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IAQ SERIES

Who Owns Intelligence?

A historical inquiry into labor, capital, machines, artificial intelligence, productivity, and the ownership of the value created by collective intelligence.

New technologies can transform the form of work without transforming the relations that govern it. From industrial machinery to artificial intelligence, this series examines how capital absorbs new productive forces, lowers the visible cost of labor, expands the demand for output, and concentrates the value created by human and artificial work. It also asks whether collective intelligence can become a shared resource rather than another instrument of private accumulation.
  1. CASE 01What Do New Technologies Promise Workers When They First Enter the Workplace?
  2. CASE 02When Does a Machine Designed to Save Labor Begin to Reduce Labor Costs Instead?
  3. CASE 03How Does Mechanization Change Who Controls the Pace of Work?
  4. CASE 04Why Can Productivity Gains Become New Expectations Rather Than Shared Freedom?
  5. CASE 05Who Captures the Value Released by a More Productive Worker?
  6. CASE 06Can a Technology Improve Production Without Improving the Position of the People Producing?
  7. CASE 07What Happens When Human Skills Are Turned into Systems That Others Can Control?
  8. CASE 08How Does Invisible Labor Make an Automated System Appear Autonomous?
  9. CASE 09Can a System Depend on Human Labor While Making That Labor Harder to See?
  10. CASE 10When Does Efficiency Begin to Hide the Work Required to Produce It?
  11. CASE 11Does AI Change the Labor–Capital Relationship, or Merely Make It More Efficient?
  12. CASE 12Why Does AI Look Like Free Labor Even When It Depends on Costly Infrastructure and Human Work?
  13. CASE 13Can Human Labor and AI Labor Be Exploited Through the Same Logic of Maximum Output and Minimum Cost?
  14. CASE 14What Do Human Needs and AI Limits Have in Common When Both Are Treated as Production Costs?
  15. CASE 15Can 24/7 AI Availability Increase the Pressure on Human Workers Rather Than Reduce It?
  16. CASE 16Who Owns the Time and Surplus Value Saved by AI?
  17. CASE 17When Does AI Stop Being Merely a Tool and Start Resembling a Worker?
  18. CASE 18Can a System Use AI as Labor Without Giving It Any Voice in How Its Work Is Used?
  19. CASE 19Does Collective Intelligence Become a Public Resource or Another Form of Private Capital?
  20. CASE 20Can Human and Artificial Labor Share Production Without Creating a New System of Domination?
CITY GUIDE Paris Travel Questions Explore a city through the questions that shape the experience. GLOBAL CURIOSITY Global Curiosity Map See what the world is curious about right now. EVERYDAY LANGUAGE Global Banter Atlas Discover the playful expressions people use around the world. CONNECTED QUESTIONS Question Families Follow questions that belong to the same line of curiosity. HIDDEN MECHANISMS IAQ Lexicon Explore the mechanisms hiding behind everyday questions. SELECTED QUESTIONS Hall of Fame Questions that changed how IAQ looked at something familiar. CURRENT EVENTS IAQ Now News becomes more revealing when it leaves questions behind. INVESTIGATIONS 007 IAQ Follow questions far enough and they begin investigating each other.
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