The Matrix and Machines

OK so we are all tired of hearing people philosophize about the matrix.

So let’s make a deal. I’ll philosophize about the matrix right here. And then this will be the last time ever. I’ll be the last one and then everyone will promise to stop. ok?

One of the most compelling threads of the Matrix is this notion of the machines taking over. These machines that were the product of our own creation, these machines that were supposed to make life easier – to usher in a new age of freedom from want- they take over and make us their slaves.

The Matrix is not the first to fantasize about a dystopia in which machines take over. Since the industrial revolution, ideas about machines displacing, manipulating or controlling humans have become more and more a part of our collective fiction.

This should be no surprise. In the Ind. Rev. machines posed a real threat to the working class. In response to agitation for a 10-hour day, the legalization of unions, and the other demands of labor, capitalists sought to rid themselves of their dependence on workers, thereby breaking the unions. In the great industrial exhibitions in London’s Crystal Palace in 1851 and 1862, great pains were taken to showcase these new machines in front of workers in order to strike fear into their hearts… The message to the 6 million visitors was clear: machines can replace you- moderate your demands.

But machines haven’t replaced us. No matter how much more complicated and scary they get, they still haven’t replaced us- yet.

In the matrix we have this twist. Instead of just destroying humans the machines keep us around. They need people. And so we become part of the machines. Our bodies are imprisoned within the workings of machines and our minds move through a false machine reality.

In Diego Rivera’s 1930’s murals of the Detroit Auto-industry we see a depiction of human beings absorbed into the fabric of the machine- The rhythm of their work falling into motion as a mere appendage of the machine.

We call this process automation. First human labor is simplified- that is, work is divided into small, routine tasks.. tasks that anyone could do.. This makes the labor more efficient and cheaper. Once these tasks become simple enough- mechanical enough- they become automated, that is-machines are built to do them. Soon, the labor process in many industries comes to be a process of tending to the needs of machines.

In this age of robots skilled workers teach their motions to robots who then replace them.

In the wikipedia entry on industrial robots after talking about robotic arms and vision guidance the author says: “So we have the arm and the eye, but the part that still has poor flexibility is the hand.” As if the goal is to eventually replace the entire human being with a robot.

Machines can now process information faster than people, write music, design buildings… We always say there is something unique about human beings- perception, creativity, passion- something that machines can’t replicate, but each year as computers advance to do more of the things that we can do-better than we can do them, the boundary between man and machine is pushed back.

This then begs three questions.
1. Why do we keep trying to replace people with machines in the first place?
2. Is it ever possible to replace all human labor with machines? What would happen if we tried?
3. Are machines going to take over?

1. Are we just sadistic? Do we hate ourselves? Is it an endless quest for self annihilation?
Who decides to fund the research and development of machines? Capitalists. Capitalists introduce machines into production in order to make labor more efficient. Let’s say I’m a capitalist and I am competing with you. If I can get my workers to produce more commodities than your workers then I can sell my commodities for slightly less than you therefore outselling you in the market. I make my workers work as hard as they can and for as little money as they will agree to work for, but there is a lower limit to this. Assuming all other capitalists are making their workers work just as hard for just as little the only other solution is to make their work more efficient. If I can replace some of their work with machines it will allow them to work faster, producing more commodities per worker.

As soon as I introduce my machines into my production process I become a threat to your livelihood. You are going to have to do the same thing or go out of business. Thus we have an endless machine race to make our labor more productive. (Isn’t labor productivity a standard by which economists measure the strength of an economy?)

2. But in making labor more productive we seem to be raising the question of making human labor obsolete…. Which takes us to our second question: can machines replace human labor altogether?

Before talking about robots though, we need to talk about wizards. The alchemists of the middle ages sought to find a way to transform common metals into gold. The idea, I suppose, being that this would be a great way to make everyone rich.

But what happens when you can turn anything into gold? Gold ceases to have any value! Alchemy isn’t just scientifically impossible. It’s economically impossible! The same thing happens if we print more money- money just looses it’s value, people don’t get richer.

In fact the only thing that can create more value is human labor. It is the productive powers of the worker that capital seeks to capture and put to use making values. After all, what is an economy? An economy is a way of coordinating human labor and distributing it’s products.

But if labor produces value what happens when you replace it with machines? What happens is that the productive activity of the machine looses economic value.

Now that may seem extremely counter-intuitive to you. You ask: how can labor done by a human have economic value while the same labor done by a machine has no value?

Let’s use a machine we are all familiar as an example. Your computer. Now the computer has become capable of doing all sorts of things that used to require a lot of human labor: recording information, complex mathematical computations, type setting, translating, DUPLICATING, etc. These tasks no longer have any economic value. If you wanted to make something worth selling on your computer, the only value it would have would be a result of some sort of creative labor on your part (designing a youtube video, writing a paper, writing a song). The work that the computer does doesn’t add any value other than the original cost of the computer (in other words the computer doesn’t create any new value.) Everyone has access to a computer and everyone can do the same stuff on their computer so the work of the computer becomes useless. Just like turning everything into gold would be useless.

So what would happen if capitalists ever got to the point that they tried to replace workers altogether? The economy would cease to function because no value would be created. Profits would fall to zero because capitalists could no longer compete by making labor more efficient. Nobody could buy anything b/c no one would have any money b/c no one would have a job. There would be no capitalism.

3. will machines take over?
But still… is it going to happen- one day, will the ultimate cellphone be built- the phone that can create anything, do anything, be anything?
The biggest obstacle to that ever happening is economic crisis.

When the increase in machines increases faster than the productivity of labor we start to get a falling rate of profit. Though their profit is not increasing as rapidly capitalists still are forced to innovate and introduce more technology into the production process because increasing productivity is their only weapon in competition. But as the rate of profit falls the stakes get higher- like a poker game when everyone has put too much in the pot- some people are going to loose big. Really big.

And that’s what an economic crisis is- when capitalists, in their race to increase the productivity of labor, undermine their own basis for value creation in the first place. (This will be the starting point for a longer discussion of crisis.) There are many factors mediating against such a crisis and there are many ways in which this crisis is postponed-especially through the use of credit and finance- to only make it bigger when it happens. What happens in a crisis and how a crisis resolves this problem of too many machines/ not enough people is a question that will have to wait till a future video.

Though the plot of the Matrix is about the opposition of machines and people- the visual space is dominated by people fighting other people.

But in reality, I think the opposite is true- if we see the machine as an extension of the relentless, faceless drive of capital to accumulate for accumulation’s sake (to change M into C then back again, over and over) if we see the machine as just one manifestation of this need to perfect accumulation- then it seems the immediate visual space of our lives is one dominated by impersonal, mechanical market forces over which we have no control. But just as we can see the machine as merely the product of human labor, so too we can see capital as merely a product of human social relations. Thus the social relation lies hidden behind the machine.

In the age of capitalism it seems as if capital takes on a life of its own. Though acting through individual capitalists, capital with its giant invisible hand, seems an inescapable, relenting, faceless force of innovation and destruction. A giant machine to which we are all chained.

At the same time we have to realize that capital is merely a social relation between people. That means that ultimately we do have power over capital, not the other way around. This should be the starting point for any theory of social change.

So to summarize- Machines may reduce us to mere appendages of the production process. Surveillance technology may reduce us to information datum in a network. military technology may reduce us to fearful, docile slaves. But machines can never fully replace working humans without destroying capitalism we know it. The crisis tendencies that automation bring on keep us from ever fully automating all labor. Meanwhile the embodiment of human productive powers and capitalist social relations in machines themselves obscures the underlying economic reality of class society.

Now, could machines, under human control maybe one day be able to do all work and let us live lives of luxury and total freedom?- maybe.

Could machines one day develop artificial intelligence and take over and make us their slaves? Maybe.

watch out.