Network technology is revolutionary according to the digital discourse since it provides the technological space for the leap from the irrational (nodes) to the rational (network) to take place.<sup>3</sup> The counterintuitive leap between the two orders—the simple-minded, short-sighted, dumb nodes on the one hand and the smart, rational collective, on the other hand—is contemplated also in “The Swarmbots Are Coming” (Dorigo 2004). The article begins with a conundrum from natural history: “Ants are simple creatures, yet they can perform complicated tasks,” and, perhaps most surprisingly, do it “without any centralized control” (Dorigo 2004). How can the simple grow to be complicated? How can the dumb become smart? Most importantly, how can this be achieved without a centralized “brain”? The answer, the article suggests, is to be found in the architecture of the network, where smart mobs can thrive. Making an unproblematic and direct leap between the biological and social orders, the author suggests that ants can teach us how to make the economy work better: “Boil down ant behavior and what do you get? A new set of business tools known as ant algorithms: basic behaviors that can be programmed into a large number of independent software agents to solve human problems . . . The ability to swarm, adapt, and optimize makes ant algorithms a crucial technology for the information age, especially as everyday objects become ever smarter. The rules that insects live by turn out to be perfectly suited to the high tech anthill” (Dorigo 2004). Hence, order and rationality emerge spontaneously and effortlessly, not by some ingenious and centralized brain, but by the networking of multiple simple nodes.
These are the technological bases of Kelly’s elaborate analysis of market rationality in the digital age. These characteristics of the network, says Kelly, are now leaking through the ubiquity of network technology into the workings of the economy. Economic rationality and economic growth have now come to be dependent on the harnessing of the power of the “distributed bottom” (Kelly 1998, 14), and the workings of the economy have increasingly come to resemble this technological form. Hence, when Kelly asserts the centrality of communication to the network economy, he is specifically excited about the possibility of a greater market rationality to emerge from the interconnection of small and simple parts. Simply put, the weaving of network technology into the fabric of the market renders its workings more rational.
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Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age