Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University: Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value

A new book by John Preston

New York: Routledge

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003081654

eBook ISBN9781003081654

 

ABSTRACT

Using Marxist critique, this book explores manifestations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education and demonstrates how it contributes to the functioning and existence of the capitalist university.

Challenging the idea that AI is a break from previous capitalist technologies, 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 knowledge. 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 commodifies 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 critical 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.

 

The book is free to read on Creative Commons, @ https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003081654/artificial-intelligence-capitalist-university-john-preston

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

The Funnelling@ Higher Education and Labour-power Production in the Shadow of Covid-19

 

The Funnelling: Higher Education for Labour-power Production in the Shadow of Covid-19

This paper – recently published in The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies – is now available at ResearchGate and Academia.

Abstract

This article explores how the UK Conservative Government’s Department for Education is taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to restructure higher education in England towards labour-power production. There is nothing new in UK governments seeking to reshape higher education for labour-power development. But under cover of apparent concern for students’ well-being in the pandemic, the consequences for higher education institutions viewed as slacking or heel-dragging regarding their labour-power production drives have never been greater following the publication of Establishment of a Higher Education Restructuring Regime in Response to Covid-19 (DfE, 2020a): market exit and closure. The Great Interruption in labour-power production generated by Covid-19 can pose the question of whether we continue to assent to our labour-power being shaped for capital, or whether we redirect flows of labour-power development in directions of post-capitalist futures. 

Keywords: Covid-19, higher education, labour-power, educational restructuring, Great Interruption

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354723043_The_Funnelling_Higher_Education_for_Labour-power_Production_in_the_Shadow_of_Covid-19 and http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

@ Academia: https://www.academia.edu/53201438/The_Funnelling_Higher_Education_for_Labour_power_Production_in_the_Shadow_of_Covid_19 and http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski

London

18 October 2021

Schools of War

 

SCHOOLS OF WAR

 This is an article I have written with Alisson  Slider do Nascimento de Paula, and it was published today in the ‘Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology’. You can see, and download the article (free, open access) at: https://www.j-psp.com/article/schools-of-war-10993.

ABSTRACT: In his classic ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ (1845), Friedrich Engels argued that workers engaged in industrial action gained knowledge of economic processes, tactical awareness in struggles and grasped the value of solidarity in the face of employers‟ assaults on pay and working conditions. These struggles constituted “schools of war”; significant learning experiences for workers, argued Engels. Yet schools of war can take other forms, such as struggles against the capitalisation of education; educational institutions becoming sites of capital accumulation and preparation for capitalist work. In this sense, education has become a battleground as its privatisation, commodification, marketisation, commercialisation and monetisation have gathered pace in many countries since the second half of the twentieth century. This article argues that there are two main fronts in the war over the penetration of education by capital in contemporary society: the business takeover of education, as educational institutions become value- and profit-making sites; and the reduction of education to labour-power production. It explores these two fronts of war in terms of education policies in England and Brazil and argues for the establishment of forms of education beyond capitalist states and capital’s commodity forms.

Glenn Rikowski

ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski 

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 

These recent publications can be found at ResearchGate and Academia:

 

Rikowski, G. (2021) An Interview with Glenn Rikowski. Rethinking Critical Pedagogy, Vol.2 Issue 1, March.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350487423_An_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/45641960/An_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski

 

Rikowski, G. (2021) Crisis. In: S. Themelis (ed.) Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility. London: Routledge.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347109171_Crisis

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/45079016/Crisis

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) Critique of the Classical Theory of Education Crisis (Critica de Theoria Clássica de Crise da Educação). Trabalho & Educação, Vol.29 No.3, pp.16-67, September-December. (English with Portuguese Abstract).

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348349675_Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis_Critica_de_Theoria_Classica_de_Crise_da_Educacao

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44897543/Critica_de_Theoria_Cl%C3%A1ssica_de_Crise_da_Educa%C3%A7%C3%A3o_Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis_  

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) The Psychology of Capital. In: Stankovic Pejnović, V. & Matić, I. (Eds.) New Understanding of Capital in the 21^st Century. Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346627387_The_Psychology_of_Capital

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44634483/The_Psychology_of_Capital

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) Educação e Tragédia do Trabalho. In: A. Slider do Nascimento de Paula, F. Ferreira Costa, Kátia Rodrigues Lima & K. Costa Pereira (Eds.) CRÍTICA, TRABALHO E POLÍTICAS EDUCACIONAIS NO CENÁRIO DO CAPITALISMO MUNDIALIZADO, Chapter 6, Marilia: Lutus Anticapital. (Portuguese).

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345747254_Educacao_e_Tragedia_do_Trabalho

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44480217/Educacao_e_Tragedia_do_Trabalho

 

Glenn Rikowski

London, 10^th May 2021