PATNA: Robots may soon replace human beings in the production process and create huge unemployment, said Kevin M Sanders, the vice-president of People Programme International and Palmer Institute, USA, on Wednesday.He was delivering the lecture on ‘Artificial Intelligence and Exponential Technologies as Fundamental Game Changers: What Might the Future Hold?’ on the fifth and last day of the international conference on Karl Marx organized by Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) here.“The capitalist world system is going through a significant phase through development in information and communication technologies. This has huge implications for the way goods and services are produced across the globe … For the past three decades, the world has been witnessing the rise of ‘digital oligarchs’ in the information and communication sector,” Kevin said.A number of scholars delivered lectures on varied subjects on the concluding day of the conference.Tian Yu Cao, professor of Boston University, USA, delivered the Che Guevara Memorial Lecture on ‘Marx’s Ideas and Conceptions of Socialism in the 21st Century’. Dipak Gyawali, chairman of National Water Conservation Foundation and former minister of Nepal, delivered the Vladimir Lenin Memorial Lecture on ‘Is Communist-Ruled Nepal Red, Pink or Blue?’.While Jean Joseph Boillot, senior economic adviser of CEPII, France, delivered the P C Joshi Memorial Lecture on ‘Marx and Economics of Wisdom’, Chun Lin, professor at London School of Economics, delivered the Kozo Uno Memorial Lecture on ‘Marx and Asia: How did Asia Reshape Marx’s Conception of Revolution and History?’.Barbara Harriss-White, emeritus professor at Oxford University, in her special address on ‘Petty Production and India’s Development’, said petty commodity production (PCP) was a theoretical problem for those who attempted to theorize capitalistic development.She said PCP provides the core not only in agrarian and manufacturing production processes in India but also in commercial and even (rural) financial sectors. She added that the contribution of agriculture in the Indian GDP has been consistently falling over the years. However, those dependent on agriculture for livelihood continue to remain disproportionately very high.Samuel Hollander, professor emeritus at University of Toronto, Canada , delivered his valedictory address on ‘Karl Marx’s Revolutionary Credentials and the Marx-John Stuart Mill Intellectual Relationship’.Other key speakers on the day included Peter Hudis, professor of Oakton Community College, USA, who delivered the Herbert Marcuse Memorial Lecture on ‘The Intimation of a Post-Capitalist Society in Marx’s Capital’.

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