Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks

The power of computing, Kelly suggests, arises from its transcendental, transhistorical universality. He posits two assumptions: “all computation can describe all things,” that is, anything from logical arguments to emotions can be translated into a digital language, and “all things can compute,” that is, not only what we usually refer to as computers but also everything, from the human brain to metals and stones, perform computations. A third postulate, derived from the first two, is that “all computation is one,” that is, that “all computation is equivalent” (a postulate also known as “universal computing”). Indeed, computing pioneers such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann extended “the laws of computation away from math proofs and into the natural world,” declaring that “evolution and learning . . . were types of computation. Nature computed.” Refusing to limit himself to the parochialism of planet Earth, Kelly ponders about extending these insights into the universe (“If nature computed, why not the entire universe?”) and, even further, into metaphysics (“God, or at least the universe, might be the ultimate large-scale computer”). Computers, according to Kelly, are ultimately not human inventions but a divine creation: “In a sense, nature has been continually computing the ‘next state of the universe for billions of years; all we have to do . . . is ‘hitch a ride’ on this huge, ongoing Great Computations” (Kelly 2002).

It is critical once again to insist that the notions of the universe as a computer and nature, life, and existence as computing processes are not simply metaphors. In fact, the power of this rhetoric lies precisely in conflating the model with reality, since such knowledge presents itself as truth (Aronowitz 1989). Such an argument is not therefore “the-universeas-computer”; the argument instead is that the universe is a computer. Kelly clarifies the distinction by asking one scientist to comment on the view of another: “[Do you] go along with the weak version of the ultimate computer, the metaphorical one, that says the universe only seems like a computer? Or do [you] . . . embrace Fredkin’s strong version, that the universe is a billion-year-old computer and we are the killer app[lication]?” The scientist responds, “I regard the two statements as equivalent . . . If the universe in all ways acts as if it was a computer, then what meaning could there be in saying that it is not a computer?”—a rhetorical question to which Kelly answers, “Only hubris” (Kelly 2002).

The idea of the universe as a computer is presented quite literally by Kelly, who attempts to quantify the computing power of the universe. He reports on research published in the Physical Review Letters, in which an MIT professor calculated the computing power of the universe, or more accurately, “the upper limit of how much computing power the entire universe (as we know it) has contained since the beginning of time.” The professor then compared this number to the computing power humans have built: “He then tallied up the total energy-matter available in the known universe and divided that by the total energy-matter of human computers expanding at the rate of Moore’s law.” His conclusions led him to predict that humans need some six hundred years “before all available energy in the universe is taken up in computing. Of course, if one takes the perspective that the universe is already essentially performing a computation, then we don’t have to wait at all. In this case, we may just have to wait 600 years until the universe is running Windows or Linux” (Kelly 2002). And other scientists concur: “there is nothing theoretical to stop the expansion of computers”; “In the end, the whole of space and its contents will be the computer. The universe will in the end consist, literally, of intelligent thought processes” (Kelly 2002).

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Taking this story back to the starting point of religion, Kelly reminds us that the equation of information with reality, the universe, and God is not new:

Central to the evolution of Western civilization from its Hellenistic roots has been the notion of logic, abstraction, and disembodied information. The saintly Christian guru John writes from Greece in the first century: “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God.” Charles Babbage, credited with constructing the first computer in 1832, saw the world as one gigantic instantiation of a calculating machine, hammered out of brass by God. He argued that in this heavenly computer universe, miracles were accomplished by divinely altering the rules of computation. Even miracles were logical bits, manipulated by God. (Kelly 2002)

At this point it also becomes evident what significance Kelly finds in theologizing technology and in bringing religion back to the picture. The notion of universal computing—this most basic rule of the universe, or the “operating system” of the cosmos—is, according to Kelly, what binds us all together. In this “mystical doctrine of universal computing . . . we are linked to one another, all beings alive and inert, because we share, as John Wheeler said, ‘at the bottom—at a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source.’ This commonality, spoken of by mystics of many beliefs in different terms, also has a scientific name: computation” (Kelly 2002).

Information technology binds us together not simply through the banal and ubiquitous tools of communication, such as e-mails or blogs, but also through its evocation of the most basic reality of the universe and life. Notwithstanding material differences in the world, at the bottom we (humanity, Earth, and the universe) are all one. Kelly concludes his article by quoting Danny Hillis (a key figure in the development of computing) saying, “[Computation] has an almost mystical character because it seems to have some deep relationship to the underlying order of the universe” (Kelly 2002).

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The illustration for Kelly’s article captures the essence of the transcendental undertones of the digital discourse. At first glance one sees a typical glass vitrage commonly used to adorn churches. Indeed, it is a staple of religious artifacts. On a closer examination, the content of the glasswork seems to suggest a new variation in accordance with digitalism on our established theme of religion. Three elements are worth noticing. The centerpiece of the glass features a computer processor: three dimensional, golden, and most significantly “glowing.” Is that the new, digital version of the golden calf, a sacred object of transcendence?

Another element in the glasswork is the “holy scripture” on top of the computer processor, which simply reads “1001000011010100.” Whatever that might stand for, it most significantly stands for the signs themselves: God, and its creation, is digital, and the holiest of holies is simply a binary code. The third element graphically reiterates Kelly’s assertion of digitalism as a unifying religious concept for humanity. The bluish rounded pieces of glass that circle the sacred processor feature the symbols of major Western and Eastern religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Paganism, Taoism, and others. What this seems to suggest is that what Kelly terms Digitalism is a form of metareligion, which is able to bring all religions under its wing, since it reaches at the very essence of transcendence and metaphysics.

R_EENCHANTING INSTR_UM_ENTA_LITY

The cover of the special issue about science and religion (2002) also deserves our close attention (Figure 7.1). The overarching element of design is a religious artifact, the cross. At the center of the cross is a human being—a man, in fact—small and fragile. However, he is surrounded and empowered by augmentation devices of science and technology. Among them are a computer processor, a microscope, artificial (and larger-than-life) arms and hands, a satellite, a human embryo, an apple (which might stand for genetic engineering), and so forth. Extending from the human’s legs is the DNA double helix—an informational code from which, according to the digital discourse, human beings emerge. Albeit now, with information technology, this informational code denotes not determinism but opportunity. It is no longer divine providence programming the creation, but humans taking part in the process of re-creation. As biophysicist Gregory Stock says in an interview on cloning, “we are becoming the objects of our own technological processes. We are seizing control of our own evolution” (Simpson 1997). Humans have turned from passive “consumers” of godly plans to active participants in the production of their destiny; what Toffler has termed “prosumers” (Toffler 1980, 265–88).

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While the premise of the illustration is the blending of science and religion, it is significant that it is science that is embedded into religion rather than the other way around. It is the classic image of neurons circling an atom’s nucleus that surrounds the cross and not vice versa. What is important for our discussion here is, of course, the mixture of the rational with the irrational, the mind with the heart, the material with transcendence, instrumentality with meaning. Because at the heart of the transcendental narrative is a reaction to the critique of modernity, rationality, and technology from Max Weber, through Jacque Ellul and Martin Heidegger, to Hebert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno, all of whom seem to have decried the disenchantment of the world with rationalization. The discontents of modernity, this narrative suggests, might have been the reality of previous modernities and therefore previous technological paradigms. What the digital paradigm does, according to the digital discourse, is overcome the chasm represented by these dichotomies and bring those dualisms into a harmonious unity.

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At the center of the cross in the cover’s illustration is a heart. But this time, and in contrast to the other natural objects in the illustration, this is not the biological heart and does not stand for advances in heart surgery, or artificial implants; instead it is the heart as a symbol of love, emotions, intuitions, and beliefs. Instrumental rationality, science, and technology, the image suggests, are not antonyms to meaning and transcendence but sit very well with them. The dualism is overcome to such a degree that, in effect, the opposing forces become one and the same thing: means become indistinguishable from ends, instrumentality becomes indistinguishable from meaning, and technology becomes indistinguishable from religion and transcendence.

The front cover of the August 2005 issue of Wired, which celebrates the World Wide Web’s tenth anniversary, features another representation of the divine power of network technology.⁴ The cover illustration makes a reference to Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous Creation ofAdam, one of the most recognizable iconographies of the biblical creation story. Part of the Sistine Chapel, Creation ofAdam depicts God’s hand reaching out to touch, and in effect animate, the first human. In the rendition on Wired’s cover, divinity reaches out and animates the hand icon commonly used to indicate hyperlink in Web surfing. Did God invent the Web? Is network technology divine and transcendental? Wired answers with a resounding “Yes.”

The significance of the theologizing of technology is further illuminated by its relationship with the narrative regarding nature. Looking back at the history of American technological narratives, David Nye (2003) concludes that “in the American beginning, after 1776, when the former colonies reimagined themselves as a self-created community, technologies were woven into national narratives.” In this American story of origin, “America [was] conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God’s first creation,” that is, nature (Nye 2003, 1).

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Teleologizing Technology: Technology and History

One theme we encountered in the discursive convergence of technology and nature is the idea that technology is autonomous from society, that is, that it has its own history independent of social history; what is more, in some sense the history of network technology precedes social history, both chronologically and ontologically. In such a framework, technology is reified and in turn conceived as an environment (like nature) to which humans need to adapt (Feenberg 1991). Moreover, such framework provides a cosmology that is not human-centric. Just as humanists, or natural historians, put humans and nature, respectively, at the center of their investigation, so does the digital discourse’s technologism construct a history of the world in which technology is the main protagonist, the central axis of analysis.

MARGINA_LIZING H_UMANS IN T_ECHNO_LOGICA_L HISTORY

Put differently, just as network technology is distinguished from industrial technology, so does each have its fitting cosmology. Since industry was “artificial” and man-made, a human-centric cosmology was fitting. But with informationalism, since network technology is “natural,” the role and status of humans in that cosmology recedes. In such a history, technology has its own teleology (distinct and autonomous from human history) at the end point of which technology, rather than humanity, rules supreme. Human civilizations are therefore seen as transitory phases in a greater history in which humans are likely either to disappear, leaving the scene to technology, or to integrate into technology.

A forecast about the future of humanity is laid out, for example, by Vernor Vinge, academician and science fiction writer (Kelly 1995). His forecast incidentally reveals the digital discourse’s assumptions regarding the secondary role of human history within a larger history: that of natural and technological information and communication. Vinge says, “If we ever succeed in making machines as smart as humans, then it’s only a small leap to imagine that we would soon thereafter make—or cause to be made—machines that are even smarter than any human. And that’s it. That’s the end of the human era—the closest analogy would be the rise of the human race within the animal kingdom” (Kelly 1995). The significance of such a statement lies in turning our common sense of history on its head. In contrast to our modernist, human-centric history where humans are held constant, Vinge offers a story where technological progress is held constant and, as a consequence, humans assume a transient and ephemeral position. As technology, that is, as information processing machines, humans are quite limited. Put differently, the human is a quite primitive technology and is therefore (within the history of network technology) bound to vanish or be transcended by smarter machines.

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This scenario, Vinge explains, is plausible since human agency vis-à-vis technology is increasingly receding, leaving technology ever more autonomous to follow its own course, or to assume full agency: “I think technology is close enough to being out of control that human intervention has become a weaker and weaker constraint.” He concludes with a statement that puts together most of the technologistic assumptions regarding technology being autonomous and having its own history and teleology, a history and teleology that is linked with nature much more than with (human) culture: “It’s important to regard technology in the long sweep of history as being one with history. In fact, it’s one with biology, one with the rise of multicellular life forms, and it’s headed someplace—probably. But it’s not alien to the sweep of development and beauty and order in the universe” (Kelly 1995).

In such a techno-centric history the status of humans is revisited. They are no longer seen as the crown of creation nor the pinnacle of the natural world but are reevaluated vis-à-vis technology. In such framing they are portrayed as a dumbed-down version of computers. But this is not just a reevaluation of capabilities and performance or an acknowledgment of the limited computational capabilities of humans; it is rather a break with the core philosophical underpinning of humanism. This techno-centrism means that humans are no longer seen in the light of Kantian humanism as ends in and of themselves but in a new light, which might be termed superhumanism, or cyberhumanism (which should be distinguished from posthumanism), where human evolution is seen as a stage on the way to a higher end where more advanced levels of technological (and civilizational) developments are achieved. Humans are seen as a subdigital species in need of assimilating into a new species, which is increasingly more technological and less humane.

I must remind the reader that my task is not to engage with the argument philosophically or present moral or ontological critiques. Rather, I want to point out the cultural meaning of such a stance and its social and political ramifications in the context of contemporary capitalism. Set within this framework, such a narrative should be understood as depoliticizing technology, indeed deculturalizing technology, by reification and naturalization and by decentering the role of individuals and society in the creation of the conditions under which humans live.

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T_RANSCENDING H_UMANISM

Another famous narrator of the superhumanist variant in the digital discourse is Hans Moravec. In his Wired portrait he is described as “a pioneer of robotics” and “our most gung-ho advocate of technology as a tool to transform human being and make us more than we are” (Platt 1995b). Why should humans be transformed, Moravec asks, and in what sense should we be made more than we are now? Moravec embraces posthumanism as a response to the limitations of humans. Compared with computers’ calculating and rational capabilities, humans don’t fair that well. The human form, Moravec says, “clearly isn’t designed to be a scientist. Your mental capacity is extremely limited. You have to undergo all kinds of unnatural training to get your brain even half suited for this kind of work . . . You live just long enough to start figuring things out before your brain starts deteriorating. And then, you die . . . wouldn’t it be great . . . if you could enhance your abilities via artificial intelligence, and extend your lifespan, and improve on the human condition?” (Platt 1995b).

Humans, according to Moravec, have been stretched to the limits of their capacity to handle human life, a life that is now spilling over into a new technological history. The world is “screwed up,” Moravec says, because “we have a Stone Age brain, but we don’t live in the Stone Age anymore. We were fitted by evolution to live in tribal villages of up to 200 relatives and friends, finding and hunting our food. We now live in cities of millions of strangers, supporting ourselves with unnatural tasks we have to be trained to accomplish, like animals who have been forced to learn circus tricks” (Platt 1995b).

While human capacities are limited, those of artificial intelligence, like a robot, can potentially grow infinitely. According to Moravec, when such robots reach a point where they learn and adapt (around the year 2020), they will become more like humans: “Success or failure will be defined by separate programs that will monitor the robot’s actions and generate internal punishment and reward signals, which actually shape its character—what it likes to do and what it prefers not to do.” Such robots will “mimic human traits.” By 2030, those robots will “emulate higher-level thought processes such as planning and foresight.” They will also be interlinked so they can learn from each other’s experience, and they “will no longer need our help to show them how to do anything.” Their interaction with humans will allow the robots to create their own consciousness. At this point, by 2040, “there will be no job that people can do better than robots,” the robots will do everything, and we’ll live in “a world of comfort, health, and boundless plenty” (Platt 1995b).

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This utopian, end-of-history description might ironically turn out to be the end of human history as we know it. Moravec suggests a scenario in which some robots are able to break loose from the control of humans: “This marks the point where the genie finally gets out of the bottle,” and humans find themselves faced with superintelligent machines. Under conditions of extreme competition between robots, Moravec does not expect humanity to last long. But “the takeover will be swift and painless” Moravec says. That’s because “machine intelligence will be so far advanced, so incomprehensible to human beings, that we literally won’t know what hit us.” Robots will “find human activity interesting from a historical perspective,” and they will remember us “as their ancestors”; According to Moravec, “We are their past, and they will be interested in us for the same reason that today we are interested in the origins of our own life on Earth” (Platt 1995b). In Moravec’s scenario, humans are reenvisioned to remain part of the history of the world, that is, part of technological history, but this time not as prime subjects, but rather as objects. As Moravec puts it, “The robots will be a continuation of us, and they won’t mean our extinction any more than a new generation of children spells the extinction of the previous generation of adults” (Platt 1995b).

To those who consider Moravec’s forecasting a tragedy, he replies that “reversing the evolution of technology” would be even more disastrous. He therefore suggests reconciling with that future. We should “try to catch up with technology by accelerating our own evolution.” As he puts it, “We can change ourselves . . . and we can also build new children who are properly suited for the new conditions. Robot children.” Since technology has a rationale and a history of its own, since it responds to its own laws of evolution and since it is autopoetic, humans have nothing much to do other than to accept this technological reality. And besides, should his prognosis happens it will be “the ultimate form of human transcendence” (Platt 1995b).

Conclusion: Network Cosmology and the End of History

The digital discourse’s underlying theory of network technology and its place in society—its network cosmology—has been discussed by way of three central narratives:

• The naturalization of network technology. The digital discourse’s theory suggests network technology is a natural construct, the technological condition’s return to the order of the natural world, and an overcoming of the techno-human chasm. Contrary to the Industrial Revolution, the digital revolution is not so much an expansion of culture and rationality as it is a return to nature. This theory further implies a direct link between technological forms and social forms; technology, according to this theory, determines the shape of society.

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• The theologization ofnetwork technology. Not unrelated to the claim of the return of technology to nature is a narrative that assigns network technology transcendental meanings. Network technology is not only progressive in the humanist sense but carries metaphysical and transcendental promises. It is therefore benevolent and right, indeed part of a “divine” plane.

• The teleologization ofnetwork technology. In the tradition of technological determinism, the development of network technology is seen as dissociated from human affairs. While the undertones of technology as nature are present here as well, this narrative offers a distinct voice stressing the asocial character of network technology. It suggests technology to be one with history—a motor of change and an end in and of itself—and implies the inevitability of its impact and the futility of any human and social intervention in its affairs.

According to the digital discourse, network technology constitutes the teleological climax of the history of technological progress, as well as that of information, the universe, and, indeed, being. The new realities of the network market, network work, network production, and the network human, which are in turn predicated on the realities of network technology—such as flexibility, adaptability, emergence, dehierarchization, decentralization, self-regulation, individualization, communication, and spontaneous order—represent a technological (and, in turn, social) revolution in the original (and forgotten) sense of the word (Barney 2000): a return to the very essence of nature and the universe. This new, network condition stands in stark contrast to the previous industrial condition, which represented a breaking away from this essence.

The spirit of networks is not simply a discourse about the overcoming of the discontents of industrial technology and the industrial condition (alienation, centralization, environmental degradation, and so forth) by network technology. More than that, it is a discourse about our civilization, our condition, our society constituting the end of history. This staple of contemporary political culture in advanced capitalist societies—epitomized in the maxim, at once postideological and programmatic, “There is no alternative”—receives technological clothing in the form of network cosmology. Network cosmology provides a technological validation for the crisis of ideological critique in the political culture of capitalist societies, that is, the widespread belief that such critique is futile and that we are living in a postideological time. More than that, network cosmology locates network technology—and with it technological reason, particularity the conflation of means and end, or the colonization of lifeworld by system—at the heart of a new constellation of society.

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