Mechanised Ecologies: The atmospherics of automation and emergent systems of control
Michael Goodwin · Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) · 2018
The machine sees the machine knows but the mechanics are invisible. Algorithms lean into human spaces, mimic conscious thought, adapt modes of seeing and render virtual replications. Through a post-Snowden prism, are we witnessing the permanent synthetic overlay of corporate, political and government systems of control? Technologies of deep learning, machine vision, automation are no less tools of science as gateways to a new global order of things. The stakes have never been higher, as increasingly convergent interests, via a clever act of subterfuge, impose a new reality of automation and algorithmic determinism. Concepts such as spidergrams and kill lists, drone swarms and pre-crime, bot-nets and A.I. avatars, gait recognition and geospatial oversight are riddled with ethical conundrums that are rarely discussed in mainstream media discourse yet haunt the background atmosphere of the contemporary experience. This paper will seek to unravel this a double-image game of virtuality by unpacking these competing and often messy ecologies that define our emergent datafied society. A society that is seemingly at the mercy of a surveillance apparatus that has become emboldened by a confluence of technical innovation and political instability.