War and Algorithm

Gregor Noll, Daniel Steuer, Max Liljefors

ISBN 10: 1786613654 / ISBN 13: 9781786613653

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB, 2019

Traditional concepts of social, political, and legal theory are increasingly at odds with current practices of warfare, while more recent poststructuralist theories tend to mimic their form. A conceptual framework for capturing the real-world phenomena is missing.In robotics and artificial intelligence, particularly in weapon systems that are constituted as man-machine ensembles, there are no longer 'agents' to whom 'responsibility' could be ascribed, making fundamental legal concepts inapplicable. These technologies become self-validating, morally blind practices. And yet, the visual systems employed in warfare, and the rhetoric surrounding them, follow the paradigm and dream of omnivoyance, a God's eye view of the world. This idea of perfect accuracy and completeness of vision (and hence knowledge) seemingly affords objectivity to the acts carried out by the systems. It is forgotten that any form of vision produces its own forms of invisibilities (and therefore ignorance).Together the three chapters and their respondents demonstrate that it is less and less possible to articulate the oppositions between knowledge and ignorance, lawfulness and lawlessness, and visibility and invisibility, leading to a stasis in which acts of war, and war-like acts continue to spread, while their precise nature becomes increasingly difficult to pin down. Closing on a manifesto, jointly authored by Liljefors, Noll and Steuer, the book draws further conclusions regarding the changing forms of violence and likely consequences of a fully digitalized world. Seller Inventory # LU-9781786613653

Synopsis:

New military technologies are animated by fantasies of perfect knowledge, lawfulness, and vision that contrast sharply with the very real limits of human understanding, law, and vision. Thus, various kinds of violent acts are proliferating while their precise nature remains unclear. Especially man–machine ensembles, guided by algorithms, are operating in ways that challenge conceptual understanding.



War and Algorithm looks at the increasing power of algorithms in these emerging forms of warfare from the perspectives of critical theory, philosophy, legal studies, and visual studies. The contributions in this volume grapple with the challenges posed by algorithmic warfare and trace the roots of new forms of war in the technological practices and forms of representation of the digital age. Together, these contributions provide a first step toward understanding―and resisting―our emerging world of war.

About the Authors: Daniel Steuer is an independent scholar living in Austria. Between 1989 and 2020, he taught European literature and social and political thought at Bangor University, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Sussex, and the University of Brighton, UK. He has published widely on Wittgenstein and Adorno, among other topics. His latest publication is a co-authored book, War and Algorithm (2019).

Howard Caygill is Professor of Modern European Philosophy at CRMEP, Kingston University, London, UK. He is author of On Resistance: A Philosophy of Defiance (Bloomsbury, 2013) and Kafka: In Light of the Accident (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Bibliographic Details

Title: War and Algorithm
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, GB
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Hardback
Condition: New