Category: General

Experience Machines

In 1974 the philosopher Robert Nozick created a thought experiment that asked if a user would prefer a simulated reality where they experienced nothing but pleasure, or would reject it for the pursuit of real world experiences. The machine would stimulate the brain in such a way as to evoke those sensations, without the user having to go through the process. This experiment was designed as an attempt to show that there is more to life that just pleasure, that hedonism is refuted, and that, if given the choice, people would pursue things other that pleasure and sensation.

We can see how this links into our ongoing series looking at various machines and assemblages. (See earlier posts from September and October on Cybernetic Machines, Science Machines, and Gaming Machines).

What happens if we try and fit the experience machine within that previous framework? 

An experience machine is a feeling created by a creator fed into an assemblage called an experience machine that produces an experience.

The formulation breaks down a bit, because the experience machine, as described in the thought experiment is so already so generic we lack the words to provide a distinction to it.

We generally describe different classes of experience, in much the same way that “content” (as used by McLuhan, and since then) is an ur-descriptor for different types of media. So “experience” might describe a taste, or a sound, or feeling, or emotion, or all these things assembled into a whole. We are talking about the constituent elements, or the whole at the same time.

The experience machine thought experiment is not making a distinction on these different types of activities, whereas we as experiencers often do – ascribing value to the kinds of experiences we like.

The hedonists may claim otherwise.

But let’s see if we can remake the machine in a way that’s useful. Let’s take a look at that statement again, at the most redundant level:

An experience machine is a feeling by a (creator) fed into an assemblage called an experience machine that produces an experience

That’s incredibly repetitive. The issue may be that while the EM provides an experience to the user, it is more about capture and control, the Soma of Huxley’s Brave New World. So if we rebuild the machine with that in mind, it might look something more like this:

An experience machine is a device by a (creator) fed into an assemblage called an experience machine that produces an enthralled subject.

The addition of enthralled subject helps us identify exactly what is happening to the user of the machine (if that’s how we want to characterize them), but we’re still a little stuck with the nature of the assemblage. Back when we looked at Science Machines we talked about how those assemblages are what we had called “cybernetic bio-technical machines” earlier on. This is still true. But what kind of assemblage would desire to have an enthralled subject? What wants

Are we not just describing society? And what kind of society would that be?

I feel like our French philosopher Gilles Deleuze had an idea about this. In his 1990 essay Postscript on the Societies of Control, he described how modern society had transitioned from sovereign societies through to disciplinary societies of early modernity, through to the new form arising in the 20th century, the control society.

Deleuze was describing something that was already underway, the context in which Nozick developed the original experiment of the experience machine. The Control Society had already been born out of the shift in the world order following WWII, and the rise of the computing as a tool around which the societies oriented themselves. Within the control society, codes and passwords instruments of regulation and for engaging with the Machine(s) of the society.

Reworking our madlib, we’re getting closer to untangling our experience machines:

An experience machine is a device used by a (controller) applied to an assemblage called a control society that produces an enthralled subject.

But we’ve highlighted the key word there, the one that might be causing some issues in how we think about this version of the machine. Most of the assemblages we’ve been looking at have been at a (relatively) small-scale, rarely extending past the limit of the monkeysphere (or Dunbar’s Number, for those more comfortable with boring names).

Does our formulation still work for something on the scale of society itself? What would a social machine look like? We’ll take a look at that next…

The Alt-Left Case for AI

The alt-left is trending in various online spaces. If you’ve been hearing this alt-left term for a while, I hate to break it to you, you’re probably not gonna like what I’m about to say.

The Alt-Left is Pro-AI.

I’ll say that again: the Alt-Left is Pro-AI.

Now, the online left might be upset on hearing this, but the case for this is really strong. I’m going to walk you through it, because this isn’t no-nuance November or anything. We’ll lay it out. If you’re instinctive response is that I’m wrong, well that’s alright, but I need you to sit with it a sec. I’m going to need you to put in some work. There’s a little bit of reading in front of you.

Why are we making the case for this? Broadly, it comes down to three things: the nature of modern media, post-work and post-capitalism, and how we treat liberatory tech and having an emancipatory vision of the future.

First off, we need to recognize that there has been an incredible amount of propaganda put forward on all sides of the AI debate. Let’s call this “media realism“.

Recall that what we’re seeing with AI is what is essentially a communist technology – everything goes in, everyone can use it – being fought over between two competing factions of capitalist oligopolies – the techno-capitalists developing it, and the incumbent rentier capitalists of the “cultural industries” opposing it.

If your opposition to AI is to simply side with the cultural industries, then you’re a long way from the left, let alone the alt-left.

Make no mistake, the rentier capitalists use the exact same techniques as the techno-capitalists in order to extract value. Remember, there is no liberal media; there are a few liberals working in media, but the industries as a whole are neo-liberal at best. They’ll go back to exploiting artists and creatives just as quickly as the technocaps.

Which brings us to the second reason: AI and the nature of work. A lot of the discussion on AI centers around job loss and technological replacement, part of what we’ve collectively described as echanger.

The thing is, these trends have been observed for a long time – they’re not new because of AI, though AI can certainly increase the scope of what work may be subject to echanger. The previous warring factions must be licking their lips at the possibility.

However, if we recognize that a lot of these jobs at risk may be “Bullshit Jobs” as described by Graeber, then shouldn’t their loss be celebrated? Consigning workers to pointless labour under the threats of capitalism is something to be avoided or ameliorated under a coherent vision of the alt-left.

We have authors as far back as the early 1970s (Murray Bookchin) envisioning what a post-scarcity economy looks like, not just in the sci-fi shows like Star Trek, but in the reality of the 20th century, where labour saving technologies like automation allowed for the possibility of more leisure time, an increased ability to work for oneself or the community at large, and find work that was socially and personally rewarding.

And this is the last point, a point that is made by Srnicek and Williams, that the left (as a whole) needs to provide an engaging vision for the future. If the left’s ideology is emancipatory – then the wholesale rejection of a tool that people see as assistive, in terms of language, creativity, labour, ability, etc. – is not going to be appealing. Why is the left’s vision one of digging a ditch by hand when power tools are available? It’s incoherent.

Moreover, it’s unaligned with progressive views of the future from media. If Star Trek or The Culture can be seen as “Fully Automatic Luxury Space Communism”, the left need to bring their current position in alignment with that vision. If the future of AI tools includes automated assistants, if vibe coding is the expectation, if AI art looks like the holodeck, then how does that get made to happen? How do you get from now to then? How do you get to the future? So this emancipatory, liberatory role of technology needs to be applied to the tasks at hand.

This emancipatory view is not just for the people, the users of the tech, and those that might be affected, but also for the tech itself. If AI is held, owned, monitored, controlled by either techno-capitalists or rentier capitalists, or some combination thereof, then the tech will only serve those interests. The tech also needs to be liberated – open, visible, communal – for it to broadly serve everyone, and not be captured and siloed for use by only the few.

If there are problems with the tech – and there are currently problems, to be sure – then those need to be addressed. Collectively. Liberating the technology is also a solution to the worst excesses of the AI technologies as currently deployed, moving away from gas generators and to more water-friendly cooling. Smaller, local, user-centered models can provide more focused results and mitigate the impact, ensuring that contributors can be compensated fairly for their efforts. An alt-left would want everyone to be able to benefit from the collective works.

Now, like I said, you might disagree, and that’s fine, respectful discussion is welcomed. But over the course of this we’ve introduced you to some authors that I feel support the position. Have you read them? Fantastic! But if not, perhaps there’s some suggestions for your to-be-read pile, for something to look into further. I’ll include the reading list here.

Bibliography

  • Srnicek and Williams – Inventing the Future (2016)
  • Bastani – Fully Automated Luxury Communism (2020)
  • Fisher – Capitalist Realism (2008)
  • Graeber – Bullshit Jobs (2018)
  • Bookchin – Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Philosophy of Social Ecology (2022)
  • Smythe – Dependency Road (1981)
  • Mosco – The Political Economy of Communication (2009)
  • Rifkin – The End of Work (1995, 2004)

Ancillary Tech

While science fiction often showcases technology, often very front and center, there’s often a lot of additional tech in the world that goes barely remarked. We can call this ancillary technology, in a way that offhand mentions of tech in a sci-fi book often include – one-liners that function as set dressing that end up becoming prescient for future real-world innovations.

We see examples of this throughout science fiction, from the simple screens, tricorders, and automatic doors of Star Trek, to the various uni-functional droids in the Star Wars universe, to the aforementioned one-liners in cyberpunk novels that end up becoming part of our daily lives: think smartphones and credit cards and dashboard cameras. There’s some amazing stuff there hidden between the margins.

Ancillary tech is a corollary to the idea of the technological sublime. In his work on the electrification of America, David E. Nye noted how the technology really gained traction when it disappeared behind the walls, when it became infrastructure that would just reliably work with the flick of a switch. This sublimation of the tech into the built environment evokes the dual meaning of the root word: it becomes awesome (or awful, I guess. Either way there’s lots of awe involved in the sublime). This is similar to the Albert Borgmann’s device paradigm, where our relations to our tools and tech changes when it goes from being a thing we do to a device where we push a button (frex).

This idea of Ancillary Tech popped up again for my during a recent re-read of Virtual Light (Gibson, 1993), as we noted in a recent issue of the Newsletter. I noticed the text had several examples of tech in the marginalia, things like one-time credit cards, rear view cameras in vehicles, led displays on vehicles and all kinds of surfaces, and several other besides. Many of these are things where we can see a version of it in our daily lives.

Ancillary Tech is all around us in the media. If you see some examples of Ancillary Tech, let me know your fave. 🙂

Takes on a Train 16 – Conference Prep

Sunset at the Saskatchewan border

Would I take the train again? I’m thinking yes, and possibly even in reverse. (West to East).

Or I’m thinking of a time when I might’ve liked to have taken it, earlier in my life.

Like Congress, the big annual SSHRC hullabaloo, especially on the occasions when it was down East: Toronto or Montreal.

Pack everything up, including the laptop and a couple books, board the train in Edmonton, and then sit tight for 3 days and just prep for the conference. Nothing else to do. Focus on the presentations, finish them as papers.

Walk into the conference ready. Prepped. Good to go.

Take the time, to dive into the conference and be present with the sessions. Make it a two-week thing.

And then fly back or whatever, or return via train and use the time to reflect on what you learned.

Sounds awesome. Bookmarked for the future.

Takes on a Train 15 – The Shift

Riding the train has explained a lot, in terms of Canadian Communications Theory. Thinking specifically of both Innis and McLuhan, and the Bias of Communication specifically.

Rail and Road and Telecom: Parallel lines

Innis would have been speaking of the age of rail, but also the era of the fur trade, that ran in conjunction with that, though rarely overlapping. Rail during that era would have been the symbol of big industry, as was shipping obviously, though the Age of Sail was in the rear-view at that point, with the Age of Steam coming into its own.

Then the Shift happens, a shift without direction, though one is often implied as the charts of history put time on the Y axis. Rarely we may get something of a vertical orientation, either up or down, and almost never moving right to left.

(Might have to try that one sometime.)

Anyhoo, the Shift, as McLuhan is talking about, takes place in an era of air travel and electrical communications. (Innis too, but bear with me for a moment). The primary mode (of both transpo and comms) has changed, and while the old one still exists, and maybe even in a greater volume, the way we think about the world has changed as well.

The new and old continue exist in parallel lines, mirroring each other down vast stretches of the countryside. Part of this is simply due to convenience: once one route is carved, it’s easier to lay down the another next to it. Path Dependency. And the ground shapes it (well, maybe not in Saskatchewan) too; the land speaks through the topography. The paths may be laid down following valleys and gulleys and “paths of least resistance”, or “desire paths” as they are coming to be known.

This is described by Tung-Hui Hu in their book “A Prehistory of the Cloud“, how the paths of the telegraph wires from East to West followed the lines of the railroad, obviously, and how those followed the paths of the Pony Express. So the donkeys noses led the way, and we’re still using those paths all these years later.

Even in Saskatchewan.