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 Front Cover The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking: Automation, Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing Copyright information Dedication Table of contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Tense Thinking and the Myths of an Algorithmic New Life Thinking about algorithmic thinking The forces and tensions of algorithmic thinking 2 The Pursuit of Posthuman Security Tense securities Untainted knowability in the blockchain Perfect provenance? Blockchain in the art market Pure connectivity? Blockchain in the home Hashed trust Posthuman security and its draw The priorities of deprioritization 3 Overstepping and the Navigation of the Perceived Limits of Algorithmic Thinking Establishing the algorithmic Life cycles and end-to-end logics: setting the spatial and temporal limits of algorithmic thinking The algorithmic factory: visibility, attention and oversight Accuracy, control and oversight A notion of the automated collective Conclusion 4 (Dreaming of.) Super Cognizers and the Stretching of the Known Cognitive combinations Interconnected cognizers The cognizer as a conceptual tool Super cognizers at the limits of the known Algorithmic empathy Algorithmic extensions Algorithmic unsupervision Conclusion 5 The Presences of Nonknowledge Nonknowledge and its edges Nonknowledge in bits Neural networks and the new depths of nonknowledge Neural networks, hidden layers and the mysteries in the depths Conclusion 6 Conclusion: Algorithmic Thinking and the Will to Automate Algorithmic tensions The will to automate References Index Back Margin 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.