Nonlinear causalities: the problem of (un)predictability in contemporary technology
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Original Title
Nelinarne vzročnosti: problem (ne)predvidljivosti v sodobni tehnologiji
Project Team
Aleš Mendiževec, PhD-
Duration
1 November 2023–31 October 2025 -
Project Leader
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Financial Source
Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
Today, we are witnessing incredible developments in technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. These developments have given rise to new philosophical reflections that have begun to question old assumptions about the understanding of machines and existing philosophies of technology. New theories attempt to encapsulate these changes of technology by focusing on its effects on human life, from the problematic psychological impact of new media to the (anti)democratic functioning of algorithms, etc. This project, however, focuses on mechanisms of contemporary technology themselves and situates them in the field of contemporary philosophy of contingency.
The aim of this project is (1) to explore the new mechanisms of contemporary technology, to elucidate their philosophical basis and to place it in a historical-theoretical context, thus redefining the mechanisms of contemporary technology; and (2) to situate the philosophical concepts underlying the functioning of modern technology in the field of contemporary philosophy and confront them with its key concepts, in particular the concepts of probability and contingency, and thus rethinking various non-linear causalities; thus addressing the fundamental problem of the project: If modern technology is based on the notion of probability and notion of feedback loop mechanism that aims to control unpredictable factors, and if we confront them with the notion of radical contingency that aims to define total unpredictability, what are the philosophical implications of the functioning of contemporary technology?
Project stages:
WP 1: Key novel mechanisms of contemporary technology
WP 1 focuses on defining key innovations in the functioning of modern technology, such as machine learning and deep learning, symbolic artificial intelligence and connectionist artificial intelligence, the backpropagation algorithm, big data, etc. The focus is on both the technical nature of technological innovations and their societal implications (mechanisms of datafication, platform capitalism, etc.).
WP 2: From the feedback loop to the theory of probability
WP 2 focuses on two key trends that have led to the modern technological revolution in artificial intelligence. The first is cybernetic theory as developed by Wiener, von Neumann, Asbhy, McCoulloch, Shannon and others, with a special focus on the idea of the feedback loop mechanism as a specific understanding of non-linear causality. The second trend is statistical thinking, established during the 19th century, based on the concept of probability and the introduction of inductive logic), replacing the necessitarian understanding of causality and introducing the "aleatory reason".
WP 3: Competing concepts of contingency
WP 3 brings together different ideas of contingency and establishes their critical comparison. At the centre of this work package are the aleatory materialism of Louis Althusser and the speculative realism of Quentin Meillassoux. Based on analyses of different understandings of chance or contingency and of probability and possibility, we will highlight the differences and similarities within the idea of non-linear causality and articulate the problem of the (un)predictability of contemporary technology.
3.15 Unpublished conference contribution
3. MENDIŽEVEC, Aleš. Althusser’s “aleatory tendency” : thinking contingency beyond necessity and arbitrariness : predavanje na International conference "Althusser and contingency", Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, 11. 12. 2023. [COBISS.SI-ID 179862531]