The Power of Algorithmic Capitalism

ABSTRACT

The rise of algorithmic capitalism is marked by the extraction of data enabled by the combination of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI). This coupling constitutes a powerful force, altering the rules, regulations, and discourses that comprise global governance. In our fraught times, numerical representations—algorithms and AI—can serve as proxies for the power of capitalism. Efforts to check this structure may be bracketed under four rubrics: initiatives to effect greater transparency, regulation, audits by third-party inspectors, and accountability. Notwithstanding modest gains in some of these domains, algorithms are extending their scope and capacities more rapidly than humans have established means for controlling them. This article traces these developments and their implications for achieving an ethical future by projecting scenarios. They lead to the quandary of what the creation of moral machines may mean for world order.

KEYWORDS:

• Algorithms
• artificial intelligence
• capitalism
• global governance
• ethics

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Allegra Hill and Julie Radomski for stellar research assistance, to my colleagues at the University of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies for comments on initial drafts of this essay, and to the reviewers commissioned by International Critical Thought for their helpful suggestions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although one can make analytical distinctions between algorithms and AI, it is difficult to disentangle the practices and impact of these nonhuman agents. Since the boundaries can be blurred, I will occasionally refer to one part of the coupling rather than both where emphasis on either algorithms or AI seems warranted.

2 The word “underlying” signifies that algorithms are ensconced in, but not identical to, other channels of digital technologies (e.g. block chains, bots, platforms, etc.). While it would be an error to conflate emerging technologies, their use of algorithms is a common feature. In the hierarchy of digitalization, algorithms occupy a pivotal position.

3 These early cadastral information systems are now managed by the use of software technology.

4 Transdisciplinarity in the sense of relaxing disciplinary boundaries and extending analysis beyond interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry. More than dialogue, it requires a deep integration of knowledge across fields of specialization (Esser and Mittelman 2018).

5 Specialists in the field of international relations have offered only fragmentary accounts of the rise of algorithms. They address topics such as asymmetries in cyber power and competition between Chinese and American tech producers, but have rarely considered the parametric transformations in capitalism. Scholars mostly outside the field of international relations have done the best analytical work on the big picture—challenges that algorithms pose to world order. For example, professor of visual arts Benjamin H. Bratton (2015) offers a preliminary conceptualization of algorithmic governance and algorithmic capitalism. Shoshana Zuboff (2019), professor emerita at the Harvard Business School, focuses on data extraction as a link between technology and authority. In highly readable, lively prose, Zuboff provides many insights. Her observations about surveillance capitalism are convincing, for instance, as regards surveillance tracing linked to the corona pandemic. However, she fails to consider the possibility of a parametric transformation in capitalism. Zuboff is a paradigm-keeper rather than a paradigm-maker. Possibilities for transcending contemporary capitalism do not enter into her reformist agenda.

6 In ways not yet clearly apparent, Chinese tech companies must be added to the equation.

7 For a careful analysis of catastrophism in the contemporary global political economy, see Heikki Patomäki (2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James H. Mittelman

James H. Mittelman is Distinguished Research Professor and University Professor Emeritus at American University. His work focuses on political economy, globalization, development, and the politics of knowledge. He has been on the faculty at Cornell and Columbia universities and served as Professor and Dean of International Studies at the University of Denver and of Social Sciences at Queens College of the City University of New York. In addition, he was named a Member at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. The recipient of the International Studies Association’s International Political Economy Distinguished Scholar Award, he is an Honorary Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. He has worked at the United Nations and with civil society organizations. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of 13 books, including The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance (Princeton University Press), Hyperconflict: Globalization and Insecurity (Stanford University Press), and Implausible Dream: The World-Class University and Repurposing Higher Education (Princeton University Press).