Machine Decision Is Not Final by Benjamin H Bratton
An interdisciplinary, cross-cultural collection that decenters familiar narratives to provide a fresh perspective on what artificial intelligence is today, and what it might become.Historians, media theorists, science-fiction writers, philosophers, and artists from China and elsewhere reexamine the nation's intense engagement with AI, moving beyond the cliches that still dominate contemporary debate.
Today, visions of the contested future of AI veer between common planetary goals and a new Cold War, as culturally-specific models of intelligence, speculative traditions, and thought experiments come up against the emergence of novel forms of cognition that cannot be reduced to any historical cultural tradition.
This uniquely positioned volume provides expert insight into this tension, using China as a touchstone for rethinking "artificiality" and "intelligence" as sites of difference in a way that is already present in the difficulty of precisely translating the Chinese term _x4EBA__x5DE5__x667A__x80FD_. Tracking the history of Chinese AI from the pre-Cultural Revolution to the post-Deng Xiaoping eras right up to contemporary debates surrounding facial recognition, the writers in this collection draw on a mixture of speculative thought experiments and cutting-edge use cases to offer singular views on topics including AI and Chinese philosophy, AI ethics and policymaking, the development of computational models in early Chinese cybernetics, and the aesthetics of Sinofuturism.
Spanning borders between different worlds, histories, futures, and foundational models, Machine Decision is Not Final is not only a timely reappraisal of the stakes of AI development, but a tool for constructing more global imaginaries for the future of AI.
Contributors
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Bo An, Benjamin Bratton, Shuang Frost, Vince Garton, Steve Goodman, Yvette Granata, Anna Greenspan, Amy Ireland, Xia Jia, Bogna Konior, Vincent Le, Lawrence Lek, Lukas Likavcan, Suzanne Livingston, Iris Long, Bingchun Meng, Reza Negarestani, Chen Quifan, Gabriele de Seta, Hongzhe Wang, Wang Xin, Mi You
Benjamin H. (Benjamin H.) Bratton is a philosopher, computer scientist, and designer whose work spans the disciplines of philosophy, computer science, and design. He is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts and the Director of the University of California, San Diego's Center for Design and Geopolitics. He is also a Visiting Professor of Critical Studies at SCI-Arc and a Professor of Digital Design at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781913029999 |
| ISBN 10 | 1913029999 |
| Title | Machine Decision Is Not Final |
| Author | Benjamin H Bratton |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Urbanomic Media Ltd |
| Year published | 2025-11-18 |
| Number of pages | 408 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |