Automated Culture Notes

Automated Culture

Automation & Culture

  • Automation transforms the production and distribution of cultural artifacts.
  • Examples: AI in education, AI-generated content, etc.
  • Raises concerns about AI replacing human artists and creators.

Historical Context

  • Early automation in textile production during the Industrial Revolution.
  • Marx: Factory system as a "vast automaton."
  • Humans disciplined to serve machines.
  • Shift from "living mechanism" to a lifeless one with workers as appendages.

Symbolic & Cognitive Automation

  • Automated processes mimic or displace mental activity.
  • Digitization and abstraction of symbolic information.
  • Automation in evaluating and deciding about information.

Impact on Culture

  • Offloading processes leads to emergent culture and new configurations of life.
  • Affects production, consumption, representation, regulation, and identity.
  • Includes both older forms (books, films) and new digital forms (social media).

AI & Consumption

  • AI curates consumption through customization.
  • Algorithms shape information environments (bots, platform algorithms).

Algorithmic Constraints

  • Content must meet algorithmic requirements.
  • Example: "Spotifycore" - music tailored for Spotify's algorithms.

Automated Interactivity

  • Social media for talent recruiting.
  • Commercial imperatives baked into sociality.
  • Personalized soundscapes for stress reduction and productivity.

Reading the Cultural Landscape

  • Need new analytic tools to understand automated systems' interpretations.
  • Focus on how images work via algorithmic systems.

Technology & Culture

  • Culture intertwined with technology.
  • Tools themselves may have their own 'culture'.

Convergence: Information, Datafication, Extraction

  • Automation processes data rapidly.
  • Data collection drives predictions and sorting.

AI & Information Management

  • Automated systems manage information (news, ads, etc.).
  • Applications in business, job interviews, dating apps, education, etc.

Cognitive Capitalism & Affective Labor

  • Increased dependence on ideas, knowledge, and skills.
  • Affective labor (jobs involving emotions) becomes central.

Consequences: Speed & Quantity

  • Pressure from data extraction and information overload.

Impact on Cognitive Processes

  • Multi-tasking impairs attention and concentration.

Sociality Reconfiguration

  • Computer systems as collective exoskeleton.
  • Mechanization of minds.
  • Giant social brain or ant colony.

Commercial Metrics Internalization

  • Social media encourages users to internalize commercial metrics (ratings).

Power & Control

  • Extension of social relations of production.
  • Data collection penetrates social, cultural, and political life.
  • Datafication of society.

Analyzing Automated Culture

  • Challenge to trace patterns, exclusions, and omissions.