Biography as Capital

Before artificial intelligence, the immaterial laborer’s biography contributed to her productive capacity indirectly. Her experiences informed her work, but the work itself had a technical dimension separable from the biographical: the developer’s aesthetic sense mattered, but so did her knowledge of Python syntax. The syntax knowledge was professional; the aesthetic sense was personal. The boundary was blurry but navigable—there was a zone of the self that production did not reach. AI collapses the boundary. When syntax knowledge is automated, aesthetic sense is not merely the more important input. It is the only input. The developer’s entire contribution comes from the specifically personal dimension—the dimension constituted by her biography, her emotional architecture, her irreducible individuality. Under these conditions, biography becomes capital in the most literal sense: the stock of past investments that generates current productive returns. The childhood experiences that shaped aesthetic sense, the early professional failures