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A Critique of Algorithmic Reason

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Algorithmic Democracy

Part of the book series: Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations ((PPCE,volume 29))

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Abstract

The pervasive force with which the current algorithmic colonization has spread across both the state and civil society is the result of an attitude and state of mind, a sense of confidence and naivety that can only be explained by referring to a prior cultural context capable of defining and paving the way for what is now underway. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the cultural and political foundations that have enabled the rapid spread of AI across all spheres of life, in other words, what has come to be known as the algorithmic revolution. To a considerable extent mistrust and inequality explain the current democratic drift, but algorithmic reason has engaged with this situation through its theoretical scientific approach and technological application to the different spheres of the state and civil society. However, these two facets of algorithmic development require and presuppose the application of evaluative criteria of legitimacy, or to express it in simpler terms, consistency and a certificate of validity in order to operate. The ongoing accelerated phase of algorithmic colonization is impossible to understand, and still harder to explain, unless we can comprehend what preceded it: a terrain fertilized by scientism or objectivism. However we may wish to refer to it, for years this terrain has been reducing human development to technological development, and now, as if amid a perfect storm, it has now been supplemented with neuropower and post-truth.

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied an entire City, and the map of the Empire, an entire Province. In time, these Excessive Maps did not satisfy and the Schools of Cartographers built a Map of the Empire, that was of the Size of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. Less Addicted to the Study of Cartography, the Following Generations understood that that dilated Map was Useless and not without Pitilessness they delivered it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and the Winters. In the Deserts of the West endure broken Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in the whole country there is no other relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

Jorge Luis Borges, Del rigor de la ciencia (1960)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, Castelló de la Plana, Spain

    Domingo García-Marzá

  2. Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, Castellón de la Plana, Spain

    Patrici Calvo

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  1. Domingo García-Marzá
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  2. Patrici Calvo
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García-Marzá, D., Calvo, P. (2024). A Critique of Algorithmic Reason. In: Algorithmic Democracy. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53015-9_9

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