The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking : Automation, Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing

Algorithms are everywhere. From the advancing ordering powers exercised through machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to the mundane application of recommendation systems and news-feed filtering, and onto the vast and automated storage, analysis, sorting, retrieval and circulation of data. Algorithmic ways of seeing, knowing and thinking have become powerful. This book explores how these algorithms are sites of acute tensions. This book argues that these forms of algorithmic thinking can only really be understood through a focus on their tensions. It uncovers the social and cultural dynamics of these systems, asking how we might understand the forces that shape and are shaped by the underpinning desire to automate. Drawing upon a range of resources, the chapters develop a series of concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithms, the modes of reasoning that circulate within them, and way that algorithmic thinking permeates society. ''We are living in algorithmic times. From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler newsfeed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined. Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home, through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.We are living in algorithmic times. From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler newsfeed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined. Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home, through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.''-- Site de l'éditeur Dedication Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Tense Thinking and the Myths of an Algorithmic New Life 2 The Pursuit of Posthuman Security 3 Overstepping and the Navigation of the Perceived Limits of Algorithmic Thinking 4 (Dreaming of) Super Cognizers and the Stretching of the Known 5 The Presences of Nonknowledge 6 Conclusion: Algorithmic Thinking and the Will to Automate References Index In this pioneering book, David Beer redefines emergent algorithmic technologies as the new systems of knowing. He examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable.