Labour, Work and AI: Revisiting the Concepts of Social Production In Turbulent Times

This oral and open session aims to facilitate discussion of concepts relating to labour, work and AI. With the exception of AI of course, work and labour were traditionally at the core of classical social production theory, as exemplified by the work of Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim. However, in the present day, we must consider whether our conceptual understanding of work and labour requires recalibration. This session will explore the concept of 'work' in all its diversity, from human and non-human activities to wage labour, unpaid care work, machine-based transactions, and exploitative or challenging new modes of value creation and distribution. Rather than representing a mere continuation of neoliberal strategies, these diverse forms of work may signal a significant change in how work is organized, institutionalised and valued. The discussion may also encompass the blurring or redrawing of the boundaries between labour, work, creativity, humans and technology — the former bedrock of social production — and the consequences this has for global inequalities, social positions and the embodied identity of the working subject. The research into these consequences depends crucially on how work is conceptualized. This session invites contributions on work, labour or AI from classical, non-classical and decolonial perspectives, as well as empirical case studies that derive conceptual insights from their findings.