The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial IntelligenceA 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. |
Contents
| 23 | |
Babbage and the Mechanisation of Mental Labour | 51 |
The Machinery Question | 77 |
The Origins of Marxs General Intellect | 95 |
The Abstraction of Labour | 121 |
The Automation of Pattern Recognition | 161 |
Hayek and the Epistemology of Connectionism | 182 |
The Invention of the Perceptron | 205 |
The Automation of General Intelligence | 237 |
Acknowledgements | 254 |
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The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence Matteo Pasquinelli Limited preview - 2023 |
The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence Matteo Pasquinelli Limited preview - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract Agnicayana algorithm Alquati analysis Analytical Engine argued artificial intelligence artificial neural networks automata automation Babbage's behaviour binary brain calculating engines Cambridge Capital chapter Charles Babbage classification cognitive collective worker complex computer science connectionism cultural cyberneticians cybernetics deep learning Difference Engine division of labour Economy of Machinery emerged epistemology factory Frank Rosenblatt Friedrich Hayek Grundrisse historian Hixon symposium Hodgskin human Ibid idea industrial age industrial machine intellect invention labour theory language logic London machine learning Machinery Question manual Mark I Perceptron Marx's mathematics Matteo Pasquinelli McCulloch and Pitts mechanical mechanisation mental labour mind nervous system Neumann neurons operations organisation organisms paradigm pattern recognition perception perceptron Peter Damerow Philosophy Pitts's Political Economy production psychometrics scientific self-organisation Sensory Order Simon Schaffer skill society statistical symbolic technical techniques Thompson tion Turing University Press visual Warren McCulloch