The ledger and the diary: algorithmic knowledge and subjectivity

ABSTRACT

In this article I suggest to read The Selfish Ledger, a short video created by Google, as a vignette to contemplate the ontology of knowledge in the age of big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. The video proposes a radical vision for the future rendering of user-data into knowledge, thus laying bare the cultural coordinates underpinning a seemingly technical project of surveillance capitalism. With the metaphor of the selfish ledger the video articulates a new relationship between self, knowledge, and media. To unravel the assumptions underpinning the relationship between knowledge and subjects, I recall the original referent of the ledger in accounting, and compare it to a similar media: the personal diary. Both the ledger and the diary were developed around the same period and were sees as offering a new way of knowing. The ledger and the diary shared the assumption that monitoring and registering data in real-time and analyzing them over time yields new knowledge which is otherwise inaccessible. Where they differ radically is the role of the subject in the creation of that knowledge. While the ledger strives to create knowledge which bypasses human subjectivity, the diary assumes the entanglement of knowledge with subjectivity. Returning to the present, I argue that the selfish ledger represents a new relationship between media, knowledge and subjects: a media capable of creating knowledge without subjectivity, and explore the political ramifications of that.

KEYWORDS:

• Subjectivity
• digital media
• personal diary
• accounting
• algorithms

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Ishay Landa and Norma Musih for their enriching comments on an earlier draft of this paper and for their encouragement. I would also like to acknowledge Zeev Rosenhek for bringing to my attention The Selfish Ledger video.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The unproblematic comparison between the natural world and digital technology, prevalent in the digital discourse, has been thoroughly explored. See, for example, Best and Kellner (2000) and Fisher (2010).

2. Research assessing the increasing relevance of epistemic technology to personal and social life has been abundant. See, for example, Couldry and Mejias (2019); Beer (2019); Bucher (2018); Mackenzie (2017).

3. On the epistemic novelty of algorithms, see Fisher (2010), Mehozay (2018), Fisher (2019), Barry (2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation [696/16].

Notes on contributors

Eran Fisher

Eran Fisher is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Political Science, and Communication at the Open University of Israel. His books include Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age (Palgrave, 2010), Internet and Emotions (Routledge, 2014, co-edited with Tova Benski), and Reconsidering Value and Labour in the Digital Age (Palgrave, 2015, co-edited with Christian Fuchs).