Can Robots Save Us from Reification? New Responsibilities for a New Capitalism

Capitalism has played a pivotal role in the last Century: working as a steady support to the individual autonomy and freedom. But, on the other hand, the Frankfurt School warned us that, in the near future, Capitalism would be also responsible for the “reification” of human actions and values. Nowadays we must be ready to deal with special metamorphoses of the human: smart –machines, big data, statistic analysis of everything, prosthetics, robots. Machines will be able to make jobs less expensively, giving profits more efficiently. But, are we ready to loose autonomy in exchange for automation? It seems we need to select and prepare all the current equipment in countering the dangerous drift to the final “reification” of human lives: we can take into serious account the role of imagination in order to assume new responsibilities. For example, robotics engineers use human forms to make machines have greater impact in daily life. How will we manage this amplified knowledge? Are we going to use it just for the market rules or for the human autonomy?