--- title: "DIGITAL COMMUNISM IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Artificial abundance, the devaluation of human labour, and the reconfiguration of economic value · AI Fault Line" url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-5281-zenodo-23897330/ description: "AI Fault Line is a neutral, evidence-cited field guide to why experts looking at the same developments disagree about AI's effect on productivity, jobs, inequality, regulation and the pace of change." --- [Research](https://aifaultline.com/research/) # DIGITAL COMMUNISM IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Artificial abundance, the devaluation of human labour, and the reconfiguration of economic value [Younes Bennane](https://aifaultline.com/authors/younes-bennane/) · [Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)](https://aifaultline.com/sources/zenodo/) · 2 Nov 2026 [Read original source](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23897330) Open access Where this sits in the debate - [Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/) - [Will AI widen inequality?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/inequality/) · its finding supports the claim ([why studies differ](https://aifaultline.com/debate/inequality/#why)) Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)). ## Abstract The history of economics is inseparable from the evolution of the means of production. Every major technological transformation has altered the relationship between capital, labour, and the creation of wealth. Industrial mechanisation gradually replaced part of human physical effort with mechanical power. Computerisation subsequently automated many administrative, accounting, and information-processing operations. Today, generative artificial intelligence is introducing a different kind of rupture: it is directly involved in activities that traditionally relied on individuals’ cognitive, intellectual, and creative capacities. This transformation raises a fundamental question: what happens to the economic value of human labour when technologies make it possible to reproduce, accelerate, and standardise an increasingly large share of an individual’s productive capacities? The issue is not simply the possible disappearance of certain occupations. It concerns a deeper transformation in the mechanisms through which labour is valued. Artificial intelligence can substantially increase an individual’s productivity without guaranteeing a proportionate increase in remuneration. It may even reduce the market value of certain skills by making their use more accessible, faster, and less costly. We are therefore confronted with a paradox: individuals have access to increasingly powerful means of intellectual production, yet this increase in their productive capacity no longer necessarily secures them a stronger economic position. This contradiction is the starting point of our inquiry. We put forward the hypothesis that artificial intelligence is gradually separating three dimensions that were historically closely connected: the capacity to produce, the individual contribution to production, and the ability to capture a share of the wealth created. To analyse this transformation, we propose three organising concepts: digital communism, artificial abundance, and the tendency towar ## About this publication **Preprint.** Posted on a preprint server or repository (arXiv, SSRN, Zenodo and others) before or without peer review. Anyone can post there. [How sources are ranked](https://aifaultline.com/about/#source-ranking). Published 2026 (recently) Citations 0 (OpenAlex) 0 citations recorded by OpenAlex — too few 2026 papers in this collection for a fair comparison. [Chart: published 2026] ## Reaches a different conclusion Papers on the same question whose finding points the other way, as read from the abstracts by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)). [Why studies differ](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/#why). - [Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1126-science-adh2586/) Inequality: its finding goes against the claim · Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang · 2023 - [The ABCs of Who Benefits from Working with AI: Ability, Beliefs, and Calibration](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1287-mnsc-2024-08994/) Inequality: its finding goes against the claim · Andrew Caplin et al. · 2025 ## Related papers On the same debate questions, key papers first; related by topic, not by method or conclusion. Browse all: [Jobs](https://aifaultline.com/research/?question=jobs) · [Inequality](https://aifaultline.com/research/?question=inequality). - [How Might Fiscal Policy Respond to the Rise of Artificial Intelligence?](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-3386-w35437/) Karen Dynan et al. · NBER · 2026 - [Workforce policy for the age of AI](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-a3cf4f94d015c5a0/) Brookings · Brookings · 2026 - [Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-66a325dcbbf90863/) Erik Brynjolfsson et al. · Stanford Digital Economy Lab working paper · 2025 - [Expertise](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-jeea-jvaf023/) David Autor and Neil Thompson · Journal of the European Economic Association · 2025 Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata. [How this site is built](https://aifaultline.com/about/).