Homo Numericus

Daniel Cohen , Steven Rendall 지음

Polity 2024년 02월 07일 출간

작품소개

책소개

From Amazon to Tinder, from Google to Deliveroo, there is no facet of human life which the digital revolution has not streamlined and dematerialised. Its objective was to reduce the cost of physical interactions by forgoing face-to-face interactions, a direct result of the free-market shock of the 1980s, which sought to seamlessly expand the marketplace in every possible dimension. Today, we can be algorithmically entertained, educated, cared for and courted in a way which was impossible in the old industrial society, where institutions structured the social world. Today, these institutions have been replaced by monetised virtual contact. As with the industrial revolution of the past, the digital revolution is creating a new economy and a new sensibility, bringing about a radical revaluation of society and its representations. While obsessed with the search for an efficient management of human relations, the new digital capitalism gives rise to an irrational and impulsive Homo numericus prone to an array of addictive behaviours. Far from producing a new agora, social media produce a radicalization of public debate in which hate-filled speech directed against adversaries becomes the norm. The good news is that these outcomes are not inevitable. Technologies have not taken control of our lives. The digital revolution also offers an alternative path: one that leads to a world in which every word deserves to be listened to, without a transcendent truth hanging over it. Are we able to seize the new opportunities opened up by the digital revolution without succumbing to its dark side?

목차

Acknowledgements Introduction Part One The Digital Illusion I. The Body and the Mind Terminator Reason and Emotions Descartes’ “Error” Artificial Intelligence II. Stultify and Punish A Wild Thought The Capitalism of Surveillance III. Waiting for the Robots The Death of Kings The Industrialism of Services The Thinking Robot The Stake of the Century IV. Political Anomie Impoverishing Growth Working Class Suicide A Political Revolution Vox popoli Part Two The Return of the Real V. The Social Imagination The Law of 150 Friends Bonobos and Chimpanzees Four Possible Societies The Secular Age The Triumph of Endogamy The Post-Modern Mentality VI. Winter is Coming The Crises of the Twentieth Century The Climatic Clock The Society of Addiction VII. In a Hundred Years The Society of Abundance Back to Science Fiction VIII. By Way of Conclusion Notes Index

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작가정보

저자(글) Daniel Cohen

저자(글) Steven Rendall