The growing interest in AI in advance capitalist societies can be understood not just in relation to its practial achievements, which remain modest, but also in its ideological role as a technological paradign for the reconstruction of capitalism. This is similar to the role played by scientific management during the second industrial revolution, circa 1880–1930, and involves the extension of the rationalization and routinization of labour to mental work. The conception of human intelligence and the emphasis on command and control (...) systems of much contemporary AI research reflects its close relationship with the US military and corporate capital, which are the sources of many of AI's key metaphors and anolgies. (shrink)