一般智力（general intellect）是马克思在"机器论片断"中提出的一个重要范畴，从词源来看，它可能是受到了霍吉斯金和工艺学思想的影响。一般智力是社会主体智力长期发展和经验积累的结果，人才是一般智力发展的决定性因素。由于社会条件不同，一般智力的作用方式也存在重要差异：在前资本主义社会中，一般智力往往与劳动直接结合在一起；这种分离过程始于资本主义简单协作，发展于工场手工业，最终完成于机器大工业。一般智力与一般智力的资本主义占有是两回事，一般智力、科学知识和机器体系本身并不排斥工人，正是由于它们的资本主义运用，才致使它们成为外在于工人的异己权力。因此，当维尔诺批判马克思仅仅将一般智力理解为对象化在固定资本中的科学力量时，显然窄化了马克思一般智力的科学内涵，将一般智力与机器大生产时代一般智力的资本占有形式混淆了起来，是完全错误的。在这一片断中，马克思关于一般智力和价值关系的认识还存在严重缺陷，由此所引出的资本主义崩溃逻辑也是站不住脚的，这一点在后来的《资本论》中被扬弃了。

General intellect is a significant concept developed by Marx in his "Fragment on Machines". Etymologically speaking, it may be influenced by Hodgskin and some theories of technology. Social agents play a decisive role in the creation and development of general intellect. Due to different social conditions, general intellect functions in different ways: it is directly united with labor in pre-capitalism; their separation starts in simple co-operation of capitalism, develops in manufacture(general intellect of collective laborers) and fully completes in large-scale mechanized industry(fixed capital). General intellect and its capitalist possession are not the same thing. When he claims that Marxian general intellect is simply the scientific power objectified in fixed capital, Paolo Virno is completely wrong since he has confused general intellect with its capitalist possession. However, Marxian analysis on the relation between general intellect and capitalist value production is not mature in the "Fragment on Machines", and his argument on capitalist collapse is not tenable, which has been overcome in Das Kapital.