CAE Newsletter | Arts, Sciences and Technologies

February 28, 2019, 3:54 pm

The world has undergone profound changes due to the convergence of several trends. One of them is the redistribution of power brought about by Technocapitalism. Based on market capitalism, technocapitalism makes use of information infrastructures within networked spaces to gain access to knowledge and creativity in the form of data. These infrastructures are not only there to speed up the flow of information and data but also to host automated processes that operate on this data (algorithmic processes). Along the years, the nature of these algorithmic processes has slowly changed. From being a set of fixed instructions working on the input data and its transfer along the network, they are slowly being replaced by Artificial Intelligence processes, that make decisions based on data, learn from the flow of data, and improve their performance.

Algorithms are also redefining our individual and common identities. They influence how public opinion is formed and they modulate or directly manipulate our ability to participate in the public sphere. In this sense, these algorithmic processes are themselves constantly transforming the infrastructure that supports them and that supports our society.

The connection between the algorithmic infrastructure of our society and its social and cultural spheres takes on many forms and operates at different levels. Probably, the most familiar one for many of us is the operation of social media. It affects how we construct our identities and engage in public debate. Social media have become vectors of behavior organization and enculturation in a similar way as mass media had previously done, but with an unprecedented access to details of our private lives. Our lives, in turn, are affected and modified by the influence of the algorithmic processes operating on social media.

Algorithmization has many other social consequences. The polarization of the public sphere through social media affects the organization of common life at different levels. This triggers changes in the self-perception of citizens and of their place in the community, fuelling the expression of new types of identities. Their emergence often questions and challenges traditional political arrangements. As a result, new political organizations are appearing, from political networks for alternative resistance (at infra- and supra-state levels) to new concepts of citizenship (such as e-citizenship). The interplay of individual Technoselves leads to the formation of new cultural identities.

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