Chen Junkun: Artificial Intelligence and the Realization of General Intelligence
General Secretary Xi Jinping, during the 20th group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized the need to adhere to self-reliance and self-strengthening, highlight application orientation, and promote the healthy and orderly development of artificial intelligence (AI). As a strategic technology leading the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, AI has profoundly changed human modes of production and lifestyle, and is reshaping the entire economic and social structure at an unprecedented speed. Faced with the current situation of the rapid evolution of AI technology, Marx's concept of "general intellect" [1] provides an important perspective for us to examine the epochal development of AI. The trend toward the generalization of intellect or intelligence itself, as characterized by the concept of "general intellect," is becoming a reality with the "approaching singularity" of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). As the contemporary objectified form of general intellect, AI not only practically sublated [2] the natural intelligence form of general intellect but also potentially created a communicative bridge linking human intelligence and the intelligence of things, thereby constituting the basic premise for current reflections on the relationship between human intelligence and AI. Through the conceptual prism of "general intellect," we can derive certain insights for responding to the many challenges brought to human society by the era of AI.
I. The Origin of the "General Intellect" Question
In the section "Fixed Capital and the Development of the Productive Forces of Society" in the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 [3], Marx, while discussing the process by which the soul of the instruments of labor, after "entering the production process of capital," eventually develops into an automated system of machinery, once described the impact that general intellect exerts on human social life and its historical process by manifesting itself as a machine (system). Among these, the classic passage that has garnered the most attention from academic circles both at home and abroad is as follows: "Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These 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 development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. It indicates to what degree the forces of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process."
Centering on this passage and the key term proposed within it—the concept of "general intellect"—academic circles have conducted extensive and in-depth discussions. It is worth affirming that these discussions have greatly enriched our understanding of Marx's concept of "general intellect"; whether they are right or wrong, they need to be treated seriously within the current academic context. However, on the one hand, it should be pointed out that existing discussions have, to a certain extent, neglected Marx's context of the critique of capitalism. In the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, Marx clearly pointed out that the automated system of machinery, as an instrument of labor, "appears not only from the material side as an instrument of labor, but also as a specific mode of existence of capital determined by the total process of capital—as fixed capital." That is to say, what Marx sought to study was the automated system of machinery as fixed capital, rather than the system of machinery in itself. Therefore, discussing the question of general intellect cannot be divorced from the realistic context of the relations of production of capitalism, nor can it be narrowed down to a pure problem of the philosophy of technology. In this regard, as some domestic scholars have noted, when the schools of Italian Autonomism [4] and Cognitive Capitalism named this section of "Fixed Capital and the Development of the Productive Forces of Society" as the "Fragment on Machines," they precisely overlooked the dimension of social relations contained therein.
On the other hand, even regarding the technical issue itself, the rich possibilities contained in Marx's concept of "general intellect" have been obscured by the position of technological instrumentalism in existing discussions. Taking Paolo Virno's viewpoint as an example, the reason he criticizes "Marx for neglecting the way 'general intellect' manifests itself as living labor" is that he believes "general intellect"—set as completely equivalent to fixed capital and the "scientific power objectified in the machine system"—is opposed to living labor. Under Post-Fordist conditions, he argues, "general intellect" plays a decisive role as a conceptual system and logical structure that cannot be reduced to fixed capital; it manifests as the interaction of multiple living subjects. In other words, true "'general intellect' includes formal and informal knowledge, imagination, ethical inclinations, mentalities, and 'language games,'" all of which are activities that actually manifest human subjectivity. In fact, not only did Virno hold a certain misunderstanding of Marx’s concept of "general intellect," but with the development of the latest sciences and technologies such as AI, the series of subjective behaviors listed by Virno as exclusive to humans are also being reproduced by intelligent machines as "things." Against this background, it is necessary for us to further analyze Marx's concept of "general intellect" based on a return to its original meaning, combined with the historical conditions of the era of AI.
II. Rethinking Marx's Vision of General Intellect
In the section "Fixed Capital and the Development of the Productive Forces of Society" of the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, Marx envisioned the possibility of general intellect based on the use of automated machinery systems in 19th-century capitalist industrial society; that is, he characterized the trend toward the generalization of intellect or knowledge itself through the concept of "general intellect." This trend is reflected in the following three different levels.
1. General Intellect as General Capacity
In Marx's view, the essence of general intellect is knowledge. Thus, general intellect originates from human cognitive capacity and is the objectification of human cognition. However, just as the theory of knowledge in philosophical research is often identical in content to epistemology and thus difficult to strictly distinguish, general intellect—manifested as knowledge—as objectified human cognition, did not lose its agency or become opposed to the principles of human cognition or activity simply because it manifested itself only in an objectified form (as Virno suggested). General intellect itself manifests as an automated process; it is "self-operating," automated knowledge that "possesses skill and strength, is itself the virtuoso, and has a soul of its own in the mechanical laws acting through it." Therefore, although general intellect, due to its objectified nature, "appears as something external and alien" to the worker and further causes the real subsumption of labor under capital, this does not mean that general intellect itself is lifeless or merely a passive or inert material phenomenon. It is likewise "living" and active, a "value existing for itself."
On this basis, Marx pointed out that general intellect is not only knowledge but "general social knowledge"—that is, it possesses generality, or versatility, due to its socialized nature. Similar to the twofold nature of labor embodied in commodities—namely, the unity of concrete labor as the "expenditure of human labor-power in a special form and with a definite aim" that produces use-value, and abstract labor as the "expenditure of human labor-power in the physiological sense" that forms the value of the commodity—intellect itself is likewise a unity of particularity and generality. The former manifests as concrete knowledge and skills in specific forms, applied to various specific professional scenarios, such as certain literary, scientific, or engineering knowledge; while the latter is precisely what Marx calls general intellect. It does not refer to the "scientific literacy of individual laborers," but rather to a "more general intellectual attitude," "which is the capacity for language, for learning, for memory, for abstraction and connection, and the tendency toward self-reflection"—that is, the "capacity for thought itself," which is universally applicable to all scenarios in human society. However, the versatility possessed by general intellect as "intellect in general" does not stem from a transcendental construction of human cognitive capacity as advocated by Kant, but is rooted in human social communicative activities. "It is life that determines consciousness," because "as for this abstract determination itself, it is likewise a product of historical conditions." It is precisely through the historical accumulation of social knowledge that the most versatile form of general intellect can emerge. In this regard, "general intellect," like "labor," is a "modern category."
2. General Intellect as General Being-in-itself
Since pure intellect-in-itself is difficult to grasp directly and can only be expressed indirectly through certain mediating forms—just as value itself manifests as exchange value (the form of value) during the exchange process—general intellect likewise has its form of expression: the "objectified power of knowledge" as an automated system of machinery. These "natural materials transformed into organs of the human will over nature" serve as "direct productive forces," material powers capable of transforming the world. They do not occur naturally in nature but are artificially manufactured. It is precisely in the objectified machinery system that humans prove the existence of their own intellect. Relatedly, in his later years, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels once defined the concept of "practice": "The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice, namely, experiment and industry." The reason practice was defined by Engels as experiment and industry is that it is precisely in experiment and industry that humans prove their own cognition—that is, the power of knowledge. Experiments objectify human cognition of nature, thereby reproducing natural processes; furthermore, industry can reproduce and transform natural processes according to human purposes to manufacture new products. It is through experiment and industry that humans achieve "the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change," resulting in the objectification of their own power of knowledge. Therefore, the automated machinery system, as a product of industry, is the result of development "alongside the accumulation of social knowledge and the accumulation of the total productive forces."
Thus, although general intellect comes from human cognitive capacity, it does not belong exclusively to humans, but potentially possesses a general nature that crosses the boundaries between humans and things. With the development of the automated system of machinery, "it is no longer the worker who inserts a modified natural thing as a middle link between himself and the object; rather, he inserts the... natural process, which he has transformed into an industrial process, as a means between himself and inorganic nature, mastering it. The worker no longer appears as the principal actor of the production process, but stands alongside it." Machinery replaces man as the subject of the labor process. In other words, "the history of the species is linked to the self-consciousness of natural science and technology automatically transforming into the social subject (general intellect) controlling the process of material life." Just as value itself becomes an "automatic subject" under capitalist conditions, the birth of general intellect also marks the "subjectification" of intellect itself, achieving independence from man—manifesting as an automated machinery system. "The epoch-making changes in technical development show how the total organic activity of the human being included in the sphere of instrumental activity—first the activity of the executive organs, then that of the sensory organs, the generation of organic human energy, and finally the activity of the controlling organ (the brain)—is transferred step by step to the instruments of labor... Finally, the entire labor process will detach itself from man and relate only to the instruments of labor." The reason for this is that general intellect has acquired a being-in-itself, appearing as if it were an independent "subject." Thereby, through the concept of "general intellect," Marx marked the generalization trend of intellect itself as characterized by the automated machinery system, which makes "the entire production process appear not as subordinated to the direct skill of the worker, but as the technological application of science."
3. The Capitalist Application of General Intellect
Marx's concern was not general intellect per se, but the capitalist application of general intellect. The birth of general intellect—the transformation of the instruments of labor into a system of machinery—is the development process of fixed capital. Therefore, in the section "Fixed Capital and the Development of the Productive Forces of Society" in the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, Marx was not elucidating a pure problem of the philosophy of technology, but rather regarding the investigation of general intellect as a link in the overal critique of capitalism.
First, from the perspective of the history of the formation of general intellect, the automated system of machinery is...
The realization of capital's inevitable tendency to "increase productive forces and negate necessary labor to the maximum extent" finds its "most appropriate form in fixed capital." This is because the negation of necessary labor can expand the scope of surplus labor to the greatest degree, thereby enabling the extraction of surplus value on a larger scale. Therefore, according to the inevitable tendency of capital valorization, since "the less labor the machine itself contains, the smaller the value it adds to the product; the less value it transfers, the higher its productivity, and the more its service approaches that of natural forces," it follows that "large-scale industry must take possession of its characteristic instrument of production, the machine itself, and must produce machines by means of machines," thereby bringing about the automation of automatic systems of machinery.
Secondly, from the perspective of the current development of general intellect, automatic systems of machinery have brought about the real subsumption of labor under capital. "To the degree that machinery develops with the accumulation of social knowledge and the accumulation of the overall productive forces, it is not labor but capital that represents general social labor." "In the system of machinery, knowledge appears to the worker as something external and alien, while living labor is subsumed under objectified labor that acts independently." In this regard, this not only means that science and technology will become a crucial link in maintaining the reproduction of capitalist relations of production—where "all science is pressed into the service of capital"—but it also actually creates an antagonism between science and technology and the human being, leading workers to oppose the machine.
Thirdly, from the perspective of the future prospects of general intellect, Marx pointed out that although "the system of machinery is the most suitable form of the use-value of fixed capital," this does not mean that "the social relation subsumed under capital is the most suitable and best social relation of production for the application of the system of machinery." The automatic system of machinery itself "blows this foundation apart"—that is, the material conditions of capitalist relations of production. It will sublate its own capitalist form of application and move toward a socialist future. Specifically, through the flourishing of general intellect, "the value objectified in the system of machinery appears as a premise, in comparison to which the value-creating power of the individual labor capacity disappears as an infinitely small magnitude." "Once labor in its immediate form has ceased to be the great wellspring of wealth," and machine labor completely replaces human labor, the value of products created by the automatic system of machinery will not become uncalculable; rather, the standard for measuring value itself will be transformed. That is, people’s free time will replace labor time as the "measure of wealth." Regarding this, Marx predicted that the development of general intellect would reduce the socially necessary labor of humanity to a "minimum" and increase the free time of all people. Labor itself would increasingly lose its character as a mere means of subsistence, allowing free time to replace necessary labor time as the measure of value. "Then, correspondingly, due to the time liberated and the means created for everyone, individuals will develop in the arts, sciences, and so forth."
In short, through the concept of "general intellect," Marx described the generalizing trend of intellect itself as manifested in the use of automated systems of machinery in 19th-century capitalist industrial society. On the one hand, this trend of generalization is reflected in the universality achieved by general intellect as "general social knowledge" based on historical accumulation; it is not only applicable to various specialized scenarios but is also widely universal across all concrete situations of human society, thus manifesting in reality as "intellect in general." On the other hand, the trend of generalizing intellect itself is also reflected in the self-subsistent generality that general intellect achieves by objectifying itself into automatic systems of machinery. Although derived from human cognitive capacity, general intellect does not belong exclusively to humans; rather, it has attained its own independent existence. Thus, "capital creates a mode of production suited to itself"—namely, "endowing production with a scientific character, while immediate labor is reduced to a mere element of the production process."
III. Artificial Intelligence: The Contemporary Objectified Form of General Intellect
If it can be said that Marx was primarily confronting automated systems of machinery within 19th-century capitalist industrial society—and thus his conceptualization of general intellect possessed a certain forward-looking character—then the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) as an intelligent system of machinery today makes the prospects of general intellect increasingly real. Especially in recent years, with the rapid advancement of deep learning technology, Large Language Models (LLMs) represented by DeepSeek [5] have made significant progress in natural language processing, content generation, and reasoning capabilities, opening a new chapter in the deep exploration of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). AI not only marks its own direction and goal through the developmental promise of generalization—namely, AGI as a "singularity" that reaches the threshold of surpassing the universality of human intelligence—but also surpasses the stage of automated machinery through the form of "intelligence," exhibiting "autonomous" behavior. It thus continues to characterize the generalizing trend of general intellect under new historical conditions. It can be said that AI has already realistically constituted the contemporary objectified form of general intellect. Examining the current development of AI from the perspective of general intellect reveals its significant impact on the modes of existence of humans and objects, as well as their worldview expressions, which necessitates full recognition.
1. The Classical Worldview: The Dichotomy Between Human and Object
As is well known, the term "Artificial Intelligence" first appeared in the pre-conference proposal for the Dartmouth Workshop, A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. Its christener is considered to be the AI pioneer John McCarthy. He pointed out that the hypothesis of AI lies in the idea that "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." McCarthy’s original intention was to use this new concept of "Artificial Intelligence" to emphasize a generalized form of intelligence distinct from the natural intelligence of humans. However, as some scholars have pointed out, there exists a certain degree of logical contradiction between "Artificial" and "Intelligence" within the naming. This situation was significantly influenced by the word "artificial" (人工, réngōng) in the naming of the concept. The etymological roots of "artificial" and "technology" are interconnected in meaning; both signify a human manufacturing activity distinct from nature, and thus carry connotations of being "unreal" or "virtual." In other words, as an "artificial natural thing," the name "Artificial Intelligence" itself possesses an inherent contradiction.
From the perspective of Marxist philosophy, the internal contradiction of the concept of "Artificial Intelligence" is actually rooted in a traditional worldview that strictly distinguishes between humans and objects. This worldview maintains a rigorous division between natural things and artificial things. Precisely because there truly exists a realm of the world that is distinct from objects and belongs exclusively to humans, humans are able—through practice [6] and the use of technical means—to project human qualities that do not originally belong to objects onto them, thereby resulting in the birth of non-natural artificial things. Therefore, when we mention that a thing is "artificial," the premise lies first in the distinction between humans and objects. In fact, this distinction has a long history. As early as the Ancient Greek period, Aristotle strictly distinguished in his Physics between things that "exist by nature" and things that "are not constituted by nature." In Aristotle's view, for things that exist by nature, their cause and ground are internal to themselves; whereas things not constituted by nature are external to the source of their own existence, caused by a reason outside themselves. This external "impulse for change" is human craft (techne); thus, these artificial things are specifically expressed as "technical artifacts," the objectification of human practical activity.
Entering modern capitalist society, through the historical development from simple cooperation to manufacture and then to large-scale machine industry, human labor power or technology itself underwent a process of gradual objectification. This not only attained an independent form of existence as machinery (systems), but also—through capitalist relations of production—caused "the conditions of labor to confront the worker as something independent," manifested as technology. Consequently, under the effect of human practice, modern nature has become a composite of "primordial nature," "humanized nature," and "artificial nature." Primordial nature refers to nature in-itself; as the "sensuous external world," it constitutes the material premise of all human life activities. Humanized nature is nature as the medium and object of human practical activity: "In a practical sense, the universality of man appears precisely as the universality which makes the whole of nature his inorganic body—both inasmuch as nature is (1) his direct means of life, and (2) the material, the object, and the instrument of his life activity." In other words, nature as the inorganic body of man embodies the human qualities projected upon it; it indicates that natural things are fully open to human life and can be transformed and utilized by human practical activity. From the perspective of the mode of existence, primordial nature and humanized nature only perform as the results of human labor potentially, and thus still belong to the category of natural things. In contrast, artificial nature is entirely the product of human practical activity, manifesting as artificial things. With the historical development of human labor capacity, artificial things—which initially existed merely as individual technical artifacts—gradually developed in modern capitalist society into a "colossal thing" that is independent of and even dominates humans: the system of machinery in the process of large-scale industrial production. Thus, the struggle between workers and machines specifically characterizes the worldview of the opposition between humans and objects: "The worker rises up against this specific form of the means of production as being the material basis of the capitalist mode of production."
In this regard, while using the term "humanism" [7] to evaluate the entirety of Marx’s theoretical position might be somewhat biased, this evaluation itself contains a certain historical rationality. This is because, even for Marx himself, the distinction between human and object was a fundamental worldview. In short, the reason the phenomenon of reification (Verdinglichung) in modern capitalist society is "alienated" in nature is precisely due to the inversion of the status of humans and objects. For example, in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the relationship of the worker to "his own activity" is called "self-estrangement," while the relationship of the worker to the product of labor belongs to the "alienation of the thing." For another example, in the "Speech at the Anniversary of the People's Paper," when discussing the alienation caused by the development of modern science and technology, Marx likewise took the distinction between human and object as the foundation: "The material powers become invested with intellectual life, and human life steps down into a dummy of material power." This opposition between human and object is precisely the contradiction that appears in the naming of "Artificial Intelligence." In the traditional worldview, the phenomenon of "intelligence" was considered exclusive to humans, while "artificial" was used to describe the attributes of objects. The real difference between human and object reflected in the concept of "artificiality" constitutes a traditional worldview.
2. The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence to the Classical Worldview
If the conceptual debate over "Artificial Intelligence" reflects a classical worldview that strictly distinguishes between humans and objects, then the current development of AI serves as an excellent response to McCarthy’s original naming intention. This is precisely the generalizing trend of intellect itself envisioned by Marx through the concept of "general intellect." It indicates that the traditional worldview, which strictly demarcates the boundaries between humans and objects, is being broken.
On the one hand, the realistic development of AI technology demonstrates that it is entirely possible for intellect itself to achieve generalization, manifesting as general intellect, rather than remaining exclusively attributed to humans or monopolized by human natural intelligence. According to Marx’s classical explanation of the human mode of existence, the basic mode of being for the human is as a species-being [8]...
“...not only because in practice and in theory he adopts the species—his own as well as those of other things—as his object, but also because... he treats himself as the actual, living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being.” That is to say, the species-essence of man is his universal and free capacity for labor. It is universal because man can take the entirety of nature as the object of practice, thereby manifesting the versatility of his labor power; it is free because man possesses self-consciousness and can take his own life-activity as an object, thus establishing an independent subjectivity. The two reflect one another: it is because man’s species-essence is universal that he can face his objects freely; and it is because his species-essence is free that he can take universal existence as his object. Since the human labor process is actually the objectification [9] of human intellect or knowledge, the “universal and free” species-essence, as the mode of human existence, does not only point toward man’s objectifying activities; it also marks the generalized nature of human natural intelligence—the manifestation of general intellect. In Marx’s view, this “species-character,” expressed as “free conscious life-activity,” is precisely the uniqueness that distinguishes humans from animals. However, Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems based on Big Data training are presently constructing general cognitive frameworks that transcend specialized intelligence systems through different technical paths, gradually realizing the simulation and transcendence of the “universal and free” characteristics of human natural intelligence. In other words, general intellect, originally regarded as exclusive to humans, is breaking through the limitations of the biological carrier of human natural intelligence. It is being re-implemented by AI algorithmic models using different material carriers and operating mechanisms, causing intellect itself to realistically exhibit a generalized developmental trend.
On the other hand, with the development of AI, the status of AI as merely a mode of existence for "things"—originally reflected through the qualifier "artificial"—is also being dissolved. This is particularly evident in the disruptive generalization and autonomous interaction capabilities currently displayed by Generative AI in various fields of human-machine interaction. While forming a brand-new human-machine relationship, this has also exerted a significant influence on the concept of subjectivity itself. Does AI already constitute a brand-new form of subjectivity distinct from humans? Looking at the current state of research across various disciplines at home and abroad, this remains a highly controversial issue. However, whether or not one recognizes the status of AI as a subject, the current technical development of AI is itself objective, concretely representing the generalization trend of intellect itself. Not only is it true that "as individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce," but AI can also think and "produce" just like real people, thereby possessing a form of "expressing its own life." In principle, the form of general intellect or general intelligence shared by human natural intelligence and machine artificial intelligence should become the basic premise for our current reflections on the relationship between the two. In short, the generalization trend of intellect itself indicates that the phenomenon of intelligence, which originally belonged exclusively to humans, can now be possessed by things, and that AI also has the possibility of existing as a potential subject distinct from humans. The worldview boundary between humans and things is beginning to blur, posing a challenge to the traditional worldview that strictly distinguishes between the two.
3. Embodiment and the Future of the Classical Worldview
Although the latest development of AI as general intellect has begun to challenge the traditional worldview that strictly distinguishes between humans and things, the traditional worldview nonetheless remains difficult to fully overcome.
On one hand, regarding this worldview itself, how to truly eliminate the irreducible real difference between human intelligence and AI represented by the dimension of embodiment [10] constitutes an important challenge for realizing general intellect. For some New Materialists, the body is an important perspective for re-establishing the connection between humans and things; yet in the process of realizing General Artificial Intelligence (GAI), the dimension of embodiment represented by the body may be becoming a major obstacle. This is despite the view that it is entirely unnecessary to require AI to completely reduce [11] all forms of human intelligence, including embodied intelligence. For example, Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, once made a distinction between "embodied intelligence" and "disembodied intelligence," arguing that we cannot and need not create materials identical to the human organism, but only need to simulate human intellect itself through machines. Herbert Simon, hailed as the "father of AI," also believed that one could "accurately grasp the essential characteristics and behavioral patterns of an (artificial) system without detailing the external or internal environmental details." However, the latest developments in AI technology indicate that embodied intelligence—which emphasizes the interactive relationship between an intelligent entity and its physical body and environment—is one of the keys to achieving GAI. Since "the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought," the simulation of human intelligence cannot be separated from the restoration of the human material mode of life itself. That is to say, the dimension of embodiment represented by the body constitutes an important aspect of human intelligence. In fact, imitating human intelligence has been an important strategy from the early development of AI to the present. Without the dimension of embodiment, the relationship between AI and human intelligence might only be one of "similarity without identity."
Beyond the debates from scientific perspectives, another reason the dimension of embodiment in general intellect cannot be ignored lies at the level of the worldview itself. This is because the presence of the body is the premise upon which the relationship of human possession of things becomes possible. From a phenomenological point of view, the body "itself also possesses a surrounding world (Umwelt) [12] available for the free activity of the person—that is, within this surrounding world, the person is not subject to any restrictions and can master all things within it. All concrete natural rights of man originate entirely from such a basic fact." As a natural right of man, property rights define precisely the relationship of human possession of things. This is possible because, due to the existence of the human body, things can enter the human surrounding world; based on the field of the body, the "person" can possess things within the scope of their own surrounding existence. In this regard, "what essentially defines a thing is not what the thing is, but the fact that the thing belongs indisputably to one person and not to others." This is an ancient unidirectional relationship of possession: humans can possess things, but things cannot possess humans. Moreover, even after leaving the surrounding existence, this relationship can be prescribed through legal forms, constituting human property rights over things. Therefore, although the actual development of AI technology has both changed the human-specific nature of intellect and is dissolving the mode of existence of AI as a thing—making it possible for it to become a potential "subject," thus challenging the traditional worldview of strictly distinguishing humans and things in a dual sense—the traditional worldview can still resist the challenge from AI through the presence of the human body.
On the other hand, in addition to the dimension of embodiment in general intellect, the capitalist application of AI further encourages the worldview of opposition between humans and things. Marx pointed out that "Nature, in so far as it is not the human body, is man's inorganic body." While man himself is certainly a part of nature, humans and the rest of nature are also mutually externalized; the humanization of nature is only in respect to its being man's inorganic body, such that the difference between "organic" and "inorganic" constitutes the material boundary between humans and things. From this, the body is able to serve as the scope of the surrounding world for human possession of things, creating the property rights of humans over things. Furthermore, under capitalist relations of production, private property—as a "fact of current national economy"—specifically signifies the alienated relationship between nature and man. In other words, the worldview of opposition between humans and things is the conceptual manifestation of capitalist relations of production. The birth of AI, as the latest development in the realm of things, is subordinate to the developmental process of fixed capital.
Thus, under the conditions of the capitalist system, the actual opposition between humans and things and its corresponding worldview have achieved their latest expression. Just like the Luddite movement of workers against machines in the early 19th century, various discourses have currently emerged concerning AI replacing human labor and causing large-scale unemployment. The reason is that, like the automatic system of machinery in the 19th century, the birth of AI is not a "pure" scientific advancement, but the result of the necessary tendency of capital to increase labor productivity and expand the production of surplus value. As the latest development of fixed capital, AI is "aggregating into a material force that rules over us, is out of our control, thwarts our desires, and frustrates our plans." Consequently, it will not "automatically" bring about human liberation; rather, it will cause a further deterioration of human labor conditions in the short term. The capitalist application of general intellect causes AI, as a technical object, to be subordinate to the latest development of fixed capital and to stand in opposition to the principle of labor. This is the result of "a certain mode of labor being transferred from the worker to capital in the form of the machine"—that is, the result of the capitalist application of science and technology. What stands in opposition to the worker is not the machine itself, but capital's possession of the machine. Not only does the private ownership of the means of production as a form of human possession of things depend on the distinction between humans and things, but the structure of the real world represented by this worldview also provides the realistic premise for the externalization of laborers from their own means of production.
Conversely, through capitalist relations of production, the worldview of mutual opposition between humans and things also achieves its most extreme possibility: the actual subordination of human labor to capital as a thing. To this, Marx pointed out that not only is subordination to capital not the most suitable relation of production for an automatic system of machinery, but as "the application of natural science to technique" causes "direct labor to be reduced to a negligible proportion in terms of quantity" and to "become a subordinate element" in terms of quality, "capital thus works towards the dissolution of itself as the form dominating production." In other words, "any new productive force, provided it is not a mere quantitative extension of those already known (for instance, the breaking up of fresh land), brings about a further development of the division of labor." Capitalist production based on exchange value will dissolve with the development of general intellect, and technical development will create the conditions for human liberation. Thus, under the socialist system, the development of AI will sublate the worldview of the abstract opposition between humans and things and transcend capitalist relations of production. The measure of value itself will no longer be based on exchange value, and subsequently "production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities... is not then the reduction of necessary labor time in order to create surplus labor, but rather the reduction of the necessary labor of society to a minimum." In summary, under the capitalist system, the social necessary labor time shortened by AI is not converted into free time for humans; instead, it prolongs relative surplus labor time and strengthens the degree of capital's exploitation of labor. Under the socialist system, human labor will increasingly lose its "means of livelihood" character and "attain the unity of freedom in the sense of human self-actualization and necessity in the sense of human survival and life." The "surplus" labor time created through the development of AI technology will become true free time, creating conditions for the free and well-rounded development of individuals.
In short, looking at the current state of technical development, the most likely near-term trend for the relationship between AI and human intelligence is that the two will maintain a certain degree of difference: AI will surpass human intelligence in certain fields, while conversely, human intelligence will also [surpass AI] in certain fields...
(In terms of the dimension of embodiment [13]), humans maintain a long-standing, though not eternal, advantage. Although a series of links and boundaries exist between the reactive properties of general matter and the formation of human intelligence, within the realm of worldview, as artificial intelligence achieves the near-total replication or even transcendence of human intelligence in certain behaviors or "life" activities, general intellect in-itself will also attain its expression as a worldview. This, in turn, poses a challenge to the traditional worldview that strictly distinguishes between humans and objects. However, as Marx noted, the premise of the human species-essence [14] lies in the fact that humans are able to distinguish themselves from their own life-activity, which fundamentally differentiates humans from "animals." Just as the "Chinese Room" thought experiment pointed out the fallacy of the "Strong AI" perspective represented by the "Turing Test," the "intelligent behavior" manifested by artificial intelligence is not necessarily equivalent to it actually possessing general intellect. In this regard, discussions on whether artificial intelligence has truly become a subject distinct from humans may still be premature. Yet, from the perspective of the immanent relationship of mutual generation between subject and object, in the era of artificial intelligence, humanity has, after all, created a social existence that possesses subjective interactivity with humans. Consequently, the current investigation into the question of general intellect cannot be separated from the interactive nature between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. Through the interaction of different forms of intelligence, general intellect not only achieves a practical manifestation but, more specifically, characterizes the "intersubjectivity" between humans and machines: artificial intelligence is both a tool for the extension of human cognition and a "symbiotic" relationship that mutually influences and co-evolves with human existence. Therefore, whether or not one acknowledges the in-itself existence of general intellect, we must view a series of fundamental issues in the era of artificial intelligence through a lens different from the traditional worldview that strictly distinguishes between humans and objects, thereby moving toward a future of human-machine symbiosis and win-win cooperation.
Author Biography: Chen Junkun, Assistant Researcher at the Institute of Marxism Studies, Fudan University. Source: Marxism Studies (《马克思主义研究》), Issue 12, 2025. Editor: Huihui