The Nonhumanity of Planetary Computation: or how to live with Digital Uncertainty

How are the transformations in digital technologies reconfiguring the machinic phylum and the social/mental realms of the human? What is the impact of the nonhumanity of the digital on practices of constitution of subjectivity? My paper explores these themes by moving beyond the notion of technological tool that still permeates conceptualization of digital machines. Drawing on Simondon’s technicity, and Felix Guattari’s machinology, I will look at current human-machine interaction from the perspective of the nonhuman, in particular examining how the algorithmdriven prediction paradigm prevalent in computation may be counteracted by modulation, contingency and uncertainty. The distinction between trivial and non-trivial machines is proposed as a model promoting the value of digital uncertainty and how this feeds into the design of new assemblages of silicon and carbon.