A social history of AI that finally reveals its roots in the spatial computation of industrial factories and the surveillance of collective behaviour. What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence," a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks. The Eye of the Master argues, to the contrary, that the inner code of AI is shaped not by the imitation of biological intelligence, but the intelligence of labour and social relations, as it is found in Babbage's "calculating engines" of the industrial age as well as in the recent algorithms for image recognition and surveillance. The idea that AI may one day become autonomous (or "sentient", as someone thought of Google's LaMDA) is pure fantasy. Computer algorithms have always imitated the form of social relations and the organisation of labour in their own inner structure and their purpose remains blind automation. The Eye of the Master urges a new literacy on AI for scientists, journalists and new generations of activists, who should recognise that the "mystery" of AI is just the automation of labour at the highest degree, not intelligence per se.

The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

Business & Money

Pasquinelli, Matteo

Industries

Verso

Among the Trees

Arts & Photography

Rugoff, Ralph

Kastner, Jeffrey

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Hayward Gallery Publishing

An investigation of the cultural and academic discourse around new technology through a lens of artistic practice In 1970 Japanese engineer Masahiro Mori introduced the concept of the "uncanny valley" as a terrain of existential uncertainty that humans experience when confronted with autonomous machines that mimic their physical and mental properties. As subjectivities are increasingly organized and shaped by algorithms that track and evaluate our data, the question of what it means to be human has shifted. The featured artists mine the tropes and modalities of AI and machine learning for critical and aesthetic potential, proposing new ways of thinking about intelligence, nature, and artifice.

Beyond the Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI

Hui, Yuk

Schmuckli, Claudia

Rees, Tobias

Keegan, Janna

Cameron

During a time when pop stars become famous thanks to sex tapes that have been leaked online, it is clear that the Internet is not immune to the draw of the media. Yet art, academia and activism continue to promote the Internet as an untouched utopia. Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons addresses the double standard dominating contemporary media discourse and shatters the myths of creative commons, free software and open-source movements, suggesting that "free culture" is an economic parasite siphoning money through peer-to-peer networks. Theorist and digital fetishist Matteo Pasquinelli uses the metaphor of the animal body--which Paul Virilio has characterized as instinctual and reactionary--to counter what he sees as a capitalist exploitation of collective imagery, calling for a radical new understanding of the forces at work behind the digital economy and cultural production.

Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons (Studies in Network Cultures)

History & Criticism

nai010 publishers

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Books by Pasquinelli, Matteo