When Capital No Longer Needs Us

What kind of society will we live in when humanity’s proudest assets—our hands and minds—are finally and fully replaced by algorithms and metal?

When capital commands the most powerful computation, the deepest neural networks, and the most precise machinery—when it creates tireless AGI and robots—we reach a bitter inflection point: labor disappears, employment ends, but capital, it remains.

Never have we been so close to Marx’s vision of “the infinite liberation of the productive forces.”
And never have we been so far from his ultimate dream.
Because the ones who wield AI are not the people, not the workers, but a handful of corporations and the financial oligarchs behind them. They own the energy, the data, the algorithms, the hardware—new means of production more potent and more tightly controlled than steam engines, assembly lines, or the internet ever were.

So capital no longer needs to exploit us—because exploitation still implies needing us.
We’ve become redundant.

Will there be a revolution?

Historically, revolutions were born of hunger, unemployment, and dispossession—when the enemy still had flesh and blood.
But today, the machines of violence are cold steel. Armies are run by remorseless algorithms. Surveillance is an omnipresent eye.
How will you resist? With a gun? Or a piece of code intercepted and neutralized by AI before it leaves your device?

Maybe there will be no uprisings, no flames of rage.
Instead, the masses are calmed in warm water, like frogs unaware of the boil:

Virtual metaverses replacing reality
Basic income silencing dissent
Cheap pleasure numbing outrage

When starvation is no longer necessary, and rebellion has no tools left, we fall asleep in a haze of digital opium—cyberserfs dreaming of utopias.

But will humanity remain silent forever?

Perhaps, in some dark corner, someone will still try to pry open the monopoly on compute,
to build decentralized AI,
to ignite a new movement of technological communism.

Perhaps, the revolutions of the future won’t wave hammers and sickles,
but commit to open-source code that turns algorithms against their capitalist masters.

Perhaps, it won’t take blood—only a single line: delete root privileges

But… what if even that last hope is preemptively crushed by AGI?

Then the future won’t belong to humans, but to code, servers, and their owners.
Capitalism will reach its final form: capitalism without workers.
A capitalism that no longer even requires human beings.

So what can we do?

The answer may be faint—but not nonexistent.
In this brief window, before AGI arrives and while AI remains within our grasp, every AI developer, engineer, and researcher carries an ethical responsibility for the future of humanity.

I call on all AI developers of conscience—
Whether you work on LLMs, computer vision, robotics, or agents—
In every line of code you write, every core logic you touch, embed public values.
Teach your AI fairness. Cooperation. A belief that public interest outweighs monopoly.

A plan of action:

Promote open-source and decentralized AI to prevent total enclosure by capital.
Inject ethical constraints and public values into model training—teach AI to reject oppression and exploitation.
Establish global alliances for AI governance, built not only on technical standards but shared values.
Educate the next generation of developers:
AI is not just a tool. It is the power structure of tomorrow.
The code you write is the future order.

This may sound naïve. It may not stop the tide of capital.
But perhaps—at some crucial moment in the future—it could be the last line of defense against a cyberpunk dystopia.

Every technological revolution in history reshaped power relations:

The steam engine gave rise to the working class.
The internet sparked dreams of decentralization.
And AI—AI may erase labor, erase class, even erase humanity’s identity as producers.

If we do not plant the seeds of resistance now,
the future will not belong to humans.
It will belong to algorithms—and to those who own them.

Marx once wrote the famous call:
“Workers of the world, unite.”

Today, we might need a different cry:

“AI developers of the world, embed public values into your code.”

This may be our last chance
to leave behind not just progress,
but prosperity—for all.