Artificial intelligence, the hegemony of GAFAM, the geopolitics of critical metals and the accelerated concentration of global wealth. Cryptocurrency, libertarianism and the loss of momentum of democracies. All this has only one cause: algorithms.
The industrial revolution of the 19th centurye century propelled the global economy into the era of modern capitalism. If nothing is done, algorithms will push the planet into a new form of unbridled supercapitalism for at least the next century. This is what Jonathan Durand Folco and Jonathan Martineau, two university researchers from the social sciences, put forward in their very long manifesto, which they describe as “techno-sober”, but which at times has a reactionary air.
The two authors are launching this fall a book of almost 500 pages entitled Algorithmic capital and published by Éditions Écosociété.
Obviously, to qualify algorithms as capitalist, we must leave aside the alleged or documented use made of them by states that are anything but examples of the free market, such as China or Russia. In the collective imagination, these two are perhaps more naturally associated with the sickle and the hammer. However, they seem much more adept with modern digital tools than democratic states, which they are trying to weaken with deceptive algorithms and doctored videos.
Monitoring
These researchers from Saint Paul University in Ottawa and Concordia University respectively see the algorithms being deployed everywhere. In business, in finance, in health, in education… Even in government, we ask for more. Despite the technological backwardness of sectors stuck in some cases in the age of fax machines, otherwise with a lead pencil (which wouldn’t be any worse, if only it worked…), many dream of monetizing, with the help of these long computer equations, data produced by students, patients, citizens, workers.
We could have called it all-out monetization, to stick with Silicon Valley jargon. The two authors speak instead in their work of “surveillance capitalism”.
Algorithms track all our digital actions and gestures, the two Jonathans establish from the outset. They capture “human experience in general”, transforming it into “free raw material” intended to be transformed into “a commodity sold in a market of behavioral predictions”.
They enrich people who are already quite rich. By the way, given that their business model sticks to that of Silicon Valley, they force the rest of the planet to adopt the form imposed by the economic model of the great suburbs of San Francisco: venture capital flows afloat, supported by the government, which participates in everything except taking profits.
Nowhere other than in Canada is this duality, the stateization of expenditures versus the privatization of profits, so apparent. Canadian artificial intelligence, continue the two academics, is heavily financed and subsidized by the state, but it is mainly private companies – and most of the time foreign – which pocket.
Dehumanisation
Leading thinkers have claimed — wrongly — that members of Generation Z, the youngest adults right now, have very little interest in sex. Their eyes are glued to the screens, their heads (and their other organs) are elsewhere.
Jonathan Durand Folco and Jonathan Martineau fear that an even greater disinterest in very human acts like sexuality is emerging. Digital technologies, virtual environments and artificial intelligence are dehumanizing society as a whole, they say.
We have also seen the emergence in recent months of applications that use AI to transform themselves into virtual romantic figures for lonely people. Why bother trying to meet your soul mate when you can configure it yourself on a phone that fits in your pocket?
Humanity is obviously headed for ruin if everyone prefers virtual love to flesh-and-blood interpersonal relationships. But there is no indication that this shift is actually taking place.
“Desuberization”
So, if algorithms are everywhere, how can we avoid falling into the trap they set of a new concentration of wealth in the hands of big leaders? The two researchers venture here into more delicate territory. Should we flee capitalism? Returning to the values of the pre-Internet era, or even a pre-industrial era that we perhaps idealize a little too much?
You cannot preach against virtue, says the adage. The authors therefore propose nine (courage, respect, humility, etc.), around which to refocus public morality. Obviously.
Above all, they introduce the idea of adopting a “techno-
sober”, halfway between the techno-optimism of the entrepreneurial world and the techno-pessimism of other social groups. Algorithms will not save us from the climate crisis, they give as an example. But there are undoubtedly cutting-edge technological tools that will help fight global warming, the proliferation of guns, etc.
Twitter didn’t create Donald Trump. It was not Alexa who advised Maxime Bernier. But in a world where exaggerations are commonplace, characters who would otherwise be dismissed as caricatures can be better heard.
Capitalist or not, algorithms have broad backs.