Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics and the Logic of Capitalism

Justin Joque

Language: English

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: Jan 11, 2022

Words: 75797
Flesch: 40.95
DDC: 510
FAST Tags: Computer algorithms, Mathematical statistics, Probabilities, Artificial intelligence--Mathematics, Mathematics--Social aspects
LCC: QA10.7

Description:

Traces the revolution in statistics that gave rise to artificial intelligence and predictive algorithms refiguring contemporary capitalism.

Our finances, politics, media, opportunities, information, shopping and knowledge production are mediated through algorithms and their statistical approaches to knowledge; increasingly, these methods form the organizational backbone of contemporary capitalism. Revolutionary Mathematics traces the revolution in statistics and probability that has quietly underwritten the explosion of machine learning, big data and predictive algorithms that now decide many aspects of our lives. Exploring shifts in the philosophical understanding of probability in the late twentieth century, Joque shows how this was not merely a technical change but a wholesale philosophical transformation in the production of knowledge and the extraction of value. This book provides a new and unique perspective on the dangers of allowing artificial intelligence and big data to manage society. It is essential reading for those who want to understand the underlying ideological and philosophical changes that have fueled the rise of algorithms and convinced so many to blindly trust their outputs, reshaping our current political and economic situation.