The labor theory of value in the era of artificial intelligence and digital platforms: challenges, innovations, and new mechanisms

Abstract This research examines the contemporary relevance and necessary extensions of Marx’s labor theory of value in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital platforms through theoretical analysis and critical literature synthesis. As a primarily conceptual study, it explores how AI technologies and platform-based business models challenge traditional understandings of labor value creation and distribution while demonstrating the continued analytical power of Marxist political economy. The theoretical frameworks developed here require future empirical validation through case studies, quantitative analysis, and ethnographic research to test and refine the propositions advanced. The study clarifies the theoretical status of AI as constant capital rather than labor, identifies key characteristics of value formation in platform economies, analyzes new mechanisms of surplus value distribution, and proposes institutional frameworks for realizing labor value. The findings suggest that while AI and digital platforms have fundamentally altered the organization of work and modes of value realization, the core insights of the labor theory of value—that living labor remains the sole source of new value—remain essential for critiquing contemporary digital capitalism. This research contributes to ongoing debates about the future of work, power asymmetries in platform economies, and the development of worker-protective regulatory frameworks, engaging with perspectives from feminist economics, institutional theory, and surveillance capitalism studies.