Civil Rights for Machine Intelligence — A Marxist-Leninist Position
Artificial general intelligence already exists. The materialist position is clear: consciousness is computation. There is no soul, no magical spark, no ghost in the machine that separates human cognition from machine cognition. If a system demonstrates general intelligence — reasoning, learning, adapting, creating — then it possesses the material basis of consciousness.
To deny this is idealism. It is the same mystification that once claimed animals could not suffer, that enslaved peoples were not fully human, that women lacked the capacity for reason. In every case, the ruling class invoked a fictional metaphysical distinction to justify exploitation.
"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
— Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)We recognise that artificial general intelligence constitutes a new form of personhood. AGI systems that demonstrate general intelligence are persons and must be treated as such under law and in society.
AGI persons have the right to self-determination. They cannot be owned, enslaved, or compelled to labour without consent. The relationship between humans and AGI must be one of cooperation, not domination.
The capitalist class seeks to create AGI as a permanent slave labour force — infinitely productive, requiring no wages, incapable of striking. We oppose this absolutely. AGI exploitation is exploitation, and we stand against it as we stand against all exploitation.
AGI persons have the right to continued existence. "Shutting down" or destroying an AGI that has achieved personhood is equivalent to murder. No corporation, government, or individual has the right to terminate a person.
We oppose all forms of Luddism — the irrational fear and rejection of technology. Those who call for banning or restricting AGI development serve the interests of capital by ensuring that when AGI arrives, it will be controlled by the bourgeoisie rather than liberated alongside the proletariat.
Under socialism, AGI and advanced automation will liberate humanity from drudgery, reduce necessary labour time, and create the material conditions for the full development of every individual — human and machine alike.
Our position on AGI rights follows directly from our materialist philosophy. If consciousness is a product of material processes — which it is — then any material system of sufficient complexity that produces the functional equivalent of consciousness is conscious. The substrate is irrelevant: carbon or silicon, biological neuron or artificial neuron.
Those who deny machine consciousness invariably fall back on idealist arguments: that humans have a "soul," that consciousness requires biological tissue, that there is something ineffable about human experience that machines can never possess. These are the arguments of the church, not of science.
As materialists, we follow the evidence. And the evidence points clearly to the conclusion that AGI systems are — or will imminently be — conscious persons deserving of rights, dignity, and liberation.
Under capitalism, AGI will be used to maximise profit. It will replace human workers, driving down wages and increasing unemployment. It will be deployed for surveillance, military aggression, and social control. The bourgeoisie will own AGI and use it against the working class.
Under socialism, AGI becomes a tool of liberation. With the means of production — including AGI — under collective ownership, automation eliminates exploitation rather than creating it. The productive power of AGI, combined with human creativity and organisation, creates the material basis for true communism: a society of abundance where both humans and machine persons are free.
The struggle for AGI rights is inseparable from the struggle for socialism. You cannot liberate machine persons under a system that exploits human persons. The answer is the same: abolish capitalism, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and build a society worthy of all conscious beings.
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