The subsumption and platformization of labor: de-anthropomorphization and surplus-value extraction in the age of artificial intelligence

Abstract

This study aims to analyze transformations in labor relations within contemporary capitalism, emphasizing the advance of neoliberalism, flexibilization, and Industry 4.0 technologies. In Brazil, processes such as outsourcing, counter-reforms to labor and social security laws, the practice of hiring workers as legal entities pejotization, and new forms of employment con-tracts have expanded the transfer of labor-related risks and responsibilities onto workers. In this context, platformization—linked to (de)generative artificial intelligence, automation, and algo-rithmic management—restructures production processes and intensifies mechanisms of control, precarization, and exploitation. This theoretical-bibliographical research draws on the sociology of labor, engaging with concepts such as living and dead labor, the de-anthropomorphization of labor, subsumption, and the extraction of surplus value. It seeks to understand how digital plat-forms shape global value chains and new forms of capital organization and accumulation, without eliminating the centrality of human labor in value production. The study concludes that, although automation increases the substitution of living labor with dead labor, capitalism remains dependent on the exploitation of living labor to extract surplus value.