Situating AI in social work: Notes on capitalism, technology and labour processes

INTRODUCTION: A range of obstacles relating to a lack of technical expertise, the pace of technological development and corporate marketing hype may impede our understanding of artificial intelligence (AI). To grasp AI's implications, it is important to consider the social and economic context in which it is evolving and how its use is conditioned by the demands of capital accumulation and the relentless drive to increase profit. APPROACH: It is helpful to look at how technology more generally has been used in previous phases of capitalism. AI applications in other fields—especially public health, military and border policing—are also influential and have potential implications for social work's labour processes. CONCLUSIONS: It is argued that AI-inflected automation and human/machine interplay are likely to become increasing significant in the future, and it is vital that AI deployments are democratically debated and decided on.