oriented talents who possess diverse knowledge structures, can flexibly utilize new types of production tools, and are proficient in mastering new quality means of production.
Second, AI enables the means of labor to break through traditional boundaries of use, achieving highly intelligent allocation, dynamic coordination, and efficient utilization. Through data and algorithms, it activates the latent value of the means of labor, enhancing their adaptability and output efficiency in productive activities. With the deep integration by AI of information technology, advanced manufacturing technology, and new materials technology, new types of production tools characterized by intelligence, efficiency, low-carbon footprints, and safety will emerge in large quantities. Examples include digital and intelligent innovation platforms that fuse Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain; fully autonomous robots; new energy or energy-saving equipment; multi-person positioning systems; and intelligent detection systems. These tools not only reduce the constraints of the natural environment on production activities but also greatly broaden the field of production, releasing the potential of both new and traditional industries.
Third, AI will greatly enhance humanity’s ability to transform nature, causing the objects of labor to be vastly enriched and expanded in terms of variety and form. For instance, in the spatial dimension of the object of labor, AI can help humans improve the methods for obtaining matter and energy from the natural world, extending the scope of understanding and transforming nature into the deep earth, deep sea, and deep space. in the morphological dimension of the object of labor, AI can help humans integrate original material resources, continuously create new material resources, and transform them into objects of labor. This includes creating non-material objects such as massive data factors, and developing new energies represented by solar, wind, and geothermal energy, as well as new materials represented by nanomaterials, biomaterials, and smart materials.
Fourth, AI can continuously optimize the combination of laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor. The close coordination and efficient cooperation among these three are the prerequisites for the development of productive forces and the key to stimulating even more powerful productive forces. The role of AI is multi-dimensional and continuous; it will cause the development of laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor to show exponential growth, causing the three to cooperate and thus produce unprecedented levels of productive forces.
Next, within the measure of human relations, AI is another great confirmation of the "essential powers of man" [6]. Within Marx’s theoretical framework, AI, as the core form of contemporary technology, both continues the general attributes of technology as the externalization of human essential powers and the carrier of social relations, and demonstrates a particularity different from previous technologies due to its deep intervention in mental labor and its systemic restructuring of social relations. This particularity is manifested in the following three aspects.
First, AI’s direct simulation and replacement of mental labor break through the single extension of physical labor provided by traditional technology. The technologies of the periods of the first and second industrial revolutions analyzed by Marx—such as the steam engine, the spinning jenny, and the internal combustion engine—were primarily replacements for and amplifications of human physical strength or natural forces, extending human limbs through mechanical motion and enhancing the efficiency of material production. These technologies had not yet touched the core domains of mental labor (such as logical reasoning, abstract thinking, and decision-making). The particularity of AI lies in the fact that it has, for the first time, realized the imitation of brain functions on a large scale: from data processing and pattern recognition to complex decision-making, its core is the algorithmic reconstruction of human cognitive processes. This intervention in mental labor means that technology is no longer merely an extension of physical strength, but has begun to become an extension of mental power. Traditional technology mainly changed the form of material production, whereas AI has begun to change the form of knowledge production. AI not only affects the intensity of labor but also profoundly impacts the content of labor, even touching upon the objectification process of human thinking activity itself.
Second, as the core carrier of data production, AI provides a massive dynamic energy for restructuring the relations of production and even social relations. AI shapes new types of relations of production by changing models of the division of labor, optimizing resource allocation, transforming organizational forms, and adjusting distribution systems. Through data interconnection and algorithmic penetration, it realizes a systemic transformation of the economic, political, cultural, and social spheres. This broad and deep penetration means that AI is no longer merely a tool of production, but has become an important force intervening in and shaping the social structure. For example, data production redefines key contents such as ownership, the division of labor, and distribution within the relations of production, highlighting complex issues like data property rights, man-machine division of labor, the distribution of algorithmic factors, and human subjectivity. It further transmits these transformations into dimensions such as social interaction, class stratification, and social governance.
Third, AI touches upon the transformation of the essence of labor and human subjectivity, creating important conditions for the sublation [7] of the alienated forms of labor. A large amount of repetitive, formulaic, and primary practical activity will be undertaken by AI, which will greatly reduce socially necessary labor time, making it possible for individuals to be liberated from the low-efficiency labor they must perform for survival, thereby granting them more leisure time. As a tool for enhancing human capabilities, AI can also compensate for human physiological and cognitive limitations, greatly expanding the boundaries of human practice and accumulating the material basis for the leap-frog development of human civilization. Of course, in Marx's view, the realization of the aforementioned freedom is not automatic. Whether it is the extension of mental power or the expansion of free time, the guidance of social systems is required so that the technical breakthroughs of AI can truly serve the free and well-rounded development of individuals.
Finally, from the perspective of the unity of the dual measure, AI brings both opportunities and challenges. The emergence of AI promotes a new round of development in productive forces, providing a historical opportunity for the free and well-rounded development of individuals and the progress of civilization. However, while technological development brings benefits to humanity, it also produces a series of problems. Marx long ago pointed out that technological development is a double-edged sword; it does not automatically bring about the free and well-rounded development of the individual. Historically, technological development has produced a series of social contradictions. For instance, the Luddite movement that occurred during the First Industrial Revolution reflected how "machine production makes the insecurity and instability of the worker's employment, and thus of his living conditions, a normal phenomenon." Similarly, the emergence of AI today may cause a series of new problems. For example, the deep binding of AI with capital accelerates the domination of the human being by the "capital-technology complex"; data algorithms bring potential risks such as technology abuse and privacy breaches; a vacuum appears in technological ethics; and human subjectivity is weakened, and so on. In particular, the large-scale replacement of human labor by AI can easily cause the disintegration of traditional labor markets and new social inequalities. On one hand, by replacing repetitive, dangerous, and inefficient labor, AI liberates people from mechanical labor and shifts them toward more creative, emotionally valuable, and complex work—this is an important manifestation of the free and well-rounded development of the individual. On the other hand, AI may also pose the risk of low-skilled laborers being replaced by technology. When the speed of laborers' skill transformation lags behind the speed of job disappearance, or when they lack the resources and channels for transformation, structural unemployment occurs, leading to a phenomenon of polarization under the "tech-gap."
Faced with the realistic challenges brought by technological development, we must provide guidance and adjustments at the level of social systems and policies, so that technology truly becomes a medium for human liberation. Historical materialism emphasizes that whether technology causes human alienation or promotes the free and well-rounded development of the individual depends, in the final analysis, on the social system in which the technology is applied. According to Marx’s distinction between technology and the application of technology, AI will exhibit different developmental characteristics and produce different social impacts under different institutional environments. Under the conditions of capitalist private ownership, the digital monopolies behind AI combine with the logic of capital to form a more hidden and powerful mechanism of exploitation. AI is alienated into a new type of control tool; algorithmic monitoring intensifies the precise exploitation of laborers; and the digital divide results in the masses being reduced to data raw material for capital. All of these reinforce capital monopoly and the polarization between rich and poor, deepening the antagonism between capital and labor.
In sharp contrast, under the socialist system, the development of AI moves in the same direction as and complements the free and well-rounded development of the individual, demonstrating a deep compatibility. This compatibility is manifested both in how the development of AI empowers the free and well-rounded development of individuals and in the controlling and supportive role played by the socialist system regarding technology. On one hand, the new kinetic energy, new industries, and new models fostered by AI exert a "lead-goose effect" [8] on the free and well-rounded development of individuals and the common prosperity of all people. On the other hand, through the mainstay of public ownership and the goal of common prosperity, the socialist system guides AI to serve the interests of all the people, allowing AI to play a major role in serving the people's interests, conforming to the needs of the times, and maintaining international fairness and justice—becoming a powerful support for promoting social development, improving people's well-being, and realizing common prosperity.
More specifically, within the horizon of Marx’s thought and value concepts, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics provides a fundamental guarantee and unique advantages for the healthy development and realization of the value of AI, ensuring that AI technology always serves the interests of the people, national strategies, and social development. First, socialism with Chinese characteristics has established basic economic systems, such as the mainstay of public ownership and the common development of multiple forms of ownership. This form of ownership can both stimulate the full flow of all factors conducive to the development of AI and control the gap between rich and poor within reasonable limits by regulating production and distribution, ensuring that the development of AI does not fall into...
...the traps of "winner-take-all," "accumulated advantage," and "imbalance of opportunity." Second, a salient feature and advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the successful harnessing of capital. This involves both unleashing the positive role of capital in driving technical innovation and industrial upgrading, and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital through effective institutional design, thereby ensuring that AI technology does not become alienated into a mere tool for capital's pursuit of profit. The fundamental method is to utilize effective government supervision and institutional guidance to prevent the logic of capital from overriding social logic, to curb the collusion between capital valorization and technical monopoly, and to promote the unification of capital and technology with social values. Third, socialism with Chinese characteristics is capable of balancing technical development with the baseline of people's livelihoods, promoting high-quality and full employment. The widespread application of AI technology can create many new posts and professions, stimulating new momentum for employment and promoting the improvement of employment quality and volume; however, it may also have a substitution effect on traditional positions, intensifying labor market adjustments. Consequently, on one hand, China is continuously enhancing the adaptability between industry and employment, expanding the employment capacity of emerging industries, and vigorously promoting education and training in AI knowledge and skills to improve workers' ability to utilize AI technology. On the other hand, China is steadily raising the level of social security to help practitioners in impacted fields transition from being "displaced" to becoming participants in new sectors, facilitating the matching of labor supply and demand and providing a buffer period for labor market adjustments. Finally, the value orientation of socialism with Chinese characteristics anchors the direction of AI development. The people-centered development philosophy dictates that China’s research and development of AI is not a simple pursuit of capital profit or technical hegemony, but always takes the satisfaction of the people’s aspirations for a better life as its starting point and goal. From the perspective of the dialectical relationship between the material scale and the scale of human relations, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics—through value leadership, resource coordination, contradiction balancing, and long-term planning—has demarcated a developmental track for AI that serves the people, supports development, promotes fairness, and benefits the world. This ensures that technology truly becomes a powerful force for promoting high-quality development, achieving common prosperity, and assisting national rejuvenation, reflecting the intrinsic unity between the socialist system and technical development.
III. Continuously Optimizing the Relationship Between Humans and Artificial Intelligence
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Artificial intelligence brings unprecedented development opportunities, but also brings unprecedented risks and challenges." The dual scales of historical materialism not only theoretically enhance our understanding of AI and its laws of development but also practically indicate a feasible path for overcoming risks and challenges to achieve the high-quality development of AI. Reviewing the history of AI development in China, it is precisely due to the value guidance of Marxism and the institutional advantages of socialism that technical development has been organically combined with the protection and improvement of people's livelihoods, assisting in common prosperity for all people. Looking to the future, we must further promote the unification of the dual scales, continuously optimize the relationship between humans and AI, and strive to achieve the organic unity of AI research and upgrading with its economic benefits, social benefits, and ethical values, so that technical development truly serves humanity.
First, we must follow the material scale of technology and continuously release the massive potential of AI to liberate the productive forces. Currently, as a major driving force in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, AI is profoundly changing human modes of production and life. Its rapid iteration is triggering a global economic and social transformation and a new round of international competition. According to the method specified by Marx, technical development is the key kinetic energy of social development. To promote the high-quality development of AI, the key lies in enhancing the coordination and matching of workers, instruments of labor, and subjects of labor to achieve a more scientific and efficient leap in their combination. Regarding the optimization of workers, emphasis should be placed on cultivating interdisciplinary talents, ensuring that workers possess AI-related knowledge and skills to form an efficient human-machine collaboration model. On one hand, we must further explore the division of labor between AI and human workers, allowing AI to replace more repetitive and standardized labor so that human creativity can be maximally released. On the other hand, we must comprehensively enhance the ability of workers to use new productive tools, particularly by building a high-quality talent team capable of leading scientific and technological innovation, daring to break through cognitive barriers [9], and achieving major breakthroughs. Regarding the optimization of instruments of labor, we must develop new types of intelligent tools, utilizing the disruptive and general-purpose nature of AI technology to develop more intelligent production tools. We should use AI to tap into new business needs and application scenarios, creating entirely new instruments of labor and production fields, thereby opening new spaces for social practice. Regarding the optimization of the subjects of labor, we must expand the application of data elements, emphasizing the role of data as a new type of factor of production [10]. Through AI technology, we can collect, analyze, and process massive amounts of data, transforming it into valuable information and expanding the scope and value of the subjects of labor. With the help of AI, we can promote the expansion of traditional physical subjects of labor toward a fusion of digital and physical realities, spawning new subjects of labor such as new materials and new energy.
Second, we must follow the scale of human relations and move beyond the binary opposition of technicism and romanticism. Since the dawn of the modern era, the rapid advance of technology has spawned two opposing views. Some advocate for technological omnipotence, believing that no matter what difficulties exist in the environment, society, or ethics, a solution can be found through technical development. Others believe that technology threatens human subjectivity, advocating a pre-technical romantic fantasy. According to Marx’s dialectical understanding of technical development, the correct attitude is neither to fall into a utopian imagination of technological omnipotence nor to advocate a pessimistic theory of technological catastrophe. Instead, technology should be examined within the historical process: it is the product of the objectification of essential human powers, serving both as a driver of progress and as something limited by a specific era. Therefore, in the face of the arrival of the AI era, it is necessary to maintain a clear understanding, but there is no need for excessive worry, and certainly no reason to "stop eating for fear of choking" [11] or to remain stuck in old ways. In terms of long-term development, as AI iterates and upgrades, it may possess cognitive, reasoning, and thinking abilities similar to humans, exhibiting human-like qualities in cognition, behavior, and interaction. However, AI is essentially simulated intelligence; it is a data-driven computational system, an extension and externalization of human brainpower. It does not possess the unique life experiences and practical capabilities of humans and cannot truly understand "existence" or "needs." One can say that humanity is fully capable of leading the process of technical development, ensuring it always moves in a direction beneficial to the universal interests of humanity. To achieve this, the relationship between humans and AI must be dynamically optimized. First, we must always adhere to the unity of AI's conformity to objective laws and its conformity to human purpose. Within the horizon of historical materialism, technical development is not a natural process but a process shaped by human values. Behind every technical development, the fundamental proposition of "for whom and by whom is technology developed" must be answered. Being "shaped by human values" means that AI originates from human wisdom, reflects human needs, and embodies human values; its creation, use, and improvement are all human purposive actions. Therefore, AI should be used more efficiently to assist humans in breaking through their own functional limitations, playing its role as a tool for humans to transform the objective world. Second, we must always adhere to the unity of technical rationality and value rationality. AI is created, designed, and manufactured by humans to better and more conveniently solve various problems in real life. As Engels said: "If society has a technical need, that helps science forward more than ten universities." The purpose of developing AI is to help humans better understand and master natural and social laws and solve more practical problems—such as medical health, the energy revolution, and social governance—making human life more convenient, comfortable, and secure. Humans are the source and the end of AI; developing AI should take the satisfaction of real human existential needs and the promotion of free and well-rounded human development as its fundamental purpose. Third, we must always combine technical development with science and technology ethics, clarifying the boundary between the human as the subject and AI as the tool. This will place AI on a healthy and sound developmental track. Through institutional design (such as improving laws and regulations), ethical norms (such as establishing industry standards), and social consensus (such as public participation in technical governance), we can ensure that technical development always advances toward the promotion of free and well-rounded human development.
Finally, we must insist on the unity of the material scale and the scale of human relations, giving play to the institutional advantages of socialism in harnessing technical development. Marx emphasized that the liberating effect of technology on humans is potential; the nature of its social application must also be considered. Optimizing the socialist application of AI is the ultimate path for constructing a rational relationship between humans and AI. The so-called socialist application of AI essentially uses the characteristics of the socialist system—such as its "holistic nature," "people-centered nature," and "long-term nature"—to overcome the blindness, profit-seeking, and risks of technical development, ensuring technology always remains a powerful driver for promoting social progress and increasing the people's well-being. Specifically, regarding the fundamental position, we must persist in being people-centered. The research, development, and application of AI must take the needs of all people for a better life as the starting point, ensuring that technical logic always serves human values. We must pay attention to the social risks that new technology may cause and promptly prevent and resolve social contradictions to achieve more balanced and sufficient development. Regarding the core links, we must handle the relationship between the new quality productive forces and the new relations of production. Through continuous institutional exploration and practical transformation, we must establish new relations of production that are more just and reasonable and adapted to the laws of AI development. We must continuously advance deep-level reforms of the economic and scientific-technological systems, focusing on unblocking and optimizing the key nodes and structural obstacles that restrict AI development. This will promote the smooth flow of various high-quality factors of production required by the new quality productive forces, laying a solid foundation for the advancement toward a higher stage of common prosperity. Regarding the basic architecture, we must build a self-controllable innovation ecosystem and continuously stimulate new creativity through collaborative mechanisms. We must strengthen our ability to control AI and our ability to predict and regulate its risks, enhancing governance capabilities and optimizing regulatory systems. We must actively respond to the risks and challenges brought by AI, clarify the boundaries of its R&D and application, and establish and improve the laws, regulations, institutional systems, and ethics that guarantee the healthy development of AI, ensuring that AI development conforms to the principles of safety and fairness. Regarding key elements, we must avoid the disorderly expansion of technical applications. Through macro-control, we must prevent AI from becoming a tool for a minority to垄断 interests, ensuring the inclusivity of the technology. Simultaneously, we should construct a high-standard unified market system and promote innovation in the allocation mechanism of factors of production, enabling advanced and efficient resource elements to flow smoothly into the AI industrial chain, forming a stable and high-quality supply base. Regarding developmental guarantees, we must promote high-quality and full employment. We must persist in an employment-friendly development mode, achieving the synergistic development of AI and employment to create more intelligent, diverse, and high-quality work methods for the vast number of workers. We must continuously improve the skill cultivation system, strengthening the training of digital and soft skills at all stages of education. We must build an efficient public employment service system to comprehensively improve the operational efficiency and service capabilities of the labor market. We must strengthen the coordination of employment promotion policies and build a flexible and secure social security system, raising the level of protection for people in flexible employment (such as refining unemployment insurance and the minimum living security system) to prevent structural and long-term unemployment. This will comprehensively enhance workers' security expectations and their ability to resist risks. In short, by bringing these advantages into play, we can ensure that AI maintains healthy and orderly development while always advancing toward the goal of promoting free and well-rounded human development, reflecting the value leadership of the socialist system over technical development.
Conclusion
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized:
"Faced with the new situation of the rapid evolution of a new generation of artificial intelligence technology, we must give full play to the advantages of the new-type whole-nation system [12], persist in self-reliance and self-improvement, emphasize an application-oriented approach, and promote the healthy and orderly development of AI in China toward beneficial, safe, and equitable directions." Accelerating the development of artificial intelligence is an objective requirement for promoting high-quality development in the New Era and on the new journey, and it is an inevitable choice for promoting the iterative upgrading of productive forces and achieving modernization. In the face of various difficulties and obstacles encountered in the development of AI, we must take historical materialism as our guide and, according to the dual standards of favoring the development of productive forces and the development of the human being, comprehensively deepen reform. We must clear the "bottlenecks" [13] that constrain the development of AI, allow all types of advanced and high-quality factors of production to flow smoothly, and provide inexhaustible momentum for the cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation.
Under the theoretical horizon of historical materialism's dual criteria [14], transcending the capitalist application of technology and subduing the alienation of the person caused by technological development—this is precisely where the world-historical significance of developing AI under the socialist system lies. The value of developing AI consists in satisfying the people’s aspiration for a better life and, moreover, in creating a new form of civilization. This civilization will bridge the gap between technological development and human alienation found under the capitalist system; it will replace the one-dimensional logic of reification [15] with the coordination of material and spiritual civilizations, providing a more solid material foundation and a more proactive spiritual force for human progress.
Author Profile: Lan Yang, Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, Renmin University of China; Researcher at the Contemporary Political Party Research Platform. Source: Studies on Marxism (马克思主义研究), Issue 12, 2025. Editor: Huihui