Capitalism loves to get rid of workplaces which necessitate qualities that are unique to the individual performing them (creativity, vision, inherent views etc.) or confined to a very small pool from which the employer must choose (higher education and knowledge, artistic and technical talent etc.). Therefore, the work requiring such skills has to be the first to go away, and capital invests enormous amounts of resources researching how to replace all the people working in these sectors with AI and other automata. This is Marxist theory, it is capital at work reducing workers to mere replaceable labourers only in charge of pressing the right buttons.

During the first AI summer, corporations hoped to replace expensive mathematicians and engineers with automatic symbolic manipulation; during the current one, they want to get rid of painters, musicians, and authors with machine learning. Although this has killed many low-paying jobs in the past, it never fulfills the promises the bourgeoisie makes itself about it because they fail to correctly evaluate the technology without the input of people actually making it. However, it is a recurring pattern leading to a boom/bust cycle where the scientific funding invested in these areas is concerned.

Although investing in AI as well - because being better at this technology than the USA is very critical to its national security - China prefers to show off its exploits in machinery, industry, energy, and chemistry. The primary function and motivation of these technologies is to increase the national wealth, to ease everyday life and reduce the amount of anonymous toil, as well as to guarantee its food and energy security and independence.