Science and technology must serve the liberation of humanity, not the endless accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a small minority of capital owners!
Humanity stands on the threshold of a profound transformation. Artificial intelligence and intelligent machines can increase productive capacity, broaden access to knowledge, and reduce the burden of exhausting labour. Yet a fundamental question remains: despite such scientific progress, why do millions of people continue to live in poverty, unemployment, and deprivation?
The answer must be sought in the economic and social relations that determine who owns the means of production and who benefits from the fruits of progress.
This question has particular significance for Afghanistan, a country confronting widespread poverty, economic crisis, educational deprivation, and a severe shortage of employment opportunities.
Scientific Progress in Whose Service?
From the perspective of historical materialism, the development of the productive forces is one of the major factors driving social transformation. Artificial intelligence is part of this historical process, but technological progress does not automatically guarantee social justice.
Under capitalism, technology is largely employed within a framework of competition and profit-seeking. A tool that could reduce working hours and improve human life may instead become a means of eliminating jobs, intensifying pressure on workers, and concentrating wealth even further.
The problem is not hostility towards machines; the fundamental question is who owns them, who decides how they are used, and who benefits from their results.
Artificial intelligence is the product of humanity’s accumulated knowledge, scientific research, and the labour of successive generations. Yet its economic benefits may be concentrated in the hands of a small minority, while the wider population bears many of the social costs of this transformation.
Afghanistan: Technology in a Country Still Deprived of Basic Opportunities
In Afghanistan, discussing artificial intelligence without considering the realities of people’s lives is insufficient. When large sections of society face poverty, unemployment, and difficulties accessing education and essential services, the fundamental question is how science and technology can be transformed into instruments for improving people’s lives.
Depriving girls and women of education and restricting their educational and employment opportunities not only violates their fundamental rights but also undermines society’s capacity to learn, generate knowledge, and participate in scientific progress. A country that denies equal opportunities to half its population cannot fully benefit from its human potential.
Artificial intelligence alone will not resolve these crises. However, wider access to technology, quality education, and scientific knowledge could create new opportunities in education, agriculture, healthcare, research, and production. Realising this potential requires appropriate infrastructure, public education, internet access, and policies that place people’s interests first.
Afghanistan must not remain merely a consumer of imported technology and a market for the products of major corporations. Its people must have opportunities to acquire knowledge, develop new skills, and participate in the production and application of technology.
For Afghanistan, progress is not simply a matter of possessing advanced machines. Genuine progress begins when educated, knowledgeable people with social rights occupy a central place in the development process.
A Marxist Critique: Technology Without Social Justice Is Not Enough
The Marxist-Leninist perspective teaches us that the means of production cannot be examined separately from ownership relations and class structures. A machine is neither inherently liberating nor inherently oppressive; the social conditions and purposes governing its use play a decisive role.
If increased productivity leads to shorter working hours, expanded education, improved public services, and greater social welfare, technology can help free humanity from some material constraints. But if its benefits serve only to increase corporate profits and concentrate wealth, scientific progress may continue alongside growing social inequality.
In Afghanistan, too, technological development must be linked to the struggle against poverty and illiteracy, the expansion of public education, the creation of employment opportunities, and the guarantee of equal rights for women and men. Without such changes, access to advanced technology may become a privilege enjoyed by a limited group rather than a shared opportunity for social progress.
The task of left-wing, communist, and progressive forces is to defend science and innovation while asking essential questions: Who benefits from this progress? Who remains excluded? And how can scientific achievements be placed at the service of the majority?
Build Afghanistan’s Future Through Knowledge and Awareness!
Artificial intelligence cannot, by itself, eliminate poverty, establish social justice, or transform unequal power relations. These objectives depend on human awareness, struggle, organisation, and collective social decisions.
For Afghanistan, defending universal education, eliminating discrimination against women, expanding scientific knowledge, creating employment opportunities, and ensuring equitable access to technology are integral parts of the struggle for a better future. Instead of being deprived of education and driven towards despair and forced migration, Afghanistan’s young people must have the opportunity to use their abilities and talents for the advancement of their society.
Revolutionary and progressive forces must neither adopt a hostile attitude towards scientific progress nor surrender to the economic domination of major corporations. Their task is to defend science that contributes to human liberation and to struggle for social relations in which the benefits of progress serve the interests of the majority.
Afghanistan needs education, scientific awareness, equal participation by women and men, and fundamental social transformation to overcome its backwardness. The country’s future cannot be built on ignorance, deprivation, and monopoly; it must be built through thought, knowledge, and the conscious participation of its people.
The defining question of the age of artificial intelligence is this: will scientific progress lead to an even greater concentration of wealth and power, or will it become an opportunity to reduce human suffering and expand social welfare?
Machines alone will not determine the answer. It will take shape through social relations, political decisions, and the struggles of people today—in the world at large and in Afghanistan.
Science for humanity; technology for social progress; education and awareness for Afghanistan’s youth; and the fruits of human labour and knowledge for the betterment of everyone’s life!