Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University Using Marxist critique, this book explores manifestations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education and demonstrates how it contrib- utes to the functioning and existence of the capitalist university. Challenging the idea that AI is a break from previous capitalist tech- nologies, the book offers nuanced examination of the impacts of AI on the control and regulation of academic work and labour, on digital learning and remote teaching, and on the value of learning and knowl- edge. Applying a Marxist perspective, Preston argues that commodity fetishism, surveillance, and increasing productivity ushered in by the growth of AI, further alienates and exploits academic labour and com- modifies learning and research. The text puts forward a solid theoretical framework and methodology for thinking about AI to inform critical and revolutionary pedagogies. Offering an impactful and timely analysis, this book provides a criti- cal engagement and application of key Marxist concepts in the study of AI’s role in Higher Education. It will be of interest to those working or researching in Higher Education. John Preston is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Essex, UK. Routledge Studies in Education, Neoliberalism, and Marxism Series editor Dave Hill, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford and Cambridge, England 19 Crisis, Austerity, and New Frameworks for Teaching and Learning A Pedagogy of Hope for Contemporary Greek Education By Maria Chalari 20 The Impacts of Neoliberalism on US Community Colleges Reclaiming Faculty Voice in Academic Governance By Greg Sethares 21 The Educational Philosophy of Luis Emilio Recabarren: Pioneering Working Class Education in Latin America By María Alicia Rueda 22 Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility Edited by Spyros Themelis 23 The Impacts of Neoliberal Discourse and Language in Education: Critical Perspectives on a Rhetoric of Equality, Well-Being, and Justice Edited by Mitja Sardoč 24 The Emergence of Postfeminist Identities in Higher Education Neoliberal Dynamics and the Performance of Gendered Subjectivities Eleftheria Atta 25 Social Haunting, Education, and the Working Class A Critical Marxist Ethnography in a Former Mining Community Kat Simpson 26 Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value John Preston For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Education-Neoliberalism-and- Marxism/book-series/RSEN Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value John Preston First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 John Preston The right of John Preston to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Preston, John, 1967- author. Title: Artificial intelligence in the capitalist university : academic labour, commodification, and value / John Preston. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge studies in education, neoliberalism, and marxism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021022507 (print) | LCCN 2021022508 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367533779 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032123622 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003081654 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Artificial intelligence–Educational applications. | Artificial intelligence–Economic aspects. | Education, Higher– Effect of technological innovations on | Education, Higher– Economic aspects. | Capitalism and education. | Marxist criticism. Classification: LCC LB1028.43 .P74 2022 (print) | LCC LB1028.43 (ebook) | DDC 378.1/7344678–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022507 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022508 ISBN: 978-0-367-53377-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-12362-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-08165-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003081654 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. Contents Acknowledgements vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Capitalist Universities, AI, and Value 14 3 AI and the Subsumption of Academic Labour 44 4 The Pixarfication of Higher Education 80 5 Disaster Capitalism and Time in the Virtual University 104 6 AI, Existential Threat, and the Capitalist University 125 7 AI and the End of the Capitalist University 144 Index 169 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) who funded this work (Grant num- ber: EP/R021031/1). The ‘Chatty Factories’ project from which this work arose enabled me to create the conceptual framework for the book in terms of its emphasis on ‘value critique’ (Chapter 2), to consider how concepts from digital manufacturing were applied in the service sector and Higher Education (HE) (Chapter 3), to develop ideas of how sentient commodities arise (Pixarfication, Chapter 4), to analyse how AI is chang- ing production times (Chapter 5), and new ways of theorising the rela- tionship between humans, machines, and capitalism (Chapters 6 and 7). Although the emphasis of the funding was on digital manufacturing, this book considers the implications of digital manufacturing and AI for a particular service sector: HE, but it produces concepts that are useful for thinking about all sorts of capitalist work, commodification, time, and existential threat. I would like to thank all members of the Chatty Factories project. It was a fantastic project to work on with excellent col- leagues. The ideas and concepts used in this book, as well as errors, are my own. Rhiannon Firth worked with me at the University of Essex on ‘Chatty Factories’ and we have other forthcoming publications from the project which enabled us to explore ideas of value, work, and utopias. It was great, as always, to work with Rhiannon. In terms of the intellectual journey of this project, I would like to thank, in particular, various Marxist colleagues who have influenced my thinking over the years until it has arrived at this point, particu- larly Dave Hill for having confidence in this book, Mike Cole, Alpesh Maisuria, Glenn Rikowski, Tony Green, Peter McLaren, and James Avis. I would also like to thank fellow colleagues and friends including Kalwant Bhopal, Charlotte Chadderton, and Andrew Ravenscroft for their intellectual support. In the last ten years I have worked at four universities for various reasons from precarity to necessity (Institute of Education, University of East London, Bath Spa University, and now Acknowledgements vii the University of Essex). Thanks to my colleagues at the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, who are great people and who continue to produce work in the spirit of the radical tradition from which the University was born. Final thanks to Liz for her ideas, laughter, love, and support. Love always to my children Isobel and Nina. 1 Introduction What Is AI? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most nebulous technologies in contemporary capitalism. It has come to stand for a wide variety of machines, automations, simulations, and speculations. Intelligent assis- tants such as Alexa and Cortana, Machine Learning (ML), cyborgs, robots, expert systems, downloaded minds, automata, self-driving cars, pattern recognition, transhumanists, post-humanists, semantic nets, neural nets, natural language processing, godlike consciousnesses, and future automated existential threats are all parts of what might be called AI. In many ways there is nothing new about AI. Humans have always imagined enchanted objects and mechanical devices that might approximate some form of consciousness. Cave, Dihal and Dillon (2020) span human history in bringing together fictional and non-fictional accounts, of ‘AI Narratives’. Several chapters in their collected volume identify pre-capitalist accounts of AI from Greek philosophy and the Middle Ages. Although these are not AI as we might understand it, these conceptions of intelligent, reasoning, or conscious ‘things’ are already embedded in a historical mode of production (slavery or feudalism). In contrast, contemporary AI is largely a capitalist technology and (as I argue in Chapter 6) we often look at advanced AI not as a slave or a serf but as an owned machine (as part of capital) and speculatively as a future conscious, or even ‘labouring’, entity. The contemporary history of AI (Woolbridge, 2020) makes clear that it is an over-burdened and contested concept. From the work of Turing until the development of semantic AI in what Woolbridge (2020, p.47) refers to the ‘Golden Age’ (from 1956 to 1974), there was an emphasis on ‘General AI’ with the prioritisation of general skills across a wide range of domains including perception, problem-solving, planning, and understanding. The perceived failures of this ‘Golden Age’, as these higher-order problems proved to be extremely challenging, led to a narrowing of the focus of AI (‘narrow AI’). AI technologies such as expert systems (which combined AI with human reasoning to address DOI: 10.4324/9781003081654-1