This book argues that Marxist theory is essential for understanding the contemporary industrialization of the form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning. It includes a political economic history of AI, tracking how it went from a fringe research interest for a handful of scientists in the 1950s to a centerpiece of cybernetic capital fifty years later. It also includes a political economic study of the scale, scope and dynamics of the contemporary AI industry as well as a labour process analysis of commercial machine learning software production, based on interviews with workers and management in AI companies around the world, ranging from tiny startups to giant technology firms. On the basis of this study, Steinhoff develops a Marxist analysis to argue that the popular theory of immaterial labour, which holds that information technologies increase the autonomy of workers from capital, tending towards a post-capitalist economy, does not adequately describe the situation of high-tech digital labour today. In the AI industry, digital labour remains firmly under the control of capital. Steinhoff argues that theories discerning therein an emergent autonomy of labour are in fact witnessing labour’s increasing automation.

Bourdieu and Literature is a wide-ranging, rigorous and accessible introduction to the relationship between Pierre Bourdieu's work and literary studies. It provides a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of his contributions to literary theory and his thinking about authors and literary works. One of the foremost French intellectuals of the post-war era, Bourdieu has become a standard point of reference in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, art history, cultural studies, politics, and sociology, but his longstanding interest in literature has often been overlooked. This study explores the impact of literature on Bourdieu's intellectual itinerary, and how his literary understanding intersected with his sociological theory and thinking about cultural policy. This is the first full-length study of Bourdieu's work on literature in English, and it provides an invaluable resource for students and scholars of literary studies, cultural theory and sociology.

What does it mean to speak of artistic autonomy at a time when art is fully commercialised and aesthetics has become the guiding principle of economic production and policymaking? This book by Sebastian Olma takes a fresh look at this question by summoning three heroes of the aesthetic revolution to confront the challenges faced by artistic practice today. Turning Kant into a campaigner for the Anthropocene, Schiller into a creative entrepreneur, and Schelling into a political activist, Olma lays the groundwork for a critique that identifies "the contemporary" itself as contemporary art's greatest challenge in the struggle to reinvent its autonomy and regain its relevance to society.

This book presents current research on self-regulation and autonomy, which have emerged as key predictors of health and well-being in several areas of psychology.

One of the great challenges in flexible production and supply chains is the availability of necessary information at any time and place. Autonomous logistics processes can bring about fast and flexible adaptations to change. This book identifies autonomous logistics processes and details how they differ from conventionally managed processes. Coverage also describes the changes that autonomy will cause in order processing.

Autonomy: Capital, Class and Politics explores and critiques one of the most dynamic terrains of political theory, sometimes referred to as 'Autonomist Marxism' or post-Operaismo. This theory shot to prominence with the publication of Empire by Hardt and Negri and has been associated with cutting edge developments in political and cultural practice; yet there exists no work that critically examines it in its contemporary breadth. Taking three divergent manifestations of Autonomist Marxism found in the works of Antonio Negri and Paulo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective and John Holloway, David Eden examines how each approach questions the nature of class and contemporary capitalism and how they extrapolate politics. Not only is such juxtaposition both fruitful and unprecedented but Eden then constructs critiques of each approach and draws out deeper common concerns. Suggesting a novel rethinking of emancipatory praxis, this book provides a much needed insight into the current tensions and clashes within society and politics.

In Autonomy Nicholas Brown theorizes the historical and theoretical argument for art's autonomy from its acknowledged character as a commodity. Refusing the position that the distinction between art and the commodity has collapsed, Brown demonstrates how art can, in confronting its material determinations, suspend the logic of capital by demanding interpretive attention. He applies his readings of Marx, Hegel, Adorno, and Jameson to a range of literature, photography, music, television, and sculpture, from Cindy Sherman's photography and the novels of Ben Lerner and Jennifer Egan to The Wire and the music of the White Stripes. He demonstrates that through their attention and commitment to form, such artists turn aside the determination posed by the demand of the market, thereby defeating the foreclosure of meaning entailed in commodification. In so doing, he offers a new theory of art that prompts a rethinking of the relationship between art, critical theory, and capitalism.

The definitive reference work with comprehensive analysis and review of peer production Peer production is no longer the sole domain of small groups of technical or academic elites. The internet has enabled millions of people to collectively produce, revise, and distribute everything from computer operating systems and applications to encyclopedia articles and film and television databases. Today, peer production has branched out to include wireless networks, online currencies, biohacking, and peer-to-peer urbanism, amongst others. The Handbook of Peer Production outlines central concepts, examines current and emerging areas of application, and analyzes the forms and principles of cooperation that continue to impact multiple areas of production and sociality. Featuring contributions from an international team of experts in the field, this landmark work maps the origins and manifestations of peer production, discusses the factors and conditions that are enabling, advancing, and co-opting peer production, and considers its current impact and potential consequences for the social order. Detailed chapters address the governance, political economy, and cultures of peer production, user motivations, social rules and norms, the role of peer production in social change and activism, and much more. Filling a gap in available literature as the only extensive overview of peer production’s modes of generating informational goods and services, this groundbreaking volume: Offers accessible, up-to-date information to both specialists and non-specialists across academia, industry, journalism, and public advocacy Includes interviews with leading practitioners discussing the future of peer production Discusses the history, traditions, key debates, and pioneers of peer production Explores technologies for peer production, openness and licensing, peer learning, open design and manufacturing, and free and open-source software The Handbook of Peer Production is an indispensable resource for students, instructors, researchers, and professionals working in fields including communication studies, science and technology studies, sociology, and management studies, as well as those interested in the network information economy, the public domain, and new forms of organization and networking.

For 200 years industrial civilization has relied on the combustion of abundant and cheap carbon fuels. But continued reliance has had perilous consequences. On the one hand there is the insecurity of relying on the world's most unstable region - the Middle East - compounded by the imminence of peak oil, growing scarcity and mounting prices. On the other, the potentially cataclysmic consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels, as the evidence of accelerating climate change shows. Yet there is a solution: to make the transition to renewable sources of energy and distributed, decentralized energy generation. It is a model that has been proven, technologically, commercially and politically, as Scheer comprehensively demonstrates here. The alternative of a return to nuclear power - again being widely advocated - he shows to be compromised and illusory. The advantages of renewable energy are so clear and so overwhelming that resistance to them needs diagnosis - which Scheer also provides, showing why and how entrenched interests and one-dimensional structures of thinking oppose the transition, and what must be done to overcome these obstacles.The new book from the award-winning author of THE SOLAR ECONOMY and A SOLAR MANIFESTO demonstrates why the transition to renewable energy is essential and how it can be done.

In recent years, debate on the state's economic role has too often devolved into diatribes against intervention. Peter Evans questions such simplistic views, offering a new vision of why state involvement works in some cases and produces disasters in others. To illustrate, he looks at how state agencies, local entrepreneurs, and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India, and Korea during the seventies and eighties. Evans starts with the idea that states vary in the way they are organized and tied to society. In some nations, like Zaire, the state is predatory, ruthlessly extracting and providing nothing of value in return. In others, like Korea, it is developmental, promoting industrial transformation. In still others, like Brazil and India, it is in between, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering. Evans's years of comparative research on the successes and failures of state involvement in the process of industrialization have here been crafted into a persuasive and entertaining work, which demonstrates that successful state action requires an understanding of its own limits, a realistic relationship to the global economy, and the combination of coherent internal organization and close links to society that Evans called "embedded autonomy."