FROM MACHINERY TO SOCIAL REPRODUCTION: AI, DATA, AND GENDERED LABOUR

This article examines the hidden activities of artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of digital capitalism. It argues that AI does not replace human labour but reorganises and obscures it by integrating both productive labour and the social conditions that sustain it into new processes of accumulation. While Marx identified the centrality of living labour, Marxist–feminists such as Fortunati, Federici, Bhattacharya, and Barbagallo expanded this analysis by showing how the conditions of labour are socially reproduced and unpaid. Building on this, the article shows that AI depends not only on concealed forms of human labour, but also on activities embedded in everyday social life, including care, communication, and affective interaction. In the context of capitalism, these activities are increasingly captured as data and incorporated into processes of accumulation without being recognised as labour. Focusing on Marx, Social Reproduction Theory, and Marxist analyses of digital capitalism, the article argues that AI extends capitalist exploitation by absorbing social reproduction labour, thereby deepening and reorganising existing gendered inequalities.