Algorithmic Power and the Dialectics of Humanity: Artificial Intelligence, Capital, and the Reconfiguration of Social Totality

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is commonly portrayed as a technical innovation that inaugurates a new social epoch defined by efficiency, automation, and rational governance. This article advances a dialectical anthropological critique of such narratives by situating artificial intelligence within the historical dynamics of capitalism, colonial power, and struggles over labor and knowledge. Conceptualizing artificial intelligence as a social relation rather than a neutral technology, the article draws on Marxian political economy, Fanonian analyses of colonial domination, Gramscian theories of hegemony, Polanyian insights about market disembedding, and Comaroffian critiques of contemporary capitalism. It contends that AI, through labour, epistemology, or governance, is the new hyper-driven moment of commodification and cycle of global inequalities. Meanwhile, AI creates inconsistencies that break down established value and authority regimes, laying the ground for contestation and possible other trajectories. The paper outlines new directions for a critical anthropology of AI that foregrounds historical materiality and contradictions while committing the field to decolonial epistemologies and transformative praxis.